Esther Rantzen - Career

Career

After training in secretarial skills, Rantzen was recruited by BBC Radio as a trainee studio manager. She began her television career as a clerk in the programme planning department, then obtained her first production job working as a researcher on the BBC One late-night satire programme, BBC3 (1965–66), created by Ned Sherrin. Having worked as a researcher on a number of Current Affairs programmes, she moved to the award-winning BBC Two documentary series Man Alive in the mid-1960s.

In 1968, Rantzen became one of the onscreen presenters of the BBC consumer show Braden's Week, presented by Bernard Braden. In 1972, Braden decided to return to his native Canada to present a similar TV show there, and the following year, the BBC replaced Braden's Week with That's Life! with Rantzen as the main presenter. The format was very similar, although well-loved comedian Cyril Fletcher replaced announcer Ronald Fletcher to read out amusing misprints.

That's Life! ran on BBC1 for 21 years (1973 to 1994) becoming one of the most popular shows on British television, reaching audiences of more than 18 million. During that time, it expanded the traditional role of the consumer programme from simply exposing faulty washing machines and dodgy salesmen, to investigating life and death issues such as a campaign for more organ donors, featuring Ben Hardwick, a two-year-old dying of liver disease, whose only hope was a transplant, and the investigation of a boarding school owned by a paedophile, who employed two paedophile teachers. The show's various health and safety campaigns resulted in nationwide changes; new laws were even introduced as a result of the show's campaigns, such as playground surfaces being dug up around the country and dangerous tarmac and concrete being replaced with safer surfaces. Another campaign led to a change in the law, enforcing the use of seat belts for children sitting in the backs of cars. Alongside their serious reports, however, the show still maintained more lighthearted features such as talented pets, including Prince, the talking dog, who said "sausages", a table-tennis playing cat and a counting horse. Among the talented viewers the series discovered were Annie Mizen, the show-stopping granny Rantzen met in the North End Road Street Market, a man who tap-danced on his false teeth, and another who played Amazing Grace on his fork-lift truck. The programme popularised the term "Jobsworth" in the United Kingdom by creating "The Jobsworth Award" for any official employee who insisted on applying a daft rule beyond the bounds of reason, such as clamping the car of a woman in labour in a hospital car park (because they would claim that "it's more than my job's worth not to do it").

Rantzen also devised the documentary series The Big Time in 1976, which launched the singing career of Sheena Easton. She also briefly hosted a junior version of That's Life in the 1980s. Rantzen was one of the founders of TV-am, the company selected to launch ITV's breakfast television service. But before the station went on air in 1983, Rantzen dropped out, opting to remain with the BBC. She later briefly took a consumer spot on the BBC's own Breakfast Time. Having made programmes about stillbirth (The Lost Babies), and mental health (Trouble in Mind), in 1985 Rantzen presented a BBC One programme on drug abuse, Drugwatch. In 1986 she produced and presented Childwatch, which alerted the British public to the prevalence of child abuse, and successfully campaigned for a number of legal reforms in this area.

Although the programme was influential in many different ways, not least in the introduction of the videolink for child witnesses in court procedures, it is notable for the launch of ChildLine in 1986, the first national helpline for children in danger or distress. Rantzen had suggested the Childwatch programme to BBC1 Controller Michael Grade after the death of a toddler who had starved to death, locked in a bedroom. The aim of the programme was to find better ways of detecting children at risk of abuse, and to that end, viewers of That's Life! who had themselves experienced cruelty as children were asked to take part in a survey detailing the circumstances of their abuse.

Rantzen suggested that after that edition of That's Life!, the BBC should open a helpline for children, in case any young viewers suffering current abuse wished to ring in to ask for help. The helpline was open for 48 hours, during which it was swamped with calls, mainly from children suffering sexual abuse they had never been able to disclose to anyone else. This gave Rantzen the idea for a specific helpline for children in distress or danger, to be open throughout the year, 24/7, the first line of its kind in the world. The Childwatch team consulted child care professionals, who agreed that children would use such a helpline, but that it would be impossible to create.

