by Dan Davies
Naturally, he was straight on the phone to the local paper and a photographer was despatched to capture the new Mecca manager with his extraordinary ‘mother of pearl’ hairstyle.
Those who witnessed it still remember the impact it made. Tony Marshall was another Mecca regular who saw nothing that gave him cause for concern. He recalled walking through County Arcade and seeing Jimmy Savile standing outside the dancehall. ‘By this time his zany personality had come through,’ he explained. ‘One side of his clothing would be all black and the other side would be all white: he’d have one black shoe on and one white shoe. His hair would be dyed black on one side and white on the other. Or everything he wore would be tartan and he’d have his hair sprayed tartan as well. He was a fantastic publicity figure.’
Alan Simpson was a teenager working part-time at the Wakefield Locarno when he came across Savile for the first time. He said he regularly dropped in to pay a visit or to borrow something. ‘He used to dye his hair every colour under the sun,’ confirmed Simpson, shortly before Savile’s death. ‘You don’t realise how radical that was at the time. Managers were expected to be flamboyant, but collar and tie flamboyant. Savile used to get away with murder. Some people said he was a tartan-haired idiot.’
Simpson acknowledged that Jimmy Savile was very far from being an idiot. His new programme for the Mecca – based on more records, less band – paid instant dividends. But his most dramatic change was to decree that the lunchtime hops would now run from Monday to Saturday. The Mecca would also be opened on Sundays for another record-only session, the Sunday Dance Club, aimed exclusively at the teen market he had exploited at the Plaza.
Savile trained up a team of young disc jockeys to help him, and to cover when he was off talking to girls, leading them up to his office or taking care of his expanding number of ‘outside interests’. One of the DJs would not last much longer, however. At the Wednesday night talent contents, ‘Little Jeff’s’ impersonations of Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard had started to get a little too much attention for the manager’s liking.
‘He used to do it to their records with a piano as a prop,’ remembered Peter Jackson, who regularly attended the Mecca, where he met the woman he’s now been married to for more than 50 years. ‘He always ended up bare-chested, so frantic was his performance. We all thought he was brilliant.’
‘I had a following when Jimmy arrived,’ confirmed Collins from his home in America. ‘When Jimmy saw me he didn’t want me there because he was a personality himself. He wasn’t nasty to me, or anything like that, but he said, “Look, I will get you gigs in Scotland.” So I went up to Scotland with him and he put me in the Locarno in Glasgow and then he put me in Edinburgh.’
Jimmy Savile’s reputation was still intact when I spoke to Collins. ‘It would be a great compliment if he saw me as competition,’ he added. ‘Between you and I, I think he did. He was a bigger personality than I was and he was the manager, he could do whatever he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted.’
Savile once told me about the strict rules he put in place for his DJs. ‘Number one, if you’re going to say something to the people, let them hear what you’ve got to say … Number two, when you are on stage you will be the object of affection of many of the girls in the place. Don’t touch one of them, don’t even put a friendly hand on their shoulder because you don’t know whether that girl has a very irate boyfriend who will want to chin you afterwards. Talk to them but don’t touch any of them.’
It was clearly not a rule that applied to him. In each one of our lengthy discussions, I quizzed Savile about his thoughts on sex and the rumours he liked young girls, and he served up a variety of evasive answers. His version of how he regarded his opportunities at the dancehall, however, demonstrated that he applied the bald laws of economics to every area of his life.
‘I would stand on the stage with the record player with a thousand people in the room for four or five hours,’ he explained. ‘Of the thousand people 700 were girls. If half of them can’t stand you that leaves 350 who can stand you. If half of them are not too keen on you at all, then the other half is; that’s 125 people. If half of them don’t actually fancy you that leaves around 65 girls that might want to go off with you. You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to work out that you’re never going to be short of ladies’ company.’
He said he often let the girls in free because he knew they would be good for business. He also claimed to have ‘loved them all’ before immediately adding, ‘it never occurred to me to take a liberty with them’.
