DJ Heaven - Jimmy Savile



For goodness sake Jim, put your shirt on.



Now then guys and gals. This week I’d like to present to all you good ladies and gentlemen another edition of DJ Heaven featuring Jimmy Savile. How’s about that then!

Famously presenting the first edition of Top of the Pops in January 1964 the medallion-wearing, charity running Mr Fix-It was on the programme for an incredible 18 years.

Throughout most of the 1960s Jim was exclusively on Radio Luxembourg presenting, amongst other shows, his Teen and Twenty Disc Club. He joined Radio 1 in June 1968. He recalls his first meeting with Controller Robin Scott as follows:

He said “I think it’s about time we got together,” so we went out to lunch which is a very unusual thing for me because I do business over desks not tables. He said “Why won’t you work for us?” I said “Because nobody’s spoken to me. You’re the first guy from the BBC to speak to me” So he said “Well, will you  work for us?” and I said of course I would. He said, “We’ll I’ll be blessed,” because he thought that he was in for a tremendous fight because people had been saying, “You call it Radio 1 and the guy that’s been No. 1 for half a decade doesn’t even work for you!”

That first show became Savile’s Travels, which was eventually followed by Speakeasy and then the Old Record Club. He left the network in 1987.

This edition of DJ Heaven was broadcast on BBC2 on 2 October 1993: