Veteran broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen dies aged 86
42 minutes ago
Dame Esther Rantzen, who presented BBC show That's Life! for 21 years and launched the charity Childline, has died at the age of 86.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the veteran broadcaster and campaigner had "changed countless lives".
Dame Esther hosted and produced That's Life! during its run from 1973 to 1994. It regularly attracted 20 million viewers for its mixture of serious consumer investigations and light-hearted items.
She launched Childline, a British counselling service for children and young people, in 1986, and in 2013 she launched Silver Line to help elderly people suffering from isolation and loneliness. Later in life, she became a prominent campaigner for the legalisation of assisted dying.
She had been terminally ill with lung cancer. In December 2023, she revealed she had joined Dignitas, the Swiss assisted dying clinic.
But in a statement given to the Press Association earlier this month, she said that despite having "spent the money and made the plans" to go to Dignitas, she had since reached the point where she was "too physically fragile to make the journey".
She added that the law must "change and change quickly", as she renewed her plea ahead of the latest debate and vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which failed to pass through the Commons.
Copyright for this text belongs to BBC.