Esther Rantzen
Encyclopedia
Esther Louise Rantzen CBE
(born 22 June 1940) is an English journalist
and television presenter who is best known for presenting the BBC television series That's Life!
, and for her work in various charitable causes. She is founder of the child protection charity ChildLine
, and also advocates the work of the Burma Campaign UK
. In July 2009 she announced that she would stand as a candidate for Parliament
in Luton South
at the 2010 general election; however, she came fourth behind the three main parties.
, Hertfordshire
, England, to Katherine Flora (née Leverson) (1911–2005) and Henry Barnato Rantzen (1902–1992). Rantzen has one younger sister, Priscilla N. Taylor (née Rantzen). She was educated at the North London Collegiate School
and Somerville College, Oxford
, where she read English, performed with the Oxford University Dramatic Society
(OUDS), became Secretary of The Experimental Theatre Club (ETC) and joined the Oxford Theatre Group, performing in Oxford and Edinburgh.
late-night satire programme, BBC3
(1965–66), created by Ned Sherrin
. Having worked as a researcher on a number of Current Affairs programmes, she moved to the award-winning BBC Two
documentary series Man Alive in the mid-1960s.
In 1968, Rantzen became one of the onscreen presenters of the BBC consumer show Braden's Week, presented by Bernard Braden
. In 1972, Braden decided to return to his native Canada to present a similar TV show there, and the following year, the BBC replaced Braden's Week with That's Life!
with Rantzen as the main presenter. The format was very similar, although well-loved comedian Cyril Fletcher
replaced announcer Ronald Fletcher to read out amusing misprints. Braden had already had a row with the BBC when he appeared in an advertisement for Stork margarine and his wife, Barbara Kelly, remained extremely bitter until her death at the fact that Rantzen and her show replaced his. However, both shows were created and developed by the gifted Welsh producer John Lloyd, who died aged 36.
That's Life! ran on BBC One for 21 years (1973 to 1994) becoming one of the most popular shows on British television, reaching audiences of more than 18 million. During that time, it expanded the traditional role of the consumer programme from simply exposing faulty washing machines and dodgy salesmen, to investigating life and death issues such as a campaign for more organ donors, featuring Ben Hardwick
, a two-year-old dying of liver disease, whose only hope was a transplant, and the investigation of a boarding school owned by a paedophile, who employed two paedophile teachers. The show's various health and safety campaigns resulted in nationwide changes; new laws were even introduced as a result of the show's campaigns, such as playground surfaces being dug up around the country and dangerous tarmac and concrete being replaced with safer surfaces. Another campaign led to a change in the law, enforcing the use of seat belts for children sitting in the backs of cars. Alongside their serious reports, however, the show still maintained more lighthearted features such as talented pets, including Prince, the talking dog, who said "sausages", a table-tennis playing cat and a counting horse. Among the talented viewers the series discovered were Annie Mizen, the show-stopping granny Rantzen met in the North End Road Street Market, a man who tap-danced on his false teeth, and another who played Amazing Grace
on his fork-lift truck. The programme popularised the term "Jobsworth
" in England by creating "The Jobsworth Award" for any official employee who insisted on applying a daft rule beyond the bounds of reason, such as clamping the car of a woman in labour in a hospital car park (because they would claim that "it's more than my job's worth not to do it").
Rantzen also devised the documentary series The Big Time
in 1976, which launched the singing career of Sheena Easton
. She also briefly hosted a junior version of That's Life in the 1980s. Rantzen was one of the founders of TV-am
, the company selected to launch ITV's breakfast television service. But before the station went on air in 1983, Rantzen dropped out, opting to remain with the BBC
. She later briefly took a consumer spot on the BBC
's own Breakfast Time
. Having made programmes about stillbirth (The Lost Babies), and mental health (Trouble in Mind), in 1985 Rantzen presented a BBC One programme on drug abuse, Drugwatch. In 1986 she produced and presented Childwatch, which alerted the British public to the prevalence of child abuse, and successfully campaigned for a number of legal reforms in this area.
