Back To Broadmoor : Part 2

 A few days ago I tweeted this.

What was Jimmy Savile doing at Broadmoor Hospital ? I don't know why he somehow became head of a 'taskforce' in 1988, but I have a sneak feeling that it was something to do with this.

It's common knowledge that Jimmy Savile enabled the raising of the necessary funds to rebuild the Nation Injuries Spinal Unit in 1983. Not so-common knowledge is the fact that Broadmoor Hospital was in urgent need of similar improvements. Could it be that Jimmy Savile's role at the secure hospital wasn't actually that important at all ?

Kenneth Clarke didn't seem to think much of it at the time, if his words in 2012 are anything to go by.

The above is an extract from a newspaper dated October 21st 2012. Jimmy Savile's appointment was nothing to do with me,  says Mr Clarke, Blame Edwina Currie, not me ! 

Bless him, at least he had the decency to confirm that he was 'unaware of any claims against Savile'. Read the whole thing here. It's really very informative. The Department of Health would find the answers 'and isn't just to do with me at all', said Edwina. Remember her contribution to one of the expose's, either verbatim or something along the lines of : 'I think he appointed himself'. If my memory serves me well !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20019993

So here we go. Let's look at what the official report found - presumably via those archives (but not always), alongside contemporaneous press reportage, shall we ?

First things first : When did Savile first enter the hospital ? 1968 according to this. 

And here's the letter. Note that Dr McGrath is writing something that is obviously a response to enquiries about Savile emanating from the Ministry Of Health. It's clear that these events were being monitored and McGrath was no pushover as regards celebrities, he wasn't pleased with some article that had found its way into the press, but the visit itself went well, the patients had a great time, so all in all, he was happy for Jimmy's acquaintance with the hospital to continue. 

I won't include the whole letter here. You can read it yourself here. It's in the appendices of the official report. Glory be to the appendices I say. Unfortunately the letter appears as a stand-alone. The ministries letter is not included for reference and neither are any follow up documents. Make of that what you will !

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/323458/Broadmoor_report.pdf

So that's how Jimmy Savile came to be involved with Broadmoor Hospital. Not the later 'taskforce', that is a separate issue and should not in my opinion, be confused with his later role. I shall tell you about that next time. In the meantime read this. 

'government inspectors last year'.

October 4th 1989 Reading Evening Post

Did you really think that a place like Broadmoor would not be subject to special scrutiny by the government ? 

To be continued. There's so much more you need to know. 

© Rabbitaway 

Back To Broadmoor - Again !

 A few days ago I tweeted a rather unfair description of the official report NHS Broadmoor Report. My opinion of the findings of the same as regards alleged incidents of abuse perpetrated by Jimmy Savile, has - of course not altered. I say 'of course' because the accounts of the few 'victims' have not improved on reading for the hundredth or so time, but leaving all that aside, the report itself has its uses. Let me explain ! But first : herewith is a link to the whole thing. Please someone, download it before it disappears. Thank you !

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/323458/Broadmoor_report.pdf

But, before I start on the report dated 2nd June 2014, let's go back to October and November 2012. Read this 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/12/jimmy-savile-broadmoor-volunteer-role

Esther Addley wrote this for The Guardian published on the 12th October 2012, just nine days after 'exposure' and the bit that caught my interest when I re-visited the subject recently, was that 1988 report. Not the fact that there had been one, but the fact that a journalist had bothered to actually reference it. Now if only her and her pals had bothered to research the whole  story, as it appeared in her predecessors work, rather than just its existence to give the rest of her nefarious article some authority. But she didn't did she ? Instead we got the gossip instead. And the reports, and the solicitors and the lies and the lies and the lies.

She didn't go back and check the full story. If she had she might have known the year Jimmy Savile first set foot in Broadmoor and a lot more besides.

Funny, it's only in the last few days that I myself have wondered : 'who else was in that "taskforce" with Jimmy ?'. It's one of those details that appears to have missed, just about everyone's attention, including the well paid official report folks'. 

But not the Broadmoor Local Press it seems ! Oh yes, Adam McKinley over at The Bracknell Times was getting a tad annoyed with Mr/Dr Savile's bragging and he didn't mince his words either ! October 13th 1988.

Two weeks later 

'Ex sub-editor of The Sunday People for eighteen years no less ! Ouch, someone wasn't happy. Adam hadn't mentioned Edwina Curry (I'll come back to her later). 

So many people were involved in the running of Broadmoor Hospital during Savile's involvement before, during and after the days of the taskforce. I'll tell you more next time. One can only make an informed decision about something if one has access to the information that journalists and official bodies have access to. I shall continue doing the small bit I can in order to make this possible ! 

Onwards !

© Rabbitaway 19th March 2013

Writing A Wrong Part 2

 I have several photographs from the house; of my room and my fateful door, just in case anyone thinks I'm making this up. I've covered up people's faces (including mine) to protect their privacy of course ! Here's a few of them.

From the moment I started commenting publicly on the Savile claims (circa 2012 - very soon after the programme was broadcast), I worried - was I doing the right thing ? What gave me the right to question whether some poor girl (now a middle-aged woman) had or hadn't been abused or assaulted by Sir Jimmy Savile ? And why was it any of my business anyway ? 

That night when I watched MW-T's Exposure - I think it was the second time because I recorded it; I found myself strangely drawn to Mr Savile. Prior to revelation that the man who'd died the year before, was actually - the biggest and worst sex offender in the history of - I'd not thought of the man in decades, I didn't even know he was dead. But, there I was, in my front room watching this thing, totally unaware that my life would never be the same.

