Meet Jimmy Savile’s family below. Here you’ll learn about his father, mother and siblings. Jimmy is the subject of a new Netflix show Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story.
Read on to learn more about them.
Meet Jimmy Savile’s Family
Jimmy Savile was born the youngest of nine children. He told In Plain Sight writer Dan Davies in 2004 that he had no childhood. He said, “I grew up with grown-ups, which meant I had nothing to say. I ended up with big ears, listening to everything, and big eyes, watching everything, and a brain that wondered why grown-ups did what they did.”
Jimmy calls himself “the baby that was no longer there,” an unwanted child born the day before his mother turned 40. As the youngest child, he didn’t get much attention. They didn’t get much time or attention from family members. He grew up in a city known for its black market, prostitution, and illegal gambling.
Dan said he had never liked talking about his childhood and was agitated when he was forced to talk about it. It was as if he was defending his childhood. “We don’t have time for psychological trauma,” he said. “We’re just survivors, all of us.”
It is rumored that Jimmy grew up a lonely child and did not spend much time playing with children his own age.
Who was Jimmy Savile’s father, Vincent Savile?
Jimmy Savile’s father was Vincent Joseph Marie Savile.
Vincent was born in 1886 in Salford, Lancashire, UK. He worked as a bookmaker and insurance agent at various times. He also found work in the illegal gambling industry. Vincent worked as a caretaker at St Joseph’s Nursing Home, where Jimmy spent his free time in the corridors and wards.
Dan claims it was his time there that sowed the seeds of Jimmy’s long-lasting and dark obsession with death.
He rarely spoke about his father and never revealed when he died, but records show he died in 1953 at the age of 67.
Who was Jimmy Savile’s mother, Agnes Savile?
Jimmy Savile loved his mother, Agnes Monica Savile, who was born in November 1886 in Burnley, England, to James “Careworn” Kelly and Mary Eleanor Kelly. Jimmy claimed that his mother “clothed, fed and housed nine people on £3.50 a week.”
Jimmy became very ill when he was about two years old, possibly due to pneumonia. Even the doctor had given up hope at that point, leaving a death certificate at their home. Agnes rushed to the church at that time, praying for her son’s recovery. According to reports, Jimmy began to recover after she returned home.
Jimmy spent his entire adult life trying to win her approval and called her Duchess. After his father died, Jimmy claimed his mother as his own. It was rumored that he lavished money on gifts for her. He bought her a flat in Scarborough and accompanied her to functions as her companion.
The TV presenter often claims that he has a responsibility to take care of his mother, which he points to as the reason why he never married. He calls her “the only woman I’ve ever loved,” and the image he creates as a caring son is, of course, just a perfectly constructed mask of his.
After his mother died, displayed in an open coffin at his sister’s home in Filey, Jimmy spent the days next to the barely moving coffin, describing the period as “the best five days of my life”.
Jimmy described his relationship with his mother as more of a friendship than a love affair. He said he had to learn to “enjoy her”. Agnes Savile also became her son’s most prominent companion. They went on holidays together, to the Imperial Hotel in Torquay and to Rome to visit the Vatican.
Surprisingly, Jimmy also uses sexual metaphors to describe his mother’s seemingly limitless vitality, saying that she has “the energy of a teenage girl and can have a good time all night long whenever the opportunity arises”.
Did Jimmy Savile have any siblings?
Jimmy Savile had six siblings—Mary A J Savile (born 1912), Marjory F Marsden (1914), Vincent J Savile (1916), John H Savile (1919), Joan E Johnson (1920) and Christina W Foster (1921). The only thing he had in common with his siblings was that they taught him lessons about the pitfalls of emotional entanglement.
According to Dan, his siblings, “two brothers and four sisters, only appeared briefly in his familiar anecdotes.”
But there was tension between Jimmy and Johnnie. The issue came to public attention a week later when Johnnie was photographed in a newspaper picking rotting wallpaper from the damp walls of his basement flat in Clapham, South London. ‘I refused to ask Jimmy for help,’ he declared.
It is said that Johnnie once tried to sell a story about Jimmy to a newspaper. Jimmy had tried to appease him many times before.
Jimmy Savile is said to be the child’s mother?
It is reported that there were two women among the many who were very close to Jimmy Savel. His long-term girlfriend was Sue Hymns, whom he met on 23 September 1968, when she was 18. They split up in the 1970s after Sue moved to Munich with her sister. She married him in 1975 but divorced him in 1983.
They rekindled their relationship in 1991 and remained partners until his death. He is said to have left her £1,000.
Sir Jimmy was also linked to singer Donna Foot, with the pair having a secret relationship that lasted two decades.
Their relationship – which took place during the height of Savile’s secret child abuse – ended just months after Donna aborted Savile’s child without telling him she was pregnant.
Related FAQs
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Will Jimmy Savile’s family appear in Netflix’s Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story?
No, most of Jimmy Savile’s family is dead, and only his nephews don’t appear in Netflix’s “Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story.”
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What do Jimmy Savile’s family members have to say about Netflix’s Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story?
No official members of Jimmy Savile’s family have commented on Netflix’s “Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story.”
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What else do we know about Jimmy Savile’s family?
Jimmy’s brother Johnnie, who worked at Springfield as a recreation officer, a job title very similar to Jimmy Savile’s at Broadmoor, was fired for gross misconduct. He had worked for the company for six years. According to a member of the ward’s nursing staff, the allegation against Johnnie Savile was that he had sexually abused a female patient in his ward.
The 61-year-old woman was “playful” before pulling down the patient’s gown and fondling her stomach and breasts, the nurse said.
In 1972, Jimmy’s brother Vince retired from the Royal Navy to focus on volunteering at the paediatric ward at Cardiff Hospital and trying to become a radio DJ. A source told the DailyMail, “On several occasions, Vince would turn up with a young girl. He always made sure everyone knew his brother was Jimmy Savile and also used a lot of sexual innuendo in his conversations.”