Although the programme was influential in many different ways, not least in the introduction of the videolink for child witnesses in court procedures, it is notable for the launch of ChildLine
in 1986, the first national helpline for children in danger or distress. Rantzen had suggested the Childwatch programme to BBC1
Controller Michael Grade
after the death of a toddler who had starved to death, locked in a bedroom. The aim of the programme was to find better ways of detecting children at risk of abuse, and to that end, viewers of That's Life! who had themselves experienced cruelty as children were asked to take part in a survey detailing the circumstances of their abuse.
Rantzen suggested that after that edition of That's Life!, the BBC should open a helpline for children, in case any young viewers suffering current abuse wished to ring in to ask for help. The helpline was open for 48 hours, during which it was swamped with calls, mainly from children suffering sexual abuse they had never been able to disclose to anyone else. This gave Rantzen the idea for a specific helpline for children in distress or danger, to be open throughout the year, 24/7, the first line of its kind in the world. The Childwatch team consulted child care professionals, who agreed that children would use such a helpline, but that it would be impossible to create.
Nevertheless the team obtained funding from the Department of Health
and the Variety Club of Great Britain
, both of whom donated £25,000, and Ian Skipper OBE, (a noted philanthropist who had already helped Rantzen set up a special fund in memory of Ben Hardwick), agreed to underwrite the cost of running the helpline for the first year. Rantzen and the team went to BT
to ask for premises for the charity and for a simple freephone number
, both of which were provided. The Childwatch programme, based on the results of the survey, launched ChildLine with a specially written jingle (by B. A. Robertson
) which featured the free phone number 0800 1111. On that first night in October 1986, fifty thousand attempted calls were made to the helpline. ChildLine now has fourteen bases around the UK, including two in Northern Ireland, three in Scotland, and two in Wales. In 2006 ChildLine merged with the NSPCC
, which has enabled it to expand to try to meet demand. The helpline has now been copied in 150 countries around the world.
For ten years on BBC1 the Childwatch series continued to campaign for more effective protection for abused children. Rantzen has been accused by some of being the most public face in the creation of a culture of 'hysteria' and 'paranoia' around the issue of child protection. She has therefore been portrayed as being on the extreme conservative wing of the current child protection debate in the UK. However, Rantzen herself has stated that she regrets that the logical extension of some of her campaigns has been such things as schools refusing to allow grandparents to take photos of children. Policies that she is critical of. Her critics however have noted that she has been much less vociferous in using her media profile to support a scaled back 'common sense' approach to child protection than she was in initially 'building her career' by embracing and sensationalizing cases that led to this cultural shift.
In 1988, Rantzen created a TV series called Hearts of Gold celebrating people who have performed unsung acts of outstanding kindness or courage. The theme tune for "heats of Gold was written by her friend Lynsey De Paul
and was released as a single. After That's Life!
finished its 21 year run in 1994, she presented a talk show, Esther, on BBC Two from 1996-2002. The series received two BAFTA
nominations. She also presented the ITV campaigning programme, That's Esther, with co-presenters Lara Masters and Heather Mills. In 2004, Rantzen participated in the second series of the BBC One show Strictly Come Dancing
(later exported to the U.S. as Dancing With The Stars
). After an elegant waltz, an eccentric rumba and a disastrous tango with professional partner Anton du Beke, she was voted off, finishing in 8th place.
In 2006, Rantzen took part in the BBC Two programmes Would Like to Meet and Excuse my French
, and was selected to present a new consumer affairs
show with former Watchdog
presenter Lynn Faulds Wood
, under the title Old Dogs New Tricks. She made a documentary for ITV called Winton's Children about Sir Nicholas Winton
who, as was first revealed on That's Life!, had rescued a generation of Czech children from the holocaust
and he was later nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
. After the death of Rantzen's husband, film-maker Desmond Wilcox
, she made a landmark programme, How to Have a Good Death for BBC Two
, on palliative care
. Recently she has campaigned on behalf of hospice care and better care for the elderly and terminally ill. She has also campaigned to raise awareness of M.E./C.F.S. (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
), as her eldest daughter Emily has suffered from the condition. She created the Children of Courage segment for the BBC's Children in Need
programme.
