Savile declared ‘love’ for Thatcher in letter
29 Dec 2012 6:23 AM IST
Jimmy Savile, the now-disgraced BBC entertainer, had enjoyed extraordinary access to the highest echelons of British government and even declared his love for the ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher in a letter sent to her, classified documents being made public on Friday showed.
National Archives files show that Savil met with the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at both Downing Street and Chequers in his successful attempts to secure a 500,000 pounds donation from the government for the rebuilding of Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
In a hand-written letter, sent to Thatcher in February 1980, Savile says his ‘girl patients’ were ‘madly jealous’ of her. He later asked her to appear on Jim’ll Fix It, a request which she declined.
Since his death it has emerged that Savile allegedly sexually abused sick girls at the hospital, some of whom were as young as eight. As a major donor at the hospital he was left ‘free to roam’ the wards and even had his own room.
The hospital is only three miles from the Prime Minister’s official residence, Chequers, and Savile became a friend of Thatcher. The pair reportedly spent New Year’s Eve together 11 years in a row.
According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, however, the Cabinet Office refused to release a record of a telephone conversation between Thatcher and Savile in February 1980 and an undated letter because they were considered ‘confidential’.
They will not be published for another decade. The first meeting detailed in the previously secret files took place in February 1980.
A week later Savile sent Thatcher a hand written note on ‘Jim’s ‘Daily Dozen’ paper, in which he said he had delayed writing because he didn’t want to appear too ‘effusive’.
He wrote: ‘Dear Prime Minister. I waited a week before writing to thank you for my lunch invitation because I had such a superb time I didn’t want to be too effusive.’
‘My girl patients pretended to be madly jealous wanted to know what you wore what you ate. All the paralysed lads called me ‘Sir James’ all week.
‘They all love you. Me too!! Jimmy Savile OBE xxx.’
In January 1981 Savile and Mrs Thatcher met for lunch at Chequers, where he asked her for a ‘goodwill gesture’ from the government in the form of a donation to Stoke Mandeville.
Caroline Stephens, her personal secretary, subsequently wrote: ‘Can you kindly let me know if you made any promises to Jimmy Savile when he lunched with you yesterday, for instance:
‘(i) Did you offer him any money for Stoke Mandeville?
‘(ii) Did you tell him that you would appear on Jim’ll Fix It?’
The first question is annotated by hand by Thatcher, saying: ‘will tell you in detail. MT’, while next to the second is a simple ‘no’.
Mike Pattison, then Number 10 private secretary, told Health Minister Dr Gerard Vaughan’s private secretary that Savile met with Thatcher with the hospital’s plans and suggested a ‘government grant’ as a goodwill gesture.
‘The Prime Minister said was he thinking of a million pounds and Mr Savile replied that they would be grateful for any sum, and that there was absolutely no hurry at all, and that equally he would understand if she had to come back to him and say that this was not possible,’ he wrote.
At the time, the Conservatives had made significant cuts to benefits for disabled people.
National Archives files show that Savil met with the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at both Downing Street and Chequers in his successful attempts to secure a 500,000 pounds donation from the government for the rebuilding of Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
In a hand-written letter, sent to Thatcher in February 1980, Savile says his ‘girl patients’ were ‘madly jealous’ of her. He later asked her to appear on Jim’ll Fix It, a request which she declined.
Since his death it has emerged that Savile allegedly sexually abused sick girls at the hospital, some of whom were as young as eight. As a major donor at the hospital he was left ‘free to roam’ the wards and even had his own room.
The hospital is only three miles from the Prime Minister’s official residence, Chequers, and Savile became a friend of Thatcher. The pair reportedly spent New Year’s Eve together 11 years in a row.
According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, however, the Cabinet Office refused to release a record of a telephone conversation between Thatcher and Savile in February 1980 and an undated letter because they were considered ‘confidential’.
They will not be published for another decade. The first meeting detailed in the previously secret files took place in February 1980.
A week later Savile sent Thatcher a hand written note on ‘Jim’s ‘Daily Dozen’ paper, in which he said he had delayed writing because he didn’t want to appear too ‘effusive’.
He wrote: ‘Dear Prime Minister. I waited a week before writing to thank you for my lunch invitation because I had such a superb time I didn’t want to be too effusive.’
‘My girl patients pretended to be madly jealous wanted to know what you wore what you ate. All the paralysed lads called me ‘Sir James’ all week.
‘They all love you. Me too!! Jimmy Savile OBE xxx.’
In January 1981 Savile and Mrs Thatcher met for lunch at Chequers, where he asked her for a ‘goodwill gesture’ from the government in the form of a donation to Stoke Mandeville.
Caroline Stephens, her personal secretary, subsequently wrote: ‘Can you kindly let me know if you made any promises to Jimmy Savile when he lunched with you yesterday, for instance:
‘(i) Did you offer him any money for Stoke Mandeville?
‘(ii) Did you tell him that you would appear on Jim’ll Fix It?’
The first question is annotated by hand by Thatcher, saying: ‘will tell you in detail. MT’, while next to the second is a simple ‘no’.
Mike Pattison, then Number 10 private secretary, told Health Minister Dr Gerard Vaughan’s private secretary that Savile met with Thatcher with the hospital’s plans and suggested a ‘government grant’ as a goodwill gesture.
‘The Prime Minister said was he thinking of a million pounds and Mr Savile replied that they would be grateful for any sum, and that there was absolutely no hurry at all, and that equally he would understand if she had to come back to him and say that this was not possible,’ he wrote.
At the time, the Conservatives had made significant cuts to benefits for disabled people.
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