I was abused by Elizabeth Taylor!

And Brigitte Bardot!  Oh, and that Sophia Loren, she never left me alone.  Then there was that NAAFI girl who served the tea in the barrack canteen.  And I was very young to be taken advantage of in that fashion.  Worst of all was the year I was serving Her Maj and living in a tent on the end of runway #2 at Bahrein airport, those hussies kept abusing me on a constant basis, in fact the 'Tom' in the next camp-bed to mine complained about it!  Anyway, I have consulted my distinguished solicitors, Messrs. Whyte, Lippe & Tremblin, although to be honest I'm not totally sure which one I saw because they all look alike.  Anyway, Messr. 'whichever' was most encouraging and assured me that I had a very good case and they would be only too pleased to argue it all the way to the High Court; although, to be honest, I was a little hurt when he insisted on his fees being paid up-front!  Anyway, as the entire country seems set upon suing everybody else for sexual harrassment I don't see why I shouldn't have my day in court, I mean, you'd never believe the things those women did to me . . .

 ADDITIONAL:  That old devil coincidence strikes again.  My somewhat plodding satire on the current hysteria surrounding the late, and not very great, Jimmy Savile was no sooner written and posted when I began my usual trawl through my favourite blogs beginning, of course, with the redoubtable Anna Raccoon who is in the process of telling her life story.  Apparently the corner-stone of this whole Savile broohaha emanated from the Newsnight story in which some former inmates of an approved school for girls in Staines claimed that Savile, with the connivance of the lady who ran the establishment, had sexually assaulted them.  Ms. Raccoon was actually a resident of this school herself at that time and her views are well worth reading.  They can be summed up in her own words, thus:

Abuse victims should be heard. They should be listened to intently. By the same token, those accused of such heinous crimes should be so accused by tested evidence, not newspaper circuses. This shouldn’t be a subject to push up newspaper circulation, nor for a Punch and Judy show between branches of the political media – the damage done by sexual abuse is too profound for that. What is happening, with a – shall we call it polite disbelief – in some quarters, that not all the ’400 victims who have come forward’ are entirely motivated by a desire for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, does a disservice to every genuine case.

I’m not afraid of the truth, I have nothing to fear from it. If other girls were cowering behind bedroom doors in 1965 and I failed to notice, nor even hear mention of the man’s name, let alone meet him – well then, after eating my Raccoon tail, I shall take myself off for counseling; I would obviously have a profound case of ‘false memory syndrome’.

I have absolutely no knowledge of any of it but her words add to my general unease which always arises when I see a mob in full pursuit!

 

Comments

[backofanenvelope]

I believe there are some 700,000 children in state care homes. The outcomes for these children are terrible, three quarters of them end up as criminals or drug addicts or both. Wouldn't it be nice if the government concentrated on these children instead of harassing people who are managing quite well without their attention? Perhaps we could make Mr Clegg Minister for Children in Care, with his pay linked to his success rate.

[dearieme]

I've posted this comment at AnnaRaccoon.

About Duncroft: here's some arithmetic based partly on guesses at numbers I don't know. Corrections by anyone who does know the numbers welcome.

You say that all the girls had an IQ of over 140. Assuming a mean IQ for the population of 100, and a standard deviation (SD) of something a little less than 15 (because back then people were less given to standardising SD at 15), and allowing for the fact that the female SD was usually measured as being slightly lower than the male SD, the girls have an IQ roughly 3 SDs above the mean i.e. in the top 0.0013 fraction of the female population. The population of England and Wales was (somewhat below?) 50 million, and life expectancy was (somewhat below?) 80 years, so - ignoring the "baby boom" phenomenon - the number of 16 year-olds must have been about 625000, of which something like 310000 would be girls. So the number of 16 year old girls with an IQ of over 140 in E & W would be only 0.0013 x 310000 = about 400.

How many of these would be in ‘need of care and protection’? Recall that, contrary to popular prejudice, high IQ people are typically healthier, physically and mentally, than the general population. Assume that girls are less likely to be sufficiently troubled souls to be potentially in ‘need of care and protection’ than boys. I'm going to guess that it would be less, perhaps much less, than 1 in 40. So now we are down to 10 girls aged 16. Recall that high IQ girls are proportionately more likely than the general population to be middle class rather than working class; so how many of these troubled souls would be given up by their families to such institutions? Perhaps a quarter? We're down to 2.5 girls. Assume that these girls are split evenly between just Duncroft for the South and one other institution covering the North and Midlands. That leaves 1.25 aged 16 at Duncroft i.e. roughly just you, Ms Raccoon.

It's not clear that your story adds up.

[David Duff]

"some arithmetic based partly on guesses at numbers I don't know"

Not an auspicious beginning, DM, and most unlike you. Not that I'm arguing, mind, I don't 'do' sums and anyway my suspicions concerning the usefulness and/or veracity of 'intelligence tests' even exceeds my suspicions of the late Sir James!

[dearieme]

Almost all social arithmetic is based partly on guesses: the question is whether the writer confesses that he has made guesses. Not being a Social Scientist, I do. It is therefore about the most auspicious beginning you can devise.

The usefulness of IQ tests is irrelevant to the point. Read it and see.

[David Duff]

"So the number of 16 year old girls with an IQ of over 140 in E & W would be only 0.0013 x 310000 = about 400."

Rank male chauvinism and I feel it my duty to report you to 'Harry Harperson' instantly!

[Whyaxye]

I watched some of the BBC coverage, and realised that I had once known one of the star witnesses claiming to have been abused. Only a quick chat or two, but colleagues of mine knew them rather better. I have to say that they are not my idea of a reliable or particularly well-balanced person. Maybe the Savile experiences made them that way? Who knows...

[David Duff]

The only one who really knows the lot is dead and can no longer 'fix it'!