Alan Simpson insisted this anomalous caveat contradicted what his older colleagues were saying at the time. ‘One of the biggest laughs we had with [Jimmy] was either he was going to be a huge success or in prison for screwing 14-year-old girls,’ he told me. ‘Everyone knew about it. It was wink, wink, nod, nod. It was never made public. It was a different world. If he could get away with it – wink, wink, nod, nod – good luck to him.’
It was something Jeffrey Collins corroborated: ‘He was a naughty man, a naughty man. He’d go with teenagers … I don’t know how he got away with it but he got away with it. Maybe it was because he was Jimmy Savile.’ When I asked Collins whether these underage girls were picked up in his dancehall, he confirmed this was indeed the case: ‘“Go up to my office, I’ll be up there later.” That sort of thing.’
Savile had moved back in with his mother on Consort Terrace, but often stayed at a flat owned by Mecca on St Martin’s Terrace. Avril Harris, who went on to have a relationship with him in later life, lived opposite and remembers Savile and his friends wolf-whistling at her when she was just 13.
‘I lived with my parents,’ she told Alison Bellamy, a reporter on the Yorkshire Evening Post who wrote a posthumous biography of Jimmy Savile that was endorsed by his family. ‘They strictly forbade me to go the wild parties in the house Jimmy and his friends shared. They would invite all the girls in the street, but my mother’s technicolour threats on such matters put me in an emotional straitjacket and she won. I remember them calling out to us as we walked past, inviting us in. We knew it was wrong, but when you are that age attention from older boys is very flattering.’1
Jimmy Savile was not an older boy by this stage, he was a fully grown man. ‘In those days nobody gave a shit,’ Simpson argued. ‘In those days, if you had a 14-year-old, nobody would bat an eyelid; “She’s a bit young for you, ’int she?”, nod, nod, wink, wink. In the Sixties, the band had their pick of the girls, some under 16.’
Collins agreed: ‘It was completely different than it is today. It was free love, free sex. In those days sex was so free and easy.’
In one episode in his autobiography, Jimmy Savile recalled ‘a high ranking lady police officer’ coming into his place to warn him to keep a lookout for an attractive young girl who had escaped from a remand home. He recalled telling her that if he found her he would keep her for one night as his reward. ‘The law lady, new to the area, was nonplussed,’ he wrote. ‘Back at the station she asked “Is he serious?”’2
He went on to explain that the girl did come in and he advised her not to run. He also claimed that it was agreed that he would hand her over if she was allowed to stay at the dance before going home with him, and that he would promise to see her when she was released.
At 11.30 the next morning, Savile said he presented the fugitive girl to ‘an astounded lady of the law’. He added, ‘The officeress was dissuaded from bringing charges against me by her colleagues, for it was well known that were I to go I would probably take half the station with me.’
One of Jimmy Savile’s doormen at the Mecca, Dennis Lemmon, is now in his eighties. He recalls that his boss zeroed in on groups of 15 and 16-year-old girls. One day, he says, Savile arrived for work in a foul mood and when Lemmon asked a colleague what was wrong, he was told that the boss was due in court the following day for ‘messing about with a couple of girls’. When the doorman later enquired what had happened with the case, he w
as told charges had been dropped because ‘[Savile] did what he did last time – he paid them off’. As Lemmon adds, ‘Apparently that wasn’t the first time either.’3
20. LITTLE SLAVES
News of Jimmy Savile was spreading. In late 1959 he received a call inviting him to appear on a new television programme on the BBC hosted by David Jacobs. Jukebox Jury saw four panellists asked to judge whether a new record was going to be a ‘hit’ or ‘miss’. It was filmed at Lime Grove studios in London on a Saturday evening. At that time, it was unheard of for a dancehall manager to be away on the busiest night of the week. But having already experienced the mysterious power of television, Jimmy Savile chose to go anyway.
He was determined to make an impact, and settled on an outfit of clashing colours, even though the show was filmed in black and white: a light biscuit-coloured suit, gold bowtie, bright green patent shoes and a pink shirt. During the broadcast he never once made any reference to his attire, figuring it better to let the public make up its own mind about why he’d dressed as he did. It was the same policy he adopted when wearing his Sunday best in the cage on the way to the coalface.
