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The Maiden Tribute of Jimmy Savile
11 October 2012
In July 1885 the Pall Mall Gazette ran a series of article entitled The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. These were written by the Gazette’s editor W.T.Stead, the man who invented the newspaper interview, took it to new heights when he started interviewing the dead, with whom he, a spiritualist, routinely communicated and, finally, took himself to new depths when he bought a ticket for the Titanic.
Stead’s article was about child prostitution in London. This caused some consternation among the great and the good, presumably because some of them were guilty. Certainly Edward, Prince of Wales, was said to have a taste for perilously young girls. Stead had procured a child to demonstrate the truth of his case, but some technicality of the deal gave the g & g the chance to have him imprisoned for three months. He emerged triumphant.
Stead, a man of a certain, bizarre greatness, had tabloid or even ‘yellow’ instincts. A couple of crossheads from his Maiden Tribute articles were ‘The Violation of Virgins’ and ‘Strapping Girls Down’. Yet he was a genuinely great journalist and his campaign was brilliantly successful. As a direct result, for example, the age of consent was raised from thirteen to sixteen.
This is not to exculpate him, it is just to say that there are irrational subtleties in the public response which should be noted
As well as the interview, a convention of journalistic style, Stead had also created a convention of content – child abuse has, ever since, been a tabloid and, latterly, broadsheet basic. We are now in the midst of another abuse flare-up – Jimmy Savile and the abduction of April. The latter brought out an entire town, eager to be involved, and the former is reaching ever more dizzying heights with not only the destruction of Savile’s gravestone but also the prospect of his family having his body exhumed. The Daily Mail, meanwhile, was given a splash on a plate by Lord Patten when he spoke of ‘the cesspit of the Jimmy Savile allegations’.
One has to be coldly honest about what exactly is going on here. First, child abuse is horrible and, when accompanied by murder, it becomes a crime beyond imagination. But there are nuances in terms of the reaction. Is there the same emotional reaction to the abuse of boys by women as to the abuse of girls by men? Definitely not. The age of the girl does not seem to be material, Savile is being indicted on the basis, as far as I can see, of mainly teenage victims,some above the age of consent. This is not to exculpate him, it is just to say that there are irrational subtleties in the public response which should be noted.
Secondly, who can doubt that there is, for some, an erotic fascination? Without doubt, once we have reached the point of exhuming perpetrators, there is a ghoulish fascination. There is also a suspiciously easy moral righteousness. Child abuse is almost the only evil on which we can all agree. It is thus all to easy to form a mob. We should not forget those mothers who demonstrated outside the house of a pediatrician, nor should we forget the sight of their daughers – eight or nine-year-olds in short skirts and full make up. (I commented on this and other things at the time and was called, somewhat alarmingly, ‘brave’ by Laurie Taylor.) The point about those mothers and those children is that contemporary culture has successfully blurred the line between child- and adulthood. 40-year-olds dress like kids and kids dress like 20-year-olds. It is not, frankly, surprising in such a climate that some inadequates may confuse themselves to the point of vile criminality. Or put it another way: we still pay a Maiden Tribute but in away that can easily be disguised by a moral frenzy.
Without doubt, once we have reached the point of exhuming perpetrators, there is a ghoulish fascination
The problem with moral frenzies is they make cowards of us all. All the apologisers queueing up at the BBC have become Men without Chests (C.S.Lewis, definitely, following Nietzsche, I think.) They are puppets of the prevailing temper, devoid of independence either of intellect or judgment on the matters at hand. I don’t blame them – I’d probably be forced to do the same in their position; their chests have been stolen not given away.
The question is: does any of this do any good? The answer is obviously no. Child abuse should be prevented and/or punished. It should not be used as a priggish moral crusade to disguise our woes nor as a prison for our intellects. Stead would be horrified. Sorry, I meant Stead IS horrified. He still pops us at seances.
16 Responses to “The Maiden Tribute of Jimmy Savile”
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11 October 2012 at 10:24 am
Good points Brian. I think there is a sort of moral self-righteousness that all can invoke on this subject that makes them turn the mirror of moral evaluation away from themselves to find validation in mob morality. It is why we have section 43a in Class-A prisons — “Yeah, I nail-gunned his head to the floor and cut off all his limbs but I ain’t a nonce” — and ‘paedo’ daubed on the door of a paediatrician in Newport (not Portsmouth, incidentally and no mob — for a good snopes.com debunking of the way this story grew and grew, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719364.stm — very instructive). It seems to be a combination of uncomfortable prurience, self-serving validation and — of course — some genuine people horrified and who will graft in the cold and rain throughout the night looking for a little girl. The best of motives, the worst of motives. All human life is here.
11 October 2012 at 10:34 am
Well I for one shan’t sleep easy in my bed till Savile’s body has been dug up, hanged and preferably quartered, with the head displayed on a pole outside TV Centre. Only then will I truly have found closure…
11 October 2012 at 11:13 am
Agree with the general thrust of this, but the paediatrician mob story is an urban myth.