Nevertheless the team obtained funding from the Department of Health and the Variety Club of Great Britain, both of whom donated £25,000, and Ian Skipper OBE, (a noted philanthropist who had already helped Rantzen set up a special fund in memory of Ben Hardwick), agreed to underwrite the cost of running the helpline for the first year. Rantzen and the team went to BT to ask for premises for the charity and for a simple freephone number, both of which were provided. The Childwatch programme, based on the results of the survey, launched ChildLine with a specially written jingle (by B. A. Robertson) which featured the free phone number 0800 1111. On that first night in October 1986, fifty thousand attempted calls were made to the helpline. ChildLine now has twelve bases around the UK, including two in Northern Ireland, two in Scotland, and two in Wales. In 2006 ChildLine merged with the NSPCC, which has enabled it to expand to try to meet demand. The helpline has now been copied in 150 countries around the world. For ten years on BBC1 the Childwatch series continued to campaign for more effective protection for abused children. In 1988, Rantzen created a TV series called Hearts of Gold celebrating people who have performed unsung acts of outstanding kindness or courage. The theme tune for Hearts of Gold was written by her friend Lynsey De Paul and was released as a single. After That's Life! finished its 21 year run in 1994, she presented a talk show, Esther (TV series), on BBC Two from 1996-2002. The series received two BAFTA nominations. She also presented the ITV campaigning programme, That's Esther, with co-presenters Lara Masters and Heather Mills. In 2004, Rantzen participated in the second series of the BBC One show Strictly Come Dancing (later exported to the U.S. as Dancing With The Stars). After an elegant waltz, an eccentric rumba and a disastrous tango with professional partner Anton du Beke, she was voted off, finishing in 8th place.

In 2006, Rantzen took part in the BBC Two programmes Would Like to Meet and Excuse my French, and was selected to present a new consumer affairs show with former Watchdog presenter Lynn Faulds Wood, under the title Old Dogs New Tricks. She made a documentary for ITV called Winton's Children about Sir Nicholas Winton who, as was first revealed on That's Life!, had rescued a generation of Czech children from the holocaust and was later nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. After the death of Rantzen's husband, film-maker Desmond Wilcox, she made a landmark programme, How to Have a Good Death for BBC Two, on palliative care. Recently she has campaigned on behalf of hospice care and better care for the elderly and terminally ill. She has also campaigned to raise awareness of M.E./C.F.S. (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), as her eldest daughter Emily has suffered from the condition. She created the Children of Courage segment for the BBC's Children in Need programme.

In addition to her television career, as a patron or vice-president of fifteen charities, she mainly concentrates on working for children, vulnerable older people and disabled people. Much of her voluntary effort is for ChildLine as a volunteer counsellor on the helpline, and as a fund-raiser and spokesperson for children's rights, and latterly working to set up the new helpline for isolated and vulnerable older people. ChildLine currently has 12 centres around the UK, 1500 volunteer counsellors, and answers around a million calls and on-line contacts from children each year. For twenty years she chaired ChildLine's Board of Trustees, and since ChildLine merged with the NSPCC in 2006 she has served as a Trustee of the NSPCC, as well as being President of ChildLine.

Her husband Desmond Wilcox having died in 2000, she wrote about her feelings of loneliness in two articles in the Daily Mail, and because of the huge response invented the concept of a new befriending helpline for older people, to be called The Silver Line. This is due to pilot at the end of 2012, and launch nationally in 2013.

Rantzen also edits the problems page "Ask Esther" in the children's newspaper First News.

Rantzen appeared on the 2008 series of ITV show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. Rantzen was the fifth celebrity to leave the camp. She appeared in Celebrity Cash in the Attic in 2010, raising £1,975 for ChildLine.

She has also been the face of the Accident Advice Helpline since 2003.