Sir Jimmy Savile

Being born in 1979, you could say I was a child of the 1980s as it was during that decade I did that thing called 'childhood'.

Thinking back to my childhood, especially on the day that Jimmy Savile passed away, leads to memories of sitting in the living room watching Jim'll Fix It on a Saturday evening.

And then there are my own memories of Jimmy Savile.

Like the time when he sent me his autograph along with a pair of Jim'll Fix It.

Or when I saw a Jim'll Fix It medal in the window of a charity shop while I was walking to school. I begged my mother to buy it for me as we walked on. She assured me that - if it was still there after school - I could have it.

As soon as school was done, we went back to the shop only to find that the medal I had seen earlier in the day was a Jim'll Fix It soap on a rope.

How was I going to talk my way out of that one after telling people I was going to get a real medal?

Nothing a bit of square cardboard couldn't fix.

The funniest memory I have of Jimmy Savile was the time I met him.

Well, sort of.

He was running in the Cardiff Marathon. My father and I went to watch and had cut up slices of oranges to give out to the runners as they passed us.

Jimmy Savile came by and my dad handed out an orange to him but Savile passed us by saying something that still makes me laugh to this day.

'Thank you, but I don't take sweets from strangers.'