This is important to debunk because behind it lies another lazy journalistic assumption: that working class people are brainless morons capable of being swayed to any stupidity by the tabloids. The anti-paedophile protests may have been crude but they were a reaction to the policy of allowing predatory sex offenders to change their names and move into unsuspecting communities, not just thickoes reading the News of the World and getting hysterical. Not even we Portsmouthians (for it is Portsmouth that is usually accused of hosting the paediatrician mob) are stupid enough to think that paedophiles advertise their vice on brass plaques.
What certainly is true is that the tabloids and all media like to wallow pruriently in such matters- as brilliant satirised in that episode of Brass Eye.
11 October 2012 at 11:18 am
The demonstrations happened, Brit, I watched them on TV, complete with tarted up nine-year-olds. The paedatrician story has been exaggerated, but it was not quite true to say nothing happened. But you miss the wider irony that the tabloids fomented the very hysteria they then sneered at.
11 October 2012 at 11:40 am
I do think my point is important here.
Some kids in Gwent graffitied ‘paedo’ for a laugh on a paediatrician’s house. This has morphed into a widely-held belief that a mob in Portsmouth attacked a paediatrician’s office. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a myth that by being believed reveals a certain view about the, ahem, plebs.
11 October 2012 at 3:57 pm
Or in this day and age: Men without man boobs.
11 October 2012 at 4:12 pm
Brit — I agree to a point and I already said that the Portsmouth mob story is an urban myth. But it is still true that paedophilia and child abduction does provoke the fury of the mob. Complete strangers will queue in the pouring rain outside courts just for the chance to scream hate-filled abuse at the prisoner arriving in a Group 4 van.
11 October 2012 at 5:08 pm
I’m not sure why you’re fixated on the ‘pleb’ thing, Brit. The anti-paedo demos back then were directly related to tabloid campaigning to get their names and addresses made public. Since the tabloid demographic is working class, working class people were involved. Middle class people could equally well be whipped up by the D Tel if necessary. Years ago I went up to Rochdale which like, it seemed, everywhere else was in the grip of a Satanic Abuse scare. I discovered within 30 seconds of my arrival it was nonsense and I was repeatedly told it was by working class people. On that occasion it was social workers and sundry ‘professionals’ who had been rendered hysterical by some US fundamentalist nutters who had been going round the world telling people there was satanic abuse on every street. The Rochdale ‘professionals’ went to one meeting,went home and found some. It’s not about class, it’s about mobs
11 October 2012 at 5:17 pm
Lacking the stocks and a reliable supply of rotten vegetables the BBC allowed Frost to conduct an audio-visual version. It’s first patsie, led from the tower with a fanfare of sackbuts, was one E.Savundra, an ideal candidate, he was after all a darkie and foreign sounding, best of all, he looked shifty and sounded evasive, up went the ratings, off we jolly well went, sod due process. Guilty, you bet you’re sweet boopsie he is. Another good little earner, trial by media hand in glove with trial by gossip, Old Emil was as guilty as hell, grasping little twerp, although this is hardly the point, suppose he wasn’t.
Sir Jim’s corpse’s problem is that the shear weight of complaint points to guilt, in life he was an utter tosser so, off to the metaphorical stocks with the monster.
Rupe must be laughing his socks off, look shifty, sound evasive? no worries.
11 October 2012 at 5:19 pm
As I said, I don’t disagree with the general thrust re mobs. But I am interested in why the paediatrician mob myth has taken hold, when upon reflection it is so clearly ridiculous and unbelievable. I’ve heard it loads of times – even unthinkingly repeated it myself before enlightenment – and it seems clear to me that it stems from cognescenti disdain for the plebs.
While we’re at it, incidentally, I’m also not sure what your point is about ‘tarted up’ seven year olds really is. Isn’t that really just about middle-class vs working class taste and aesthetics? If not, tread carefully,,,,
11 October 2012 at 11:08 pm
There’s nothing like a good cause for bringing out the worst in people.
13 October 2012 at 10:21 am
I am not sure raising an eyebrow at the very premature sexualisation of pre-pubescent girls makes you a class-ridden snob, Brit.
13 October 2012 at 3:45 pm
We’re all class-ridden snobs/reverse-snobs/counter-reverse snobs, comes with being British.
‘Raising an eyebrow’ is accurate, because it isn’t the same as an overt argument that the way they dress their little Chardonnays erodes their right to protest against paedos; and likewise, I’m not making an argument, just lowering the eyebrow again.
14 October 2012 at 1:21 am
Ah! I’m not British.
My parents are Irish.
I’m a Londoner.
I know how to rise the odd eyebrow, though.
And lower it!
Night, Brit. You sound interesting.
14 October 2012 at 1:29 am
Raise. Not rise. My peasant blood makes me prone to typos!
20 October 2012 at 8:26 am
Generally paedophilia and child abuse is cover-up so that the guilty can continue without interference:
http://bit.ly/ourNZexperience