Nobody dares tell Jeremy Paxman that he’s talking “bollocks”. Except Michael Grade, the former BBC chairman, it transpires. Tonight Lord Grade of Yarmouth will host a special farewell for BBC Television Centre, with Sir David Attenborough and Sir Michael Parkinson among the guests reminiscing over the glory days of the “doughnut” before it closes its doors on March 31.
The event is likely to gloss over Jimmy Savile’s contribution. Speaking ahead of the bash, Grade rejects Paxman’s evidence to the Pollard inquiry that it was “common gossip” within the BBC that Savile liked “young girls” before he was outed as a paedophile.
The Newsnight presenter criticised BBC executives,“having been aloof from popular culture for so long”, for failing to control an influx of eccentric figures from pirate radio.
“I think that’s bollocks. Sorry, Jeremy,” says Lord Grade. “Psychologists say people such as Savile are clever. They work very hard to cover their tracks. I don’t think they [BBC executives] knew.”
A former BBC1 controller, Grade said he heard no rumours about Savile’s activities. “Bill Cotton was an extremely correct man who guarded the reputation of the BBC like a priest guards the faith,” he says of the legendary BBC entertainment executive who launched Morecambe & Wise. “ If anyone would have known, he would — and he would have been down on it like a ton of bricks.
“He couldn’t have known. He never said anything to me and he would have done. Nobody ever came to me.”
