From the Peterborough Telegraph
Tributes: How Sir Jimmy Savile fixed it for good causes in Peterborough
By Stephen Briggs
Published on 01/11/2011 08:47
Tuesday, 8.45am: Tributes have been paid to Sir Jimmy Savile, who raised thousands of pounds for Peterborough charities while he lived in Peterborough.
He died on Saturday (29 October) just two days short of his 85th birthday at his Leeds home on Saturday, and Peterborough residents have been sharing their memories of when the DJ and charity fundraiser lived in the city.
Jimmy used to work as a consultant for travel agent Thomas Cook and helped city charities raise thousands of pounds.
Nigel Hards, now the chairman of Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, worked with Jimmy in the early 1990s at Thomas Cook.
He said: “I worked with him quite closely for about four years.
“He was a very complex character. The person on the TV screen and on the radio was a very different person to the private Jimmy Savile.
“He did lots of things for lots of people that he would not talk about, as well as his publicised charity work.
“He was a great ambassador for Peterborough. He helped launch the Charity Six road race, and lots of top runners, including Steve Ovett and Steve Cram came along, just because he was involved.
“He was heavily involved in helping set up a children’s medical health charity in the city, by raising a quarter of a million pounds.
“He was also instrumental in bringing Princess Diana to the city as part of Thomas Cook’s 150th anniversary.
“He was also a very intelligent man and was a member of MENSA.
“I once asked him what he did at Stoke Mandeville Hospital as a volunteer.
“He said he liked working the night shift at the mortuary, because he thought it would be easier for loved ones if he was there when they came in.
“He also said it was the only place in the hospital where he could smoke his cigars, as the inmates didn’t complain."
New of the World editor 'spiked paedophilia scoop on Arthur C Clarke for fear of Murdoch'
Ex-reporter claims story never ran because the sci-fi author was the proprietor's friend
MARTIN HICKMAN, The Independent, SATURDAY 07 JULY 2012
The News of the World spiked an exclusive story exposing the science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke as a paedophile, according to a new book about life inside the newspaper whose closure was announced a year ago today.
In Hack, an account of his nerve-shredding days as a reporter on the News of the World and then the Sunday Mirror, Graham Johnson claims that although the NOTW prided itself on outing pederasts, editors made an exception for Mr Clarke because he was a friend of Rupert Murdoch.
Through BSkyB, the tycoon commercially exploited the futurologist's theory that satellites would be ideal for communications and praised him in public. As a result, according to Mr Johnson, who by that time had been sacked by the NOTW and had joined the Sunday Mirror, a story by reporter Roger Insall about Mr Clarke's alleged abuse of adolescent boys was never published for fear of upsetting the proprietor.
Tipped off about the story, the Sunday Mirror sent Mr Johnson to Colombo, where he extracted an confession from the author that he paid boys for sex. "I have never had the slightest interest in children – boys or girls. They should be treated in the same way. But once they have reached the age of puberty, then it is OK," Mr Clarke was quoted as saying in the Sunday Mirror. "If the kids enjoy it and don't mind it doesn't do any harm … there is a hysteria about the whole thing in the West."
Mr Clarke subsequently denied he was a paedophile, saying: "The allegations are wholly denied." But he never sued the Sunday Mirror and died aged 90 at his Sri Lanka home in 2008.
Speaking to The Independent yesterday, Mr Johnson said: "Roger [Insall] said that because Arthur C Clarke was a mate of Rupert Murdoch, the editor wasn't having any of it and despite Roger getting a lot of evidence that Clarke was a paedophile they wouldn't publish it."
Yesterday, Phil Hall, the then editor, said: "I can vaguely remember that story. I do remember that Roger Insall worked on it and I remember it was not published. My only recollection is that the only reason we wouldn't publish it was because of legal reasons."
He said Mr Murdoch never asked him to spike stories. News International, publisher of the NOTW, made no comment.
David Icke - Was He Right..? from Paul Coker on Vimeo.
Icke was Right: from Paul Coker on Vimeo.
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