When Mecca head office learned of his Saturday night foray, Savile was given a sharp dressing-down, although not from the one person whose opinion really mattered to him: ‘The top man Carl Heimann, he could see it and he sent me a cheque for £25.’ Better still, a music paper ran four pictures of the curiously garbed Yorkshire dancehall boss.
Savile decided to strike while the iron was hot. He wrote a letter to the BBC in Manchester, asking whether there were any opportunities ‘panel-wise or teenage programme-wise’1 and followed up with a letter, also enclosing the cutting from the music paper, to George and Alfred Black, the owners of Tyne Tees Television. He told them that he would be in Newcastle the following Thursday. A couple of days later he got the call to say they wanted to meet him.
So, on his one day off in the week, Jimmy Savile drove up to Newcastle in his Rolls-Royce, making sure he parked it right outside the Tyne Tees building. ‘I had a camel hair overcoat on and a collar and tie,’ he told me, ‘but my hair was slightly pink in shade. I walked into George Black’s office and he said, “Yes, so you were on Jukebox Jury.” Then he looked up and noticed the curious figure standing before him had pink hair. So he stood up and he went through into his brother’s office and said, “Come through here, I’ve got a fella with pink hair in here.” It was unheard of at the time.’
Savile claimed a senior producer then rushed in to find out whether someone famous was in the building after spotting the Rolls-Royce parked outside. The plan had worked: ‘One of the brothers turned to me,’ he claimed, ‘and said, “I suppose that’s yours?” And I said, yes.’
A few months later, Jimmy Savile received another call, this time from an Irishman named Pat Campbell who explained that he worked for a record company. Campbell had witnessed one of the record sessions at the Mecca and explained that Warner Brothers, who had decided to release its records in the UK under licence to Decca Record Company, were looking for a new radio disc jockey to showcase their product on Radio Luxembourg.
In an era that saw the BBC operate a monopoly on domestic broadcasting, Radio Luxembourg was developing a strong following, especially among teenagers. It was billed as ‘the one bright listening spot on the dial’, beaming light-hearted entertainment and pop music every night of the week via a 300-kilowatt transmitter in the Grand Duchy, where, unlike Britain, commercial radio was permitted. Programmes were recorded in London and sponsored by record companies who bought airtime to showcase their newest releases.
Campbell had recommended the name of the little-known Yorkshireman to Decca boss, Sydney Beecher-Stevens, reporting that he ‘had blown him away’2 with his energy and originality. Beecher-Stevens, who would later gain infamy alongside Decca’s A & R man Dick Rowe for turning down The Beatles, was in the market for a disc jockey who would be exclusive to Warner Brothers, rather than playing records on shows sponsored by a number of different labels.
Jimmy Savile arrived for his Radio Luxembourg audition at 38 Hertford Street in London sporting tartan hair. After five minutes and only three records, producer Frank Barnes stepped out of the glass box and said, ‘Thanks, we’ve heard enough.’ Two days later, Savile said he flew to New York on a two-week holiday courtesy ‘of a grateful Mecca’ who had recently presented him with the Manager Winter Season Gold Cup. But before he’d had a chance to fully explore the city, a cable arrived from Warner Brothers: ‘Return by the weekend. Luxembourg series starting immediately.’
At the very start of a decade in which pop music was to transform British culture, and his place in it, the Radio Luxembourg gig for Decca not only sent Jimmy Savile’s earnings rocketing, it consolidated his position as one of the coming men in a new industry. He might not have had a choice in the music he played, but how serendipitous it was that the very first record on his very first show, a record which also happened to be Warner Brothers’ very first UK single, turned out to be ‘Cathy’s Clown’ by The Everly Brothers. It entered the charts on 14 April 1960 at number 22 and three weeks later it was number one, where it stayed for a further six weeks.
Introducing himself with his trademark line, ‘And hi there, guys and gals, welcome to the Warner Bros record show,’ Jimmy Savile’s voice was unlike anything that had been heard before. He was a massive hit.