In addition to her television career, as a patron or vice-president of fifteen charities, she mainly concentrates on working for children or disabled people. Most of her voluntary effort is for ChildLine as a volunteer counsellor on the helpline, and as a fund-raiser and spokesperson for children's rights. For twenty years she chaired ChildLine's Board of Trustees, and since ChildLine merged with the NSPCC, she has served as a Trustee of the NSPCC, as well as being President of ChildLine. In a 2008 Daily Mail
article that was largely critical of "politically correct" rules preventing grandparents from photographing grandchildren in nativity plays, or policewomen giving children lifts to school, Rantzen partially blamed herself: "I was part of the revolution in child protection which created these insidious jobsworths."
Rantzen also edits the problems page "Ask Esther" in the children's newspaper First News
.
Rantzen appeared on the 2008 series of ITV show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. Rantzen was the fifth celebrity to leave the camp. She appeared in Celebrity Cash in the Attic in 2010, raising £1,975 for ChildLine.
She has also been the face of the Accident Advice Helpline
since 2003.
stood for Luton South again, on Stephen Rhodes BBC Three Counties Breakfast Show. Rantzen's decision was made against the backdrop of the Parliamentary expenses scandal
and Moran's expense claims for dry rot in her second home in Southampton. Two days later, Moran announced she would not be standing at the next General Election, but Rantzen said she was still considering standing herself. Her candidacy was confirmed on 28 July 2009. Rantzen stood for election in Luton South against eleven other candidates, of whom four were independent, including Stephen Rhodes, as well as Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and UKIP candidates. Rantzen has been in contact with the Independent Network
, an organisation which seeks to support independent candidates, and attended a workshop in Birmingham in January 2010. Bookmakers were offering odds of her winning at around 6 to 1 with the Conservatives favourites to win the seat. Her political progress was documented in an online blog she wrote. At the May 2010 election, Rantzen came top of the independent candidates, but the Labour Party candidate Gavin Shuker
won the seat. In accordance with UK Parliamentary electoral process, she lost her deposit
coming fourth (behind the three main parties) with a 4.4% share of the vote as only candidates who receive over 5% of the total votes cast have their deposit returned, (Labour won with 34.9%, the Conservatives scored 29.4%, and the Liberal Democrats scored 22.7%).
, who was the head of her department and was married at the time to her friend Patsy who also worked at the BBC. After several years they decided to live together, and informed BBC management of their relationship. Management's solution was to move the entire production team of That's Life! out of Wilcox's department. What they didn't consider was that the new arrangement meant that Rantzen and Patsy were now working in the same department, causing both women concern. Patsy Wilcox had always refused to divorce her husband, but agreed when Rantzen became pregnant. After Rantzen and Wilcox married in December 1977, BBC management moved her back into General Features department run by him.
By that time, however, That's Life! was achieving huge audiences ratings, and reaching the number one position, gaining more viewers than Coronation Street
. This created tension among colleagues in General Features, who ascribed the success of the programme to Wilcox's relationship with Rantzen. They complained to management, quoting the BBC's regulation that husbands and wives should not work in the same department. As a result Desmond Wilcox resigned, and set up his own independent production company, making documentaries such as The Visit, which included a series of programmes about The Boy David. For these, as well as previous films, he received many international awards, including the Grierson Life-Time Achievement Award
in 2001. Wilcox and Rantzen had three children — Miriam Emily (now known as Emily, b. 1978), Rebecca (b. 1980), and Joshua (b. 1981). Currently, Emily is studying psychology, Rebecca
is a television producer/journalist, and Joshua is a medical student at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry.
