Marilyn Stowe Blog

Remembering Sir Jimmy Savile

My home city of Leeds lost its premier citizen at the weekend, with the passing of Sir Jimmy Savile: DJ, fundraiser and television personality. I wanted to pay him a tribute because I knew him a little, and liked and respected him very much.

His achievements and the happiness he brought to others - particularly through the estimated £40 million that he raised for charitable causes – have been well documented by every British newspaper, television channel and radio station.

However Sir Jim was also dubbed an eccentric and a loner by some people who clearly didn’t know him at all. These opinions were formed presumably because he never married and refused to have a cooker in his flat. Good for him! Instead he dined out. He was always at the local pizza restaurant and pub. So what?

It is also true that he never married. In fact, whenever I saw him he would tease me about it.

“Hey, it’s the Barracuda!” he would say, referring to my nickname. “You’ll never get me!”

I would bump into Sir Jim fairly regularly when I visited my parents, who lived in the same apartment block as him for 30 years in Roundhay Park, Leeds. It was always good to see him: peroxide blonde hair flying, trademark big glasses, running along or later (but only when he reached his eighties) walking. Usually he would be wearing one of his signature, flamboyant tracksuits and carrying a cigar. Sometimes I would see him driving past in his open-top Rolls-Royce, again with a cigar in his hand. He waved and smiled to everyone he passed – and they waved and smiled back. People loved him.

Once I was miles away, on the other side of Leeds, when I bumped into him while I was training for the London Marathon. He greeted me with a smile and a wave; although he was fresh as a daisy, he could see that I was flat out! I also saw him in the Leeds General Infirmary, where he did voluntary work as a porter. There wasn’t an ounce of pretension about him. He was a genuine, down-to-earth and decent man.

A few years ago, when Dad and I were running the Leeds Half Marathon together, Sir Jimmy Savile was the star guest. Wearing his Nike gold lurex running outfit, he started the race. You couldn’t help but smile – not at him, but with him. He had that gift of cheering people up.

Sometimes my dad would run races alongside Sir Jimmy. As a member of Sir Jimmy Savile’s party, he would receive star treatment at the London Marathon and the Great North Run. (Unlike his daughter, who didn’t get a separate start, a fast getaway from the finishing line and a posh tent with refreshments in which to recover at the end!)

My dad is a quiet, private man; yesterday he told me that if I must write about Sir Jimmy, he didn’t want his own name mentioned. As if! However I know that the two of them got on very well, running together and living in the same place for so many years. The photo above was taken of them in their heyday, about to embark upon the Great North Run and clearly having lots of fun. My dad is the second man on the right, wearing the headband. Would you believe that both men were about sixty at the time? My dad reckons that they were in their prime.  Sir Jim was about five years older than Dad – and you will note that despite the health warnings and the famous cigar, marathon running clearly suited him.

The man standing on my dad’s right is their old pal: the late, great Jimmy Corrigan, who ran fairgrounds and amusement arcades in Scarborough, where Sir Jim also had a home. Sir Jim and Jimmy Corrigan both referred clients to me in the past. These three looked great, didn’t they? Those running years were good times for them. My father treasures this photo, and rightly so.

Yesterday, thinking about the good years, Dad reminded me about the time in 1984 when Sir Jimmy found out that my granny was in St James’s Hospital. Unsolicited, he discovered which ward she was in and sent her a signed get well card (with a typically flamboyant signature!) along with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. She was thrilled.

I also remember how, years later, my dad told Sir Jimmy about the Laniardo Hospital in Israel, which treated my mum after her fall there. The hospital, which makes no distinction between Israeli Jew and Arab, between Palestinian and Israeli, is largely self-funded. A few days later, again unsolicited, Sir Jimmy sent my father a substantial cheque for the hospital’s funds.

It has only recently become public knowledge that earlier this year, Sir Jimmy Savile donated £50,000 to pay for a scanner at the oncology department at St James’s University Hospital. Such private, unsolicited acts of generosity were typical of the man – and are surely the mark of a genuinely good person, untouched by fame.

Incidentally, the runner in the photo who is wearing the red armband is Howard Silverman, a close friend of Sir Jimmy Savile’s for many years. Howard paid moving tributes to Sir Jimmy this weekend on the BBC, and said that those who called Sir Jimmy a “loner” didn’t know him at all. True, Sir Jimmy didn’t fit any established mould. But then one-off, stellar people rarely do.

RIP Sir Jimmy Savile. Thank you for your wonderful generosity of spirit. Roundhay Park, my family and the people of Leeds will miss you. We celebrate your life, which brought happiness to so many people.