If anything has wrecked Glencoe more comprehensively than the traffic pouring down it along the A82 and the insensitively sited car parks crawling on summer days with coach parties of Japanese tourists, it is the knowledge that this week's paedophile hate figure, Jimmy Savile, owned a house there.
A friend told me years ago, as we were off to climb some clag-shrouded hill or other. In one way it seemed almost impossible to believe. The track-suited TV personality showed in his public manifestations absolutely nothing which might have indicated a love for the outdoors. And yet it was perfectly possible that Sir James might, on some TV jaunt or other, have driven, or more likely been driven, down the Glen, seen a For Sale sign, and forked out on a whim.
If I was going to buy a house in Scotland, Savile's wouldn't have been the one. It is in one of the most spectacular places in Britain, but it's right by a very busy road, with lorries thundering by. Moreover it looks out up the glen to the little Buchaille rather than across to the Lost Valley or Stob Coire nan Lochan. For someone as famous as Savile it can't have provided much privacy, and I wonder how much time he actually spent there. Certainly on many dozens of journeys up and down Glencoe I have never seen any sign of life at the house.
Long before the allegations about Saville's sex life became public, the Glen seemed diminished by Saville's presence. To me, he represented everything that was tawdry, cheap and meretricious about the world; the Glen everything that was worth doing in it. The fact that he had raised millions for charity didn't figure; the knowledge that he had owned the house rankled then, and still does.
Nevertheless it's a shame Savile isn't around to answer the allegations against him. If true - and we'll probably never know - they feature conduct unacceptable in any era; but before the BBC gets blamed for carrying on employing him despite rumours about his taste for underage girls, its as well to remember that times have changed a lot since the 1970s. I heard the sainted John Peel make remarks about schoolgirls on his show which would have got him sacked on the spot today. I loved Peel, but, like Saville, he was lucky to be working when he did.
PS - Thank goodness the Metropolitain Police are investigating Savile's crimes. He's dead, and there's no prospect of a prosecution, but it's reassuring to know that at last Plod is on his tail.