‘The reason I sounded different to everyone else was that I was the only DJ in the whole world who stood up,’ he said. ‘I knew that your voice sounds different and I was used to standing up behind all the gear in the dancehalls. All I asked for was a music stand to put a list of the records on … My urgency came across. I’d gesticulate and wave my arms around. I’d talk to the people rather than spout words.’
In May, less than a month after his first show for Radio Luxembourg and with the listenership for his slot having more than quadrupled, Jimmy Savile’s television career began in earnest. His speculative visit to the Black brothers in Newcastle had paid off and he’d been chosen to present a new, weekly pop music show on Tyne Tees aimed at teenagers. Young At Heart, co-hosted by 20-year-old singer Valerie Masters, ran for eight weeks and added another £100 a week to his salary.
He was now on a roll. He was given additional shows on Radio Luxembourg, and after three months was presenting no fewer than five different half-hour pop programmes every week, travelling to London on Thursdays, his day off, and recording them in quick succession.
The most famous of all was the Teen and Twenty Disc Club, which went out on Tuesdays at 10.30 p.m. and Wednesdays at 10 p.m. It quickly became one of the highest-rated shows on the station and its success spawned a club offering individually numbered membership cards and a bracelet with a charm in the shape of a record. On one side was engraved the letters ‘TTDC’, on the other ‘Dig Pop’.
Alan Simpson remembered Jimmy Savile signing his TTDC membership card on a visit to the Wakefield Locarno: ‘Everyone wanted to be in a club at that time and that signed card was huge for me at school.’ Even the pre-teens were encouraged to join in the fun; the ‘Under the Bedclothes Club’ saw the show’s host urging them to put their transistor radios under the sheets so they could follow the show after bedtime.
‘As kids, it was the music we wanted to hear,’ said Simpson. ‘Most DJs were public schoolboys from the south. Jimmy Savile wasn’t. He was a working-class lad from the north who had catchphrases and gimmicks.’
In January 1961, Savile scored his greatest coup to date by flying to Los Angeles to present a gold disc to Elvis Presley on behalf of Decca. The singer was filming the closing scenes to Wild in the Country, and his visitor arrived late and was forced to battle through security at the studios of 20th Century Fox. Waiting for him inside was Colonel Tom Parker, complete with pink nylon coat, bowler hat and cigar.
When he got back to Britain, Savile gave an interview to the New Musical Express, ‘I was the first d-j to be photographed with Elvis, an honour of
which I’m particularly proud,’ he told the reporter. He paid for the photographs to be blown up and placed on a large board outside the Mecca Locarno.
‘Sure enough,’ recalled Alan Simpson, ‘it was in all the papers: Jimmy and the King. That’s when he had his break. It showed his ability to think on his feet. Savile was the greatest PR man I ever met.’ As well as the giant photo on the front step of the Mecca, he also sold copies through his Radio Luxembourg shows and donated some of the proceeds to the National Playing Fields Association. The organisation’s patron was the Duke of Edinburgh.
As Savile explained to me many years later, ‘[Prince Philip] was a bit impressed with the style of it and we’ve been pals ever since.’
*
Tony Calder was 18 when he first met Jimmy Savile in the corridors of Decca Records. It was 1961, and the young man who would go on to co-manage The Rolling Stones with Andrew Loog Oldham, was a precocious sales and marketing trainee at the time. He told me he had just stormed out of a meeting when he bumped into the DJ. He has never forgotten what he said to him: ‘“Come with me to Leeds for the weekend. I’ll make sure you get laid.”’
Calder says they drove north in Savile’s Rolls-Royce, arriving on a Saturday morning to find the city centre ‘packed with kids’. When Calder then witnessed the scenes in the Mecca, with teenagers bopping and jiving to the new music from America, he recalls thinking to himself, ‘Fuck that, I’m having some of this.’ But it wasn’t only the music, and the way Jimmy Savile blended records together to produce such an effect on the crowd, that appealed to the youngster.
As Calder explains: ‘At one point, [Jimmy] said, “See that girl over there, you’re going home with her. But you’ve got to kick her out by nine o’clock in the morning.” I said, “Yeah, OK. Why?” And he said, “Because you’re going to have another one coming at 10 o’clock.” I said, “Yeah, right.”’