A Facebook  comment about the Jimmy Saville allegations.

"Its just not good and very disappointing. In my view the 70's were about the worst time in UK history because most people knew what shouldn't be happening but just went along with it . A guy from Reeth Brass Band who I played with from 1970 to 1974 was convicted for sexual offenses against children. I got a phone call from North Yorkshire Police because they thought me and several of my friends may have been victims of this guy.

 I have to be a bit careful what I say here because one of the problems I had speaking to North Yorks Police  was that they just wouldn't accept that there was a highly sexualized culture in Richmond and the Dales at that time  which did cross the age of consent law with willing participants on both sides of that age. All part of pubs , underage drinking and getting to know the exciting world of adults. To be quite honest Emma I'm always left with the impression with North Yorkshire Police that who you are and who you know is a big factor in whether a person is prosecuted for virtually anything.

Its murky stuff this  but I expect more of this to come out in future particularly to do with adults from the 70's who had authority over children. What I think is also going to come out eventually   , and this might  cheese you off  and I'm sorry about that , it is only my perception at the time ,  is that some young people who had illegal sexual contact with adults in the 70s may not have been as unwilling as everyone seems to paint them. I don't mind saying this because it happened to me  . An amorous 17 -18 year old had a grope of me in an institutional context when I was 13 - 14. I certainly don't see that as abuse at all , even though I wasn't interested , well not like that , she seemed a bit old , but the point is , that lady went on to be a good mother in Richmond and is most definitely not a child molester at all  and other than the fact that she thought I might be into it when I wasn't that sort of thing was pretty routine at the time in the Dales area and I can't say I feel violated just sickened by the general very sexualized culture that prevailed at the time which seemed to distort a lot of childrens childhood. When I say routine I didn't perceive it as a regular occurrence but it did happen to me once and it was mentioned occasionally with other friends I knew.

It was a discussion around this sort of problem that I disagreed with North Yorks Police about . The line of questioning from them was such as to ensure that issues with no other people were raised , typical North Yorkshire , in fact they never even said who might be involved at all  I only found that out after the guy had been convicted and from my mother. As I said to North Yorkshire Police there was a very sexualized culture at the time, a time when guys over 16 would refer to girls under 16 as "jail bait"  which indicated that some would if they could and even that some did . As I said very murky.

If anyone thinks that this problem has gone away it hasn't . I used to pick my lads up from the school gate everyday at Longfield School. I saw a lot and had some interesting discussions with parents . But anyway a girl in Miles' class who was 15 , as Miles was , met her boyfriend at the gate sometimes , who I'd seen around on my walks and even spoke with him and he was 18 to 20. It was all a kissy and clinchy  and done right under the noses of teachers who were seeing the children off the premises and could see that that child's boyfriend was definitely not under 16. As I've said murky stuff .

Until society strictly agrees to the age of consent law, teachers and parents in particular,  we are always going to get a  blurring of the age of consent as part of our culture which just sexualises children whilst an awful lot of people in our society right now are  just watching it happen even though its illegal and breaking the law. Thats what is so tragic about the Jimmy Saville story : a lot of people  knew about it but will be running as far away from the issue now because at the time it was part of the culture. If that culture never existed at the time and all those people who saw what he did said something he would have been stopped in his tracks. But , if that 70s sexualised  culture  hadn't existed a culture he seems to have exploited could he have even done what he is alleged to have done?"