Esther Rantzen

Back when Mrs Thatcher was prime minister, it was said there were three powerful women in Britain. There was Mrs Thatcher herself; there was the Queen; and there was Esther Rantzen. Breaking into television at a time when it was very much a man’s world, she became one of the most recognisable and powerful voices in the country, thanks to her Sunday-night show, That’s Life, which ran for 21 years. In today’s fragmented television world, it’s almost unbelievable quite how popular that programme was in the 70s and 80s; up to 22 million people tuned in for a mix of consumer affairs, cheeky vox pops, and rudely shaped root vegetables sent in by viewers. It was a programme that exposed both faulty washing machines and the shortage of organ donors, and it created some serious social campaigns. In 1986 Esther Rantzen set up Childline, which is now run by the NSPCC, and in 2012 she launched Silver Line, offering support to older people. In 2015 she was made a Dame for services to children and older people.

In conversation with Michael Berkeley Esther Rantzen looks back on her early days in broadcasting, when her job was to create sound effects for dramas by running round the studio flapping a huge umbrella (to simulate a pterodactyl, apparently). She talks about how she began to realize the scale of abuse suffered by the children in this country, which led to the creation of Childline. She reveals, too, the pleasure she takes now in living in the country, leaving her career behind, and realising that life is for living, not working.

Music choices include Elgar, Georges Brassens, Brahms’s Double Concerto, Grieg, and Carmen Jones.

Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3