Jimmy Savile

Crimson thank you for your post where you mention experiences you have had. JO4 I thought your initial response was a bit like telling Crimson to shut up when she had been brave enough to mention such things at a personal level.

But then you explained and it just goes to show how difficult it all is for those of us who suffered abuse of one form or another as children/young adults.

I have a family member from my childhood who I don't think I should talk about. That caused me so much anxiety as a child.

The other stuff in offices and so on, plenty of that from married men. They wouldn't get away with it these days.

when you're right. It is important to be believed when you are brave enough to come out and say you feel or think that something that happened was wrong. Especially if it's a person in authority or a public figure or a family member that made you feel that way. J04 and crimson to you both. I was a very immature and naive 19 year old.

Going back to Jimmy Savile, I do appreciate that it's going to be hard for his relatives (one was on the radio a day or so ago) but I think that all sorts of things may come out in the near future.

I realise that he cannot be brought to book, but if it means that in future colleagues will not turn a blind eye to anything untoward, then that can only be for the good.

Both Esther Rantzen and Paul Gambaccini have indicated that they feel somehow implicit.

(not very well put, but hopefully you know what I mean)

jingle you have kind of explained why you were imho crass in your dismissal of crimson. Not kind though. Times like this make me wonder why I bother with gn at all. As you say - I could ignore the site.

I'm learning all the time that there are quite a few Gransnetters with a real appreciation of what some children have had to put up with, and have quietly got on with their lives, and ensured the children they know get to feel more secure.

I can stay away from the thread.

Jingle

Something in me starts yelling "yes. me too!"

I'll get off here now.

I am SO sorry crimson! I didn't mean to upset you.

It's just that I had an uncle who things I can't talk about. There, I've said it.

I will probably wish I hadn't.

crimson it's your choice, your post, but its value speaks volumes. How interesting that you got a reaction that made you want to retract it. Just like lots of other children, and adults who get a negative reaction when they are brave enough to speak up

Not meaning children! I was thinking about all the magazine stories of my youth which featured romance between older boss and young secretary/ doctor & nurse/ professor and student. And the archetype Mr Rochester of course.

No-one who has experienced something that made them feel uncomfortable as a child, and wasn't able to say so at the time, should be made to feel that they can't mention it as an adult. It doesn't matter to me where they say it. The day we all feel able to shout that an adult has behaved inappropriately towards a child, and be listened to, I will start to believe that our society is interested in keeping all children safe. Too many adults don't want to hear the testimony of abused children. We owe it to them to feel at least some discomfort about what has hurt them, so we can get better at preventing child abuse.

Oh, come on crimson. You weren't the only one sharing their experiences - I don't think you were singled out!

Have asked gransnet to remove what I have written. Thank you JO2 for pointing out the error of my ways as I know you never stray from the main subject on posts or trivialise them in any way.

Anyone out there who didn't find it traumatic when an older man, man in authority etc 'tried it on' as we used to say?

crimson , you are not bad or boring, I think that sometimes on threads such as this it is only natural to stray into ones own experiences.

I think that JO4 was only intending to suggest that every contributor should where possible try to keep to the subject in question, but I may be wrong.

I'm just trying to point out how it can happen that a young [or older] person can suffer abuse in varying degrees and say nothing at the time, but then mention it years later when other people come out of the woodwork saying the same thing. If you don't want to read what I've written, don't read it J. You've made me feel bad and boring now.

JO4 [like] emoticon.

That is only a suggestion. I know it's not up to me.

Let's not let this thread develop into bad things that happened to us as children.

An uncle of mine wouldn't let me leave his house one day until I'd kissed him [I was very young at the time; they lived next door to us, his wife was my mum's sister]. I was so young the memory is very hazy but it's still one of the most vivid memories of my young life. I don't think I told my mum; if I had done so the fall out from it would have been something I wouldn't forget, but I know my mum never trusted the man, so perhaps I did say something at the time. We also had a primary school teacher who seemed very touchy feely; he was a very good teacher and those of us in his class were the ones who went on to grammar school, but, even then I wondered about him. When we're young we don't question things and, as Esther Ranzen said, when these things happen, have a tendency to blame ourselves. I even had a problem with a member of my family who I never confronted and, even though I told my husband on endless occasions he just laughed it off as if I was being silly. I was genuinely afraid of him, and I was in my forties at the time. Afraid to say anything to anyone else as I didn't want to cause upset in my husband's family. Felt it was just up to me to avoid situations where we would be alone together.

That's why we need an Edit button.

No, it wasn't, just the iPad - or poor typing. But grannyknot tells such a true tale. There wasn't the ability years ago or the words for young vulnerable victims to deal with abusive behaviour. Heaven knows it's hard enough now, but thirty or forty years ago it was very, very hard indeed, and those in authority or with power were invariably listened to over 'a silly young girl'.

nfk you are right that standards have changed. When I was about 19 working in an office in the mid 1970s, the middle aged boss would have me sitting opposite him at his desk checking computer printouts, a painfully slow task and catch my legs underneath in a 'scissors grip'. I never said anything because he was my boss, but would wriggle my legs out of the way or tuck them in backwards under my chair. Then others in the office starting teasing about the way he always singled me out to help him with work. Soon he arrived at work with his grey hair dyed jet black and groovy outfits. So the teasing increased. What did I do? I giggled with the other colleagues about it, not having a clue as to how to deal with it. It all came to a head when he sent me to the back of the warehouse to look for a file in the archives, followed me in there and tried to kiss me. I ducked out of it and bolted. This prompted me at last to report it to the senior boss, a most excruciating experience for me. The end of this story was that I was moved to another department. The fact that I can recall it all so clearly 45 years later, makes me realise what an effect it had on me.

I wonder if that was a somewhat Freudian slip!

I meant to put a