Well, this one will be a little bit of a tricky topic to begin with, so read carefully before ranting.

Another tricky job for the Ministry Of Truth…

The simple fact is that one of the big news stories of the moment is the Jimmy Savile (not to be a Sir for long, I’m certain) story.

The police investigation doesn’t seem to have really started yet. But from the media feedback, I think the direction it’s going in is pretty clear. After all, it’s not often you get a spokesperson standing up in front of a camera and describing the person under investigation as a “sexual predator” with some conviction.

But

what I’d like to concentrate on is this:

Is there a trend towards completely expunging people such as The late Jimmy Savile from history?

Already, his gravestone has been secreted away in the night to be scrapped, a road named after him in Scarborough has had the signs changed. A freshly defaced plaque to him in Leeds has been removed. And a statue in Glasgow has been removed.

Fair enough. Nobody wants to glorify the memory of someone who wasn’t what they seemed (allegedly, pending investigation etc).

So, the physical reminders have been hastily removed. Well, bar the grave itself that was top-filled with concrete. (Oh dear, I’m starting to wonder why).

However:  What about the hours and hours of video of this man? Do you carry on, removing all evidence, and banning the airplay of anything that ever featured him? Forgetting what he may or may not have been guilty of, he was a prominent feature in shows of his time – Top Of The Pops, Radio 1, Jim’ll fix it etc. Do you banish it all? Leaving only  a moving target of mash-ups of questionable-taste jokes on the likes of YouTube for people to guffaw about him.

So what happens? Is it akin to the work of the Ministry Of Truth in Orwell’s 1984, where history is literally re-written as we go along, so that a new version of the truth is quickly put in place, and all evidence of the previous version is modified or erased? Will there be future showings of the cub scouts on the rollercoaster eating doughnuts, only with large swathes of the programme surrounding it gone, and no mention of the show itself. “This clip was brought to you by (Censored: Somebody we can never mention again) ‘ll fix it.”

The whole episode saddens me. And people that take advantage of their positions of power to do anything untoward to children deserve to be vilified. If (post proper investigation) it is proved that he was every bit as bad as the case building daily in the media, as I think it probably will, then that’s that.

But to erase someone from history completely, is in itself a worrying thing to do.

If he’s guilty then he should be remembered for what he did – the BAD as well. He should not just be “disappeared” from history. A difficult thing to do.