"I'd just like to say before we start that everybody knew what was going on but none of us knew what was going on which is why we didn't say anything at the time even though we all knew what was going on," says series creator Sir Sidney Knickers OBE. "I didn't know what was going on, obviously, but when the news broke it came as no surprise to me because I knew exactly what was going on, even though I had no idea what was going on at the time. I was just the show's creator, producer and director for nineteen years. I had no idea what was going on. I remember reading about it when it all came out years later and it came as no surprise to me. Not that I knew what was going on, mind. It came as a complete surprise."
It was 1976 and the BBC needed a weaver of children's dreams.
"I was sat at home watching a documentary about gas attacks in the trenches of World War I and the idea suddenly occurred to me that what the BBC needed was a programme that made children's dreams come true," remembers Knickers. "I got on the phone to Billy Cotton at the BBC and told him my idea. He loved the concept and said he would commission a series, but on one condition - we had to find a presenter with a spotless reputation who could be trusted around children. There was only one man who fitted that description - Jim'll, even though we all knew what he was like. Not that I knew what he was like at the time, you understand."
The show's format was simple. Each week, children wrote into the BBC asking Jim'll to make their dreams come true. A select few were chosen, their dreams - usually involving pushing Geoff Capes into a slurry pit - were made reality, they were given a 'Jim'll's Fixed It For Me' medallion and sent home with a warning from the presenter not to tell their parents what had happened to them because he was friends with the police.
"Kids who didn't end up appearing on the show absolutely loved it," says Knickers. "The BBC was inundated with letters. Geoff was pushed into a slurry pit so many times he spent most of the seventies and eighties in and out of hospital with serious eye infections. He's blind now."
One of the most famous 'fix its' appeared in the 1978 Christmas special. "That was brilliant," laughs Knickers. "A pack of cub scouts threw Geoff Capes into a slurry pit from off of the top of a rollercoaster. The footage was hilarious, even the bit where Geoff was screaming because he'd broken all but four of his bones. Of course, we had no idea what Jim'll would do after the cameras stopped rolling. For that I can only apologise to all those affected, even though we all knew what he was like at the time and could have guessed what was going to happen. Not that I knew what he was like at the time."
The show ran for nineteen years. In that time, it has been estimated Geoff Capes ingested one hundred and fifty nine gallons of animal waste.
"All good things must come to an end," sighs Knickers. "Not that Jim'll's Fixed It was a good thing, I hasten to add. If only somebody had said something at the time. We all knew what was going on, even though nobody - myself included - knew what was going on."
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