Dame Esther Rantzen: That's Life! presenter, Childline founder and campaigner for assisted dying
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Dame Esther Rantzen: That's Life! presenter, Childline founder and assisted dying campaigner - BBC News
Dame Esther Rantzen, who has died at the age of 86, was best known for presenting the BBC TV programme That's Life!
Over two decades, what started as a consumer programme with quirky asides became renowned for its high-profile campaigns, notably against child abuse.
It resulted in Dame Esther setting up Childline, a national telephone helpline for children suffering abuse or neglect.
She later became a renowned campaigner for older people and, in the last years of her life, for the legalisation of medically-assisted death.
How That's Life! gave Esther Rantzen a career-defining moment
Esther Louise Rantzen was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire on 22 June 1940. Her paternal ancestors were Polish Jews.
Her father, Henry, who worked as a broadcast engineer for the BBC, had moved the family out of London to escape German bombing during World War Two.
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