Having suffered coronary heart disease for 15 years, Desmond Wilcox died in 2000, aged 69. After his conversion to Judaism (Rantzen is Jewish), the couple had a second wedding ceremony in 1999 in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, which was covered by Hello!
magazine. Wilcox's last words to Rantzen before he died in 2000 were "I adore you", She created a memorial service for him (as he had stipulated in St Martin's in the Fields), at which the eulogy was given by David Jackson (aka "The Boy David"). In 2007, Rantzen opened the Desmond Wilcox Media Centre in Rainhill High School, Merseyside. Each year Rantzen presents the Desmond Wilcox Award to volunteers working for the Hearing Dogs for the Deaf
charity, he having raised a large amount of funds for them. She remains single.
In 1981, Rantzen gained national media attention when, whilst filming interviews with the general public for That's Life! in London's North End Road, she attracted the attention of Police Constable A Herbert who felt that she was obstructing the pavement while handing out bat stew. After warning her to move on, the police officer arrested Rantzen for causing obstruction and she was taken away in a police van. The entire incident was filmed and shown during the next episode of the series to delighted audience response. The case later went to court and Rantzen was convicted and fined £15.
In 2009, Rantzen responded to a spate of attacks on Roma Gypsies by teenagers from loyalist areas of Belfast by commenting that violence can be addictive. The controversial statements made on the BBC's Question Time
programme were widely discussed. Responding to the attacks and Rantzen's comments, Barbara Muldoon of the Anti-Racism Network told a rally of some 500 people in Belfast that "The people of Northern Ireland - unlike in England - did not recently elect two neo-Nazis to the European parliament."
She writes regularly for the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express on social issues. She is the author of several books including an autobiography, Esther, a book on growing old disgracefully, If Not Now When, and a novel A Secret Life.
(OBE) for services to broadcasting, and has received honorary doctorates from five universities (including the Southampton Institute
, the London South Bank University
and the University of Portsmouth
) for her humanitarian work and her career as a broadcaster. She is an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford
, and Liverpool John Moores University
. She was raised to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on 17 June 2006 for services to children.
She has received a number of professional awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women in Film and Television
organisation, the Royal Television Society
's Special Judges' Award for Journalism, their Fellowship, and Membership of their Hall of Fame. She also was the first woman to receive a Dimbleby Award from BAFTA for factual presentation. She received the Snowdon Award for services to disabled people.
Rantzen is President of ChildLine, and of the Association for Young People with M.E. (AYME). She is a Patron of various hospices and charities for children and disabled people, including the Red Balloon for bullied children, the Iain Rennie Hospice at Home, the Hillingdon Manor School for autistic children, the North London Hospice, and the Campaign for Courtesy. She has also served on a number of government committees, including the National Consumer Council, the Health Education Authority and the Campaign for Quality Television.
Rantzen was also honoured in the BBC Comedy series Bottom
when she had a cocktail named after her. The cocktail consisted of Ouzo
, Pernod, marmalade
and salt.
genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? broadcast on 3 September 2008. Her paternal line was traced back, as far as the 1760s, to an established Jewish neighbourhood in Warsaw
. Tracing Rantzen's forebears was greatly helped by the rarity of the surname "Rantzen" (even in Warsaw) and the survival of records in Warsaw. In the late 1850s, her great-great-grandfather emigrated to England and settled, as a cap
-maker, in Spitalfields
, a slum
district of London's East End. Rantzen's great-grandfather moved to a more comfortable neighbourhood with the help of his brother-in-law, Barney Barnato
(born Barnett Isaacs), who had become extremely wealthy as a diamond
merchant in South Africa. Her father's middle name was Barnato.
Barnato died relatively young in unusual circumstances, being lost at sea, but left a generous legacy to his sister Sarah (nee Isaacs) Rantzen. In the BBC programme Rantzen professed her gratitude for the comfortable upbringing she had enjoyed in Hampstead
but also, having visited the site of the family home in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw later destroyed by the Nazis
after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
, she was moved by "survivor guilt
".
