A woman has issued a “trigger warning” after unearthing an unsettling item from the past while clearing out her elderly male neighbour’s garage.
The bizarre discovery prompted Molly Thomas, from Milton Keynes, to take to TikTok as she unveiled a series of images of a photo belonging to the man who worked in media production decades ago. “Didn’t expect this today!” she declared.
“Turns out my old sound engineer neighbour had something to do with a 1962 recording by he who shall not be named. Bit icky, he definitely didn’t know about the darker side at that time.”
The troubling item was a BBC black and white picture postcard featuring the infamous Jimmy Savile, complete with a handwritten “PTO” [please turn over] indication at the bottom by the late disgraced presenter himself. Flipping the postcard over, Molly found another message from the late, disgraced presenter, which read: “This looks like me but actually it’s a rare pic of AHAB. Cheers, Jimmy.”
‘AHAB’ refers to a novelty track named Ahab the Arab, which Savile released as a cover in 1962, following the original version by Ray Stevens from earlier that year. One empathetic TikTok user showed understanding towards the neighbour, commenting: “It’s not your neighbour’s fault, Savile fooled the nation.”
To this, Molly responded reflectively: “I don’t think he’d have worked with him if he’d known at the time. It’s one of the people I’ve never heard a story about because I’m guessing he wasn’t pleased he recorded him.”
A second made a quip involving one of Savile’s phrases: “Now then, now then. Not everyday you find something like that.” A third person chimed in with their own similar experience: “I found one of my Grandma stood next to him. To be fair she looked miffed in it.”
Meanwhile, a fourth individual misunderstood the context and came to the defence of Molly’s neighbour: “Stop being woke, it only means something today, it’s unfair to judge someone when you don’t know a backstory. Jimmy Savile kissed my mother on the hand once, but I know the backstory.”
Molly, however, clarified her feelings about the photograph and its significance: “I know the backstory. It was a note acknowledging they’d worked together. I’m allowed to feel gross about it knowing what we know now and it was an unexpected find. Not sure that’s woke.”
After his death in 2011 it emerged Savile – who was awarded a knighthood in 1990 for his charity work – sexually abused hundreds of victims, many when they were children. Police believe Savile may be the most prolific paedophile in British history.