An excellent development on the obituary pages of The Times has been the ‘Lives remembered’ section that permits readers to offer their two penn’orth about the late lamented. There was a good one this week from former rail boss Steve McColl who wrote of Sir Jimmy Savile’s delight at being permitted a footplate ride on an electric locomotive after a day out with a steam engine. “You’d have thought I’d offered him the earth . . . Jim had his feet up on the desk, enormous cigar making more smoke than the steam engine had and eyes closed.”

Soon after, Mr McColl found that Sir Jimmy was by chance a fellow passenger on a cruise undertaken by his family. “He theatrically ran up and introduced himself to my wife and children as though they would have no idea who he was. He remembered their names and fussed over them over the next two weeks, as well as so many others on board, even though he was on holiday.”

The tale captures the friendliness and humility of the great Sir Jimmy — one of the reasons for his huge popularity over the years and the warmth of his obituaries. The millions he raised for charity marked him out as a man of exceptional generosity, as did his hard work as a volunteer at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Broadmoor and elsewhere.

True, he had his odd side, especially where his diet was concerned. But it is interesting to note in these days of exceptional fussiness over foodstuffs that he made 84 despite an intake of little other than custard cream biscuits and pork pies — not to mention the cigars.

One of the biggest ‘Fix-its’ he arranged was here in Oxford in 1984.

A ten-year-old Arsenal fan was allowed to referee a re-run of the Oxford United-Arsenal Milk Cup third round clash with his team this time as victors. He did so in front of a 3,000-strong crowd at the Manor Ground. I remember nothing about it, even though I reported on it at length (as cuttings show) on the sports pages of the Oxford Mail. How strange memory is!