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| With Rolf Harris convicted, I'll say it again: the 70s were no innocent era | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Two of the women whose lives Rolf Harris had devastated propped him up as he left court, found guilty of 12 charges of indecent assault. His wife and his daughter are yet more collateral damage from his career as an abuser. | Two of the women whose lives Rolf Harris had devastated propped him up as he left court, found guilty of 12 charges of indecent assault. His wife and his daughter are yet more collateral damage from his career as an abuser. |
| No more talk of touchy-feeliness please. No more excuses of "well it was a different era". No more coyness about groping and fondling that doesn't really mean anything. | No more talk of touchy-feeliness please. No more excuses of "well it was a different era". No more coyness about groping and fondling that doesn't really mean anything. |
| Many wanted it not to mean anything because as viewers they had loved Harris, in all his various guises. Unlike Jimmy Savile or indeed Max Clifford, they were charmed by Rolf and his silliness. Though his nickname "the octopus" is somewhat telling, Uncle Rolf was not what he seemed. | Many wanted it not to mean anything because as viewers they had loved Harris, in all his various guises. Unlike Jimmy Savile or indeed Max Clifford, they were charmed by Rolf and his silliness. Though his nickname "the octopus" is somewhat telling, Uncle Rolf was not what he seemed. |
| While his daughter was asleep in the same room, he abused her best friend, a girl he had groomed since she was 13. The mea culpa he wrote admitting his relationship with his daughter's friend, though claiming it started when she was 18, had him still preoccupied with his own predicament: "I see the unconditional love that dogs give to their owners and I wish I could start to love myself again." | While his daughter was asleep in the same room, he abused her best friend, a girl he had groomed since she was 13. The mea culpa he wrote admitting his relationship with his daughter's friend, though claiming it started when she was 18, had him still preoccupied with his own predicament: "I see the unconditional love that dogs give to their owners and I wish I could start to love myself again." |
| Each generation has their own Rolf. Young people for whom retro-irony is conflated with innocence loved Harris at Glastonbury and are disturbed by his guilt. So it needs to be spelt out again: the 70s were never an "innocent" time when boundaries were so blurred that pubescent girls were always fair game. Sex with children, sex with those too young to consent – they were wrong then too. When a teacher invited me to go camping for the weekend when I was 13, my mum went to my school, pushed him up against the wall and said: "If you want to interfere with her, you'll have to interfere with me first." I was mortified at the time. | |
| Of course I was not so bold myself when regularly grabbed in the shop where I worked. To be a girl then was to be asking for it – even if wearing a grotty supermarket overall – and to be seen as a delusional fantasist who in fact enjoyed that attention of a powerful man. But at that age every man was a powerful man. | Of course I was not so bold myself when regularly grabbed in the shop where I worked. To be a girl then was to be asking for it – even if wearing a grotty supermarket overall – and to be seen as a delusional fantasist who in fact enjoyed that attention of a powerful man. But at that age every man was a powerful man. |
| However, to cast these times as an era of darkness in which abuse was entirely unidentified is itself a form of denial. By the late 70s we had punk and feminist insurgents. We had a different version of what girls could be. We had John Lydon talking in 1978 of wanting to kill Savile for his seediness. A few women found their voices. | |
| Now all these years later, broken victims rasp their pain while some wonder why elderly celebrities are subject to a witch-hunt. Fame does not provide diplomatic immunity against using the bodies and minds of children for sexual gratification. Victims did not speak up at the time because they felt they were nothing compared with these "great men" and because these men did indeed treat them as precisely nothing. | |
| Sexual abuse did not start in 1973. Nor did it end there. Certain young girls and boys were viewed as disposable – they still are and their voices are on mute. The past is not a different country to the one we live in, which is why these cases matter. These prosecutions say to the victims, whose lives are shredded by abuse, that they did the right thing to speak up. | Sexual abuse did not start in 1973. Nor did it end there. Certain young girls and boys were viewed as disposable – they still are and their voices are on mute. The past is not a different country to the one we live in, which is why these cases matter. These prosecutions say to the victims, whose lives are shredded by abuse, that they did the right thing to speak up. |
| It is too late for them, but it may not be for those now being sexually assaulted. A collective innocence is not being destroyed, rather a collective silence is being disturbed by the barely audible weeping of 50-year-olds standing behind screens, as they remind us that abuse does not belong only to the past. | It is too late for them, but it may not be for those now being sexually assaulted. A collective innocence is not being destroyed, rather a collective silence is being disturbed by the barely audible weeping of 50-year-olds standing behind screens, as they remind us that abuse does not belong only to the past. |