Robert Hampton

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29th October 2011

Savile Row (6, column 4 in the cemetery)
Posted by at 6.19pm | 1 response | Television, Trains

Jimmy Savile (IT HAS ONE L YOU FOOLS) has died. Here is a Jimmy Savile-related moment from my life.

I once wrote to Jim’ll Fix It. I can’t remember exactly when, but it must have been towards the end of the show’s run when it was being flung out in graveyard slots.

My request was, in retrospect, quite unambitious. I didn’t want to have tea on a roller coaster or appear in a specially-written Doctor Who mini-episode. No, I just wanted to ride in the cab of a train.

Not an exciting train like an HST or Flying Scotsman, mind, but a common or garden class 507. I did go so far as to specify the journey I wanted: Southport to Liverpool – presumably worried that the BBC would try to penny pinch and send me to Kirkby.

I think what I really wanted was a drivers-eye view of the Link tunnel, an ambition I later (sort of) realised by purchasing a Merseyrail cab ride video. The video was disappointing as the tunnel section was just 10 minutes of pitch darkness and loud echoey rumbling noises (with a caption “Paradise Junction” helpfully superimposed over the blackness at one point).

Where was I? Oh yes – I misspelled the word “often” on my letter, and I remember Mum told me to leave it uncorrected as it would make me look like a sweet innocent child, rather than the obnoxious smart-arse I already was by the age of seven. Bless.

I never got on Jim’ll Fix It, which was probably a good thing, as appearing on national television with the nation’s favourite slightly odd uncle character would surely have added to my already bulging package of childhood neuroses.

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One Response
  1. Comment by Scott
    30th October 2011 at 7:26 pm

    I can’t imagine why they didn’t go for that. A kid riding through the Liverpool suburbs? What’s not to like?