Tributes paid to 'remarkable' Dame Esther Rantzen

Tributes have come in from across the South to the "remarkable" broadcaster and campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen, whose death at the age of 86 was announced on Wednesday.

She was best known for presenting the BBC TV programme That's Life! for more than two decades, as well as for setting up the charity Childline.

In her later years, the legendary broadcaster permanently relocated from the capital to her cottage in Bramshaw in the New Forest, Hampshire.

Local Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis had struck up a regular correspondence with his constituent over recent years. He said Dame Esther had been "an absolutely scintillating, glittering and unforgettable personality".

She had led the "introduction of so many things of benefit to so many vulnerable groups in society", he added.

Having been born in Hertfordshire, Dame Esther studied at the University of Oxford before forging her career in London.

In 2021 Dame Esther reflected on her move to Hampshire, which came after the Covid-19 pandemic, telling BBC Radio Solent that the forest was "always my haven".

"If we had a birthday party, if we had a wedding to celebrate, it was always here in the New Forest," she said.

As a student, Dame Esther read English at Somerville College, Oxford. Reflecting on it later, she said Somerville had been "unsnobbish", adding: "It was egalitarian, it was a bit left wing, it was a bit... out there".

During her time at university, she became an enthusiastic member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society and of the Experimental Theatre Group.

After graduating, Dame Esther secured her first job at the BBC - as a trainee studio manager in radio.

Having climbed up the corporation's ranks, in May 1973 she presented the first episode of That's Life! - a consumer protection programme that became an almost instant hit.

She would go on to host the show, which over the years grew to include more quirky items whilst also fronting national campaigns, until 1994.

Possibly the most important and lasting result of any That's Life! campaign fronted by Dame Esther was the setting up of Childline in 1986 - a national telephone helpline for children suffering abuse or neglect.

Bill Buckley, a reporter on That's Life! and a former presenter on BBC Radio Solent and BBC Radio Berkshire said his former colleague and friend had been a "remarkable woman".

"She really wanted to make the world a better place, she really wanted to right wrongs, she really wanted to hold people to account and that was always her driving force," he said.

"I think Esther would like to be remembered as someone who made a difference and as someone who got things done."

In her later years, Dame Esther became a vocal advocate for the legalisation of assisted dying - after she made her stage four lung cancer diagnosis public in 2023.

In April 2024 MPs approved a bill legalising the practice for people who are terminally ill.

"Patients like me are far more confident that we can look forward to a good death, not fear a bad one," she told the BBC at the time.

The legislation failed to make it past the House of Lords, with a recent second attempt to approve it also failing in the Commons - a decision Dame Esther described as "a tragic day".

On the topic of assisted dying, Sir Julian said of his former constituent: "We didn't agree, but we had a lot of mutual respect for each other's position."

Dame Esther regularly exchanged letters with him on the topic.

"Having such an articulate spokesman for the other side of the argument to that which I took myself, was a way of demonstrating to people that we were thinking about it very seriously, and not with a closed mind," he explained.

It was in the New Forest that Dame Esther chose to spend the last years of her life.

"We knew this was going to come, but it does feel as if a light has gone out," Sir Julian said.

"She was an ornament to a wonderful part of the country."