ON THE DEATH OF DISCJOCKEY

Jimmy Saville is dead

Getting better from my flu. The hot brandy sipped in a boiled jug perpetrated its effects. I got up fresh as a cucumber, said my prayers, cup of coffee and off we go, like in the good old days of Doncaster. Jimmy Saville the great diskjockey of the sixties has died two days before his 85^th birthday in Leeds. with his mane platinum –Jimmy could imitate the neighing of horse, cigar in mouth and avuncular of father Xsmass all year round- his extravagant attire, odd clothes, rings in all his fingers, he was the animater of our younger good days. You heard his unmistgakable voice and did not understand a word of his slang, typical Yorkshire las... all right then... here we go. One of the first thing when I arrived in Hull was to buy miself a Fidelity transistor made in Sheffield. Another assistant teacher freiend of mine recommended the radio –never the television- to learn the language. I had the machine running day and night and the method was succesuful. A language had to be picked by the ear. Words are to be listened never watched. Jimmy Saville was my travelling companion when he worked as an announcer in a pirate ship by the coast of the Northern Sea sounding pop records 24 hours round the clock. Gradually I got used to the ear and became familiar with English. Of course Jimmy was to garrolous to snacht not even de 35 per cent of his verbal parturitions. Most of his tirades were daft but he always cheerful and laughing and transmitted the perfect idea of a changing society. It was the time of swinging London, pop of the pops, the Beatles, the psicodelic Britain. The other bloke who talked in Raddio Scaborough 372  was Tony Blackburn and he was a Jimmy the idol of the adolescent English girls. Jimmy came form a poor family. His father was clerk with a bookmaker. He worked in the pit until he started to get comnmtract as an entertainer in the clubs of the North. Then the clandestine radio station and finally the BBC. This Yorksjire man became a personality but besides he was a whole character in the British way of life. Teetoller, a chatolic of Mass every Sunday, he appeared ever surrounded by birds but he stayed bachellor all his life. He dedicated much of his earnings to charities. There was a child hospital in Leeds where he had a room along the years and also he was a constant visitor and helper of prisons and inmates. In a way his appeared of playboy and bonvoyant were deceitful. Strange and contradictory as his friendship with Margaret Thatcher. Saville was one of the few ones who made laugh teh Iron Lady. He said that he did not like children and he hated sex because he saaid sex destroys as death and brings a lot of misery. How odd. The record business in which he was a million maker had connections with love. That was what the sexual revolution of the sixties was about. Sir Jimmy did not fit of the picture of tycoon of the pop society, he remainded all his life a Yorkshire little dad. He did not grow out. Like Peter Pan and that was one of his hidden complexews. Perhaps. Ten years ago he received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and since then he to be Jimmy to become Sir James. England made me. A great figure of our era has passed.

Monday, 31 October 2011