You see, I had to know ! I had to know everything about the man. Why was I feeling the way I was and - more importantly, was anyone else feeling or thinking the same ? They were !

My obsessive nature meant my fate was sealed - I'd be scouring the internet for any sign of companionship and shared purpose. Every so often, strange coincidences started to occur ! Each one indicating that I was on the right track. I was doing the right thing, no matter where it led. No matter how much trouble it caused me personally (not much at all, really).

Five or six years later my interest in Jimmy Savile the man, had waned. I still believed that a great injustice had befallen not just  him and his loved ones, but the whole world, but now I was 'distracted'. Another man had 'come into my life' and that man was William F Buckley Jr. Again, the obsessive search for connection, for information. Thousands of pounds in signed books from America, a few trips to America and some very big 'coincidences' and I was 100 % convinced - whatever I was doing, I wasn't doing the wrong thing. Why ? Because of this :

 Buckley hosted a television programme in the United States for thirty-three years. In July 1982 a two-parter was recorded in a church in Charleston called 'The Economy And The Blacks' and you can watch it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9tFzb4Kayw&t=84s

Sometime around midnight let's say just after, on Wednesday 31st January 2018, I just happened to watch this episode of Firing Line. For some reason, it had to be this particular episode I watched ! Imagine my surprise/delight when I suddenly noticed what was behind/between Mr Buckley and Mr Jackson on that stage in that church !

My door ! 

And then I suddenly realised : This same church had been the scene of one of the most despicable acts of murder in recent years. In this same church Dylan Roof callously murdered nine people he'd just sat beside in a bible study meeting. 

I had to go there and I did. It was the right thing to do. Here I am in front of 'the wall', minus me of course, in May 2019.

Just getting into that lovely church was a story in itself. I'll tell you all about this and lots more in the book I'm writing. You see friends, I have no choice - I have to do this ! My future somehow visited my past, or something like that, in the summer of 1982. What else can I do but write about it. Write about wrongs. The wrongs that are still being visited on innocent people. Because it's about time, good people put a stop to the evil that some people do !

© Rabbitaway 

Writing A Wrong.

 Sometime in September or October of 1981 and just before my 21st birthday, I moved into my first 'flat' in this house. 

The 'flat' was actually two rooms, one occupied by a friend I'd met in Halls of Residence, who - by the way, found the room/s, with a makeshift 'connecting door', of sorts. 

In July 1982 William F Buckley Jr recorded an episode of Firing Line. in a church in Charleston, South Carolina. His guest on stage was Jesse Jackson.

My pal didn't like the flat so she moved out and someone else moved in, a nice gal I'd got chatting to from upstairs. Once her course was done, she went home. I hadn't minded the 'connecting' door that didn't shut properly, whilst I knew who was on the other side of that door, but strangers would be next, and so I asked the landlord for a new door.

Not being feasible (he couldn't be bothered) to fit a proper door with a lock, or at the very least, the functionality to actually close, I took one of the spare doors he had in his shed. And I painted it !

I painted bricks on my door. The inner artist in me was expressing something. Do you like my posters ? 

In 2016 I watched a film on Netflix about a new television company's coverage of the Democratic Convention in the United States in 1968, featuring Mr Buckley and Gore Vidal, called Best of Enemies. I was immediately drawn to Buckley, just as I had been drawn to someone else during a television program. That someone else being Jimmy Savile, in October 2012.

This post is a draft of a book I am writing, about the extraordinary gift I appear to have. Let me whet your appetite with the following hypothetical question :

Why was I - in the summer of 1982 painting the exact same design on an old door, that decorates a church in Charleston, South Carolina ? And not just any old church, but the historic Emanuel AME church at that !

Had I not watched that episode of Firing Line recorded in 1982, on a whim again, I think it was about midnight December 31st 2018 ( I need to check this), I would never have noticed what was behind Mr Buckley and Mr Jackson. My 'wall' !

And what does it all mean ?

I took myself off to Charleston, just as I took myself off to Leeds six years before. I'll tell you the whole story, shortly.

Happy Birthday to me !

Oops I almost forgot ! That poster I put up on my door/wall. Did you spot it ?

 

© Rabbitaway 

In A BBC Dressing Room With Savile, Savile And Savile 1973.

 On Saturday May 5th 1973 the first episode of Clunk Click was transmitted on BBC1 at 6.15pm. I don't know offhand who Jimmy Savile's guests for that week were, but I do know that a lady journalist from the Radio Times, visited Jimmy in his dressing room. And - as if one Savile wasn't enough for any lady to cope with, poor Jenny Lees, got three of them. 

I write this because it's a nice article and it cropped up in my Twitter account a few days ago, quite begging to be shared - so here it is. 

 

"A wonderful mum" says John. "She taught us all that if you can't help other people, there's no point in living"

That week in May 1973, Jimmy Savile O.B.E wasn't just on the telly - he was on the radio too. He may even have hosted that week's Top Of The Pops, I haven't checked. It seemed like he was everywhere, one simply couldn't escape him. 

Anyway, I hope this gives someone a lift as there's not much to smile about at the moment. And in that gloomiest of glooms - that den of inequity known as our parliament, another awful man has just been elected to the highest office. October/November 2011 seemed a nicer place somehow, even in that den, some 26 nice people did something nice for someone else. 

               

https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/43425/sir-jimmy-savile-obe

It's a shame Mr Corbyn never got a chance to lead us. Good people always seem to be punished. I wonder why ?