Glamorous Showbiz Memories - Jimmy Savile visits Great North Radio (1996)

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Between 1994 and 1996 I was a copywriter at TFM Radio in the North East of England. 

I didn't appreciate how difficult it was to get a job like that - somehow I stumbled into it straight after I finished University. And it seemed so unlikely - working in radio advertising and media sales - in Stockton-on-Tees. 

It wasn't a glamorous job. I spent most of my life typing out scripts for local window companies and secondhand car dealers. The rest of the time I was usually crying in the toilets about my life choices.

TFM was aimed at kids and trendy young people - but the music policy was very strange. TFM supposedly stood for 'Today's Favourite Music' but they wouldn't play Oasis because they sounded 'too punky'. They did playlist the Mike Flowers cover of Wonderwall, but not the original.

When I first arrived, Love is All Around by Wet Wet Wet was still number one, so I had to get used to hearing it ten times a day as well as Shine by Aswad and We Built This City by Starship (a song that never seemed to go out of fashion at TFM, even though it hadn't been in the charts for nearly ten years).

TFM had a sister station on Medium Wave called Great North Radio (GNR for short). GNR was all about playing oldies for erm, oldies.

 In the early 90s loads and loads of BBC Radio DJs suddenly became available for work. Radio 1 started clearing out the old faces and stations like GNR welcomed them with high profile, networked shows. 

And - TRIGGER WARNING - one of those old and very famous faces belonged to Jimmy Savile.

I only really knew about Jimmy Savile from watching his TV show. 

Like Top of the Pops, It's a Knockout or Rolf Harris Cartoon Time, Jim'll Fix It was a programme every kid watched in the 70s and early 80s. 'Jim' made childhood dreams come true on a BBC budget. Most people remembered the 'Fix-it' when 'Jim' arranged for a group of Scouts tried to eat their packed lunch on a rollercoaster (looking back, that seems like a joke or a metaphor for something incredibly disturbing but it did really happen).  

I've checked the youtube clip and fortunately Savile does not appear in it

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOwx-4PGZKU

The most scandalous thing I'd heard about Savile was that he might not run all of the charity marathons he claimed to. I had it on good authority (from a school friend who said his Uncle's best mate had spoken to his wife's relative who'd definitely seen this happen) - that Savile would only run the first half mile but then get picked up by a car and driven to somehwhere close to the finishing line. That seemed like such a shocking accusation in 1994. 

I don't think I ever heard any really nasty or disturbing gossip about famous people. There was a rumour about two of our local presenters, their female fans and an egg whisk, but it sounded made up (and very unhygienic) to me.

Anyway - after he was announced as one of GNR's new presenters, Savile was given a tour of the station. I bumped into him (and his entourage) in the reception area just as he was arriving. He looked small and wrinkly (he was about 70 at this point) but he still had a shock of white hair and wore a loudly coloured shell-suit and trainers. He took my hand and looked right into my eyes. 

'It's so fantastic to be here in this wonderful, wonderful place.'

He asked me what job I was doing at the station, but he didn't acknoweldge anything I said at all. He had other things on his mind.

'You lucky, lucky man' he said to me, 'working in this wonderful place with all of these lovely, lovely ladies...' 

The people who had arrived with him all chuckled and nodded: Classic Savile.

We had a trainee receptionist - she was probably 18 or 19 - and as Savile let go of my hand he grabbed hers. 'So many lovely, lovely ladies,' he kept saying, as he held on to the receptionist and planted (what I thought was) a kiss on her hand. The receptionist blushed and looked uncomfortable.

Savile was ushered through into the building for the rest of his tour, still muttering about 'a wonderful place' and 'lovely, lovely ladies'. The receptionist was frozen to the spot, still holding her hand out in front of her, a look of complete horror on her face.

'He licked my hand!!!!' she hissed - and dashed off to the nearest sink.

 

 More local radio nonsense here:

 https://funsizemagrs.blogspot.com/2020/11/we-were-teesside-tfm-radio.html

https://funsizemagrs.blogspot.com/2020/11/superscreen-aka-worst-radio-ad-in-world.html



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