Nicky Campbell on "overwhelming" experience working briefly with Jimmy Savile

Nicky Campbell has spoken about his experience of working with Jimmy Savile while at BBC Radio 1 in the late 80s, describing the disgraced presenter's "dark charisma" as "overwhelming".

Nicky briefly explores the early Radio 1 days in Secrets of the Bay City Rollers, a documentary about the Scottish band's rise to fame.

In the film, Nicky chats to band member Nobby Clark, who claims the band's manager, Tam Paton, suggested the Rollers should sleep with Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning for more airplay in the 70s. Denning was later convicted of child sex offences and imprisoned.

Speaking about another Radio 1 predator – Jimmy Savile – Nicky told OK! about joining Radio 1 in 1987 and what it was like taking over from the DJ. "I saw [Radio 1] started changing around 1993, 1994 properly. But I went into Jurassic Park, really.

"Part of me was thinking, 'Oh wow, I'm a Radio 1 DJ, it's Top of the Pops and Radio 1 Roadshow!' But another part of me was standing aside from it thinking, 'F**king hell this is weird.' Sort of observing it."

Nicky revealed that he did his first Radio 1 photo-call with Savile, who faced hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse after his death in 2011.

"The PR-schtick was that he was leaving and 'Jimmy Savile had fixed it for young Scots DJ', but actually they were getting rid of him from Radio 1. He was joining the World Service.

"I was with him for about two hours, the way he operated and the kind of dark charisma, kissing all the cleaning lady's hand and the commissioners, calling them professor and stuff like that. It was quite overwhelming."

He added that Savile later took him to one side and told him that he'd "just obtained the keys to the Bank of England". He found that to be "incredibly cynical".

"I thought I'd obtain the keys to the most amazing record cabinet. I played amazing records to people who love music and I'd say, 'Oh, listen to this, I love this, I want to share this with you.' [It was] the biggest record player in the world because I was obsessed with radio. It wasn't about getting the keys to open the Bank of England, I've always thought about that. That level of cynicism about the business."

Nicky's upcoming documentary looks at the successes of the Bay City Rollers as well as the predatory behaviour of their manager Tam Paton, who was accused but not convicted of sexual crimes against guitarist Pat McGlynn. Paton convicted of gross indecency with two teenage boys under the age of consent at the time in 1982 and in 2003, he was arrested on child sexual abuse charges however these were dropped.

Nicky previously described the interview as "Me Too for young men in the 70s" and revealed that filming the documentary brought back his own memories of suffering abuse at school. Nicky announced in July last year that he was a victim of abuse whilst at school in Edinburgh in the 1970s, alleging that he was "badly beaten up" by a teacher.

Secrets of the Bay City Rollers airs on Thursday 29 June at 9pm on ITV1

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