On her wealthy maternal side Rantzen's great-grandfather, Montague Richard Leverson, at the age of 18 accidentally fatally shot the parlour maid Priscilla Fitzpatrick at the family home in fashionable Queen Square, Bloomsbury
, London. Later, in his 30s and working as a solicitor, Montague disappeared with a very large sum of money belonging to his clients, fleeing to Paris and abandoning Rantzen's great-grandmother. She having divorced him, he then moved to the USA. He later returned to England, in his 80s, took back his nationality, and married again at the age of 82. Montague Leverson was the maternal grandfather of British composer Gerald Finzi
. Rantzen is also related to Ada Leverson, "The Sphinx", the novelist, Yellow Book contributor and friend of Oscar Wilde, portrayed in the film by Zoe Wannamaker.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 22 June 1940) is an English journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and television presenter who is best known for presenting the BBC television series That's Life!
That's Life!
That's Life! was a magazine-style television series on BBC1 between 26 May 1973 and 19 June 1994, presented by Esther Rantzen throughout the entire run, with various changes of co-presenters. The show was generally recorded about an hour prior to transmission, which was originally on Saturday...
, and for her work in various charitable causes. She is founder of the child protection charity ChildLine
ChildLine
ChildLine is a free 24 hour counselling service for children and young people up to 18 in the UK provided by the NSPCC. ChildLine deals with any issue which causes distress or concern, common issues dealt with include child abuse, bullying, parental separation or divorce, pregnancy and substance...
, and also advocates the work of the Burma Campaign UK
Burma Campaign UK
Burma Campaign UK founded in 1991 is a London based Non Governmental Organisation that aims to achieve the 'restoration of human rights and democracy in Burma . BCUK campaigns on behalf of the Burmese pro-democracy movement and is the largest campaigning organisation for Burma in Europe...
. In July 2009 she announced that she would stand as a candidate for Parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
in Luton South
Luton South (UK Parliament constituency)
Luton South is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election...
at the 2010 general election; however, she came fourth behind the three main parties.
Early life
Rantzen was born in BerkhamstedBerkhamsted
-Climate:Berkhamsted experiences an oceanic climate similar to almost all of the United Kingdom.-Castle:...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, England, to Katherine Flora (née Leverson) (1911–2005) and Henry Barnato Rantzen (1902–1992). Rantzen has one younger sister, Priscilla N. Taylor (née Rantzen). She was educated at the North London Collegiate School
North London Collegiate School
North London Collegiate School is an independent day school for girls founded in 1850 in Camden Town, and now in the London Borough of Harrow.The Good Schools Guide called the school an "Academically stunning outer London school in a glorious setting which, in 2003, demonstrated its refusal to rest...
and Somerville College, Oxford
Somerville College, Oxford
Somerville College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and was one of the first women's colleges to be founded there...
, where she read English, performed with the Oxford University Dramatic Society
Oxford University Dramatic Society
The Oxford University Dramatic Society is the principal funding body and provider of theatrical services to the many independent student productions put on by students in Oxford, England...
(OUDS), became Secretary of The Experimental Theatre Club (ETC) and joined the Oxford Theatre Group, performing in Oxford and Edinburgh.
Career
After training in secretarial skills, Rantzen was recruited by BBC Radio as a trainee studio manager. She began her television career as a clerk in the programme planning department, then obtained her first production job working as a researcher on the BBC OneBBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
late-night satire programme, BBC3
BBC-3 (TV series)
BBC-3 was a BBC television programme, devised and produced by Ned Sherrin and hosted by Robert Robinson, which aired for twenty-four hour-long editions during the winter of 1965-1966....
(1965–66), created by Ned Sherrin
Ned Sherrin
Edward George "Ned" Sherrin CBE was an English broadcaster, author and stage director. He qualified as a barrister and then worked in independent television before joining the BBC...
. Having worked as a researcher on a number of Current Affairs programmes, she moved to the award-winning BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
documentary series Man Alive in the mid-1960s.
In 1968, Rantzen became one of the onscreen presenters of the BBC consumer show Braden's Week, presented by Bernard Braden
Bernard Braden
Bernard Chastey Braden was a Canadian-born English actor and comedian.Braden was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and educated at Magee Secondary School, Kerrisdale, Vancouver. He produced plays on CJOR Vancouver in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He married Barbara Kelly in 1942 and they moved...
