FIGURES FROM ACROSS the worlds of UK politics, show business and journalism have been paying tribute to Esther Rantzen, following the death of the broadcaster and campaigner at the age of 86. 

Rantzen was best known on this side of the Irish Sea for her consumer champion role as the mainstay of the long-running BBC show That’s Life. 

She also founded the children’s charity Childline and in later years was an impassioned campaigner for the campaign to legalise assisted dying for the terminally ill. 

A satirical consumer affairs show, That’s Life was a ratings behemoth for the BBC and ran for over 20 years, from 1973. 

The show, which was also hugely popular in Ireland, was an odd mix of consumer campaigning interspersed with humorous readings of press cuttings, funny poems and reports about talking dogs.

Rantzen also hosted a sequence that’s regularly cited as one of the most memorable TV moments ever – a tribute to humanitarian Nicholas Winton, who organised the rescue of hundreds of children who had been destined for Nazi concentration camps.

Winton, a stockbroker, arranged trains to carry Jewish children out of occupied Prague and worked to find British families to look after them throughout the Second World War. 

He kept quiet about his efforts for decades – until the famous segment on That’s Life in 1988 when he was surprised by dozens of the children, now adults, that he had saved. 

In the wake of the announcement of Rantzen’s death, broadcaster Lewis Goodall described the item as “possibly the greatest moment of all television, of all time”. 

Goodbye to Dame Esther Rantzen.
Thanks for this all time great TV moment… pic.twitter.com/GkrCh897Ft

— Matthew Lumby (@MatthewLumby) September 30, 2026

Nicholas Winton’s life was later dramatised in a 2023 movie starring Johnny Flynn as a younger Winton and Anthony Hopkins as a 79-year-old Winton looking back at his past. 

Winton himself died aged 106 in 2015.

Tributes 

Former BBC chairman Michael Grade described Rantzen as a “genius producer” and said he had tried to convince her to become a network controller.

He told Times Radio: “She would have been brilliant, but she was a good judge of what was the right thing for her.

“We’ll never see another person with that kind of determination and skill and popular support and fame to use her platform to do good and change the world and make the world a better place.”

Strictly Come Dancing judge Anton Du Beke, TV presenter Davina McCall and broadcaster Martin Lewis were also among the personalities paying tribute to a UK “national treasure”.

Rantzen was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2023. 

In a statement on Wednesday announcing her death, the broadcaster’s family remembered her as “the most wonderful mother” and a “cherished grandmother”.