. In 1972, Braden decided to return to his native Canada to present a similar TV show there, and the following year, the BBC replaced Braden's Week with That's Life!
That's Life!
That's Life! was a magazine-style television series on BBC1 between 26 May 1973 and 19 June 1994, presented by Esther Rantzen throughout the entire run, with various changes of co-presenters. The show was generally recorded about an hour prior to transmission, which was originally on Saturday...
with Rantzen as the main presenter. The format was very similar, although well-loved comedian Cyril Fletcher
Cyril Fletcher
Cyril Fletcher was an English comedian; his catchphrase was 'Pin back your lugholes'. He was most famous for his Odd Odes, which was a section of the television show That's Life!. Fletcher had first begun performing the Odd Odes in 1937, long before they first appeared on television...
replaced announcer Ronald Fletcher to read out amusing misprints. Braden had already had a row with the BBC when he appeared in an advertisement for Stork margarine and his wife, Barbara Kelly, remained extremely bitter until her death at the fact that Rantzen and her show replaced his. However, both shows were created and developed by the gifted Welsh producer John Lloyd, who died aged 36.
That's Life! ran on BBC One for 21 years (1973 to 1994) becoming one of the most popular shows on British television, reaching audiences of more than 18 million. During that time, it expanded the traditional role of the consumer programme from simply exposing faulty washing machines and dodgy salesmen, to investigating life and death issues such as a campaign for more organ donors, featuring Ben Hardwick
Ben Hardwick
Benjamin Hardwick was Britain's youngest liver transplant patient. He became a celebrity through appearing on the BBC television programme That's Life! after his parents appealed for more awareness of organ donation when their son, who suffered from liver disease, urgently needed a transplant...
, a two-year-old dying of liver disease, whose only hope was a transplant, and the investigation of a boarding school owned by a paedophile, who employed two paedophile teachers. The show's various health and safety campaigns resulted in nationwide changes; new laws were even introduced as a result of the show's campaigns, such as playground surfaces being dug up around the country and dangerous tarmac and concrete being replaced with safer surfaces. Another campaign led to a change in the law, enforcing the use of seat belts for children sitting in the backs of cars. Alongside their serious reports, however, the show still maintained more lighthearted features such as talented pets, including Prince, the talking dog, who said "sausages", a table-tennis playing cat and a counting horse. Among the talented viewers the series discovered were Annie Mizen, the show-stopping granny Rantzen met in the North End Road Street Market, a man who tap-danced on his false teeth, and another who played Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace
"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn with words written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton , published in 1779. With a message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of the sins people commit and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God,...
on his fork-lift truck. The programme popularised the term "Jobsworth
Jobsworth
A jobsworth is a person who uses their job description in a deliberately uncooperative way, or who seemingly delights in acting in an obstructive or unhelpful manner....
" in England by creating "The Jobsworth Award" for any official employee who insisted on applying a daft rule beyond the bounds of reason, such as clamping the car of a woman in labour in a hospital car park (because they would claim that "it's more than my job's worth not to do it").
Rantzen also devised the documentary series The Big Time
The Big Time (TV series)
The Big Time was a British documentary and reality television series made by the BBC, which ran from 1976 to 1980.Devised and produced by Esther Rantzen and narrated initially by Rantzen but later by John Pitman, each programme followed a member of the public placed in the limelight as a result of...
in 1976, which launched the singing career of Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton is a Scottish recording artist. Easton became famous for being the focus of an episode in the British television programme The Big Time, which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and her eventual signing with EMI Records.Easton rose to fame in the early 1980s with the pop...
. She also briefly hosted a junior version of That's Life in the 1980s. Rantzen was one of the founders of TV-am
TV-am
TV-am was a breakfast television station that broadcast to the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 to 31 December 1992. It made history by being the first national operator of a commercial television franchise at breakfast-time , and broadcast every day of the week for most or all of the period...
, the company selected to launch ITV's breakfast television service. But before the station went on air in 1983, Rantzen dropped out, opting to remain with the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. She later briefly took a consumer spot on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's own Breakfast Time
Breakfast Time
Breakfast Time was British television's first national breakfast show, beating TV-am's flagship programme Good Morning Britain to the air by two weeks.The show was revolutionary for the time...
. Having made programmes about stillbirth (The Lost Babies), and mental health (Trouble in Mind), in 1985 Rantzen presented a BBC One programme on drug abuse, Drugwatch. In 1986 she produced and presented Childwatch, which alerted the British public to the prevalence of child abuse, and successfully campaigned for a number of legal reforms in this area.
Although the programme was influential in many different ways, not least in the introduction of the videolink for child witnesses in court procedures, it is notable for the launch of ChildLine
ChildLine
ChildLine is a free 24 hour counselling service for children and young people up to 18 in the UK provided by the NSPCC. ChildLine deals with any issue which causes distress or concern, common issues dealt with include child abuse, bullying, parental separation or divorce, pregnancy and substance...
in 1986, the first national helpline for children in danger or distress. Rantzen had suggested the Childwatch programme to BBC1
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
Controller Michael Grade
Michael Grade
Michael Ian Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth CBE is a British broadcast executive and businessman. He was BBC chairman from 2004 to 2006 and executive chairman of ITV plc from 2007 to 2009.-Early life:...
after the death of a toddler who had starved to death, locked in a bedroom. The aim of the programme was to find better ways of detecting children at risk of abuse, and to that end, viewers of That's Life! who had themselves experienced cruelty as children were asked to take part in a survey detailing the circumstances of their abuse.
Rantzen suggested that after that edition of That's Life!, the BBC should open a helpline for children, in case any young viewers suffering current abuse wished to ring in to ask for help. The helpline was open for 48 hours, during which it was swamped with calls, mainly from children suffering sexual abuse they had never been able to disclose to anyone else. This gave Rantzen the idea for a specific helpline for children in distress or danger, to be open throughout the year, 24/7, the first line of its kind in the world. The Childwatch team consulted child care professionals, who agreed that children would use such a helpline, but that it would be impossible to create.
Nevertheless the team obtained funding from the Department of Health
Department of Health (United Kingdom)
The Department of Health is a department of the United Kingdom government with responsibility for government policy for health and social care matters and for the National Health Service in England along with a few elements of the same matters which are not otherwise devolved to the Scottish,...
and the Variety Club of Great Britain
Variety, the Children's Charity
Variety, the Children's Charity is an organisation founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on October 10, 1927, when a group of eleven men involved in show business set up a social club which they named the "Variety Club". On Christmas Eve 1928, a small baby was left on the steps the Sheridan Square...
, both of whom donated £25,000, and Ian Skipper OBE, (a noted philanthropist who had already helped Rantzen set up a special fund in memory of Ben Hardwick), agreed to underwrite the cost of running the helpline for the first year. Rantzen and the team went to BT
BT Group
BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...
to ask for premises for the charity and for a simple freephone number
Toll-free telephone number
A toll-free, Freecall, Freephone, 800, 0800 or 1-800 number is a special telephone number which is free to the calling party, and instead the telephone carrier charges the called party the cost of the call...
, both of which were provided. The Childwatch programme, based on the results of the survey, launched ChildLine with a specially written jingle (by B. A. Robertson
B. A. Robertson
B. A. Robertson is a Scottish musician, actor, composer and songwriter.-Career:...
) which featured the free phone number 0800 1111. On that first night in October 1986, fifty thousand attempted calls were made to the helpline. ChildLine now has fourteen bases around the UK, including two in Northern Ireland, three in Scotland, and two in Wales. In 2006 ChildLine merged with the NSPCC
NSPCC
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is a United Kingdom charity campaigning and working in child protection.-History:...
, which has enabled it to expand to try to meet demand. The helpline has now been copied in 150 countries around the world.
For ten years on BBC1 the Childwatch series continued to campaign for more effective protection for abused children. Rantzen has been accused by some of being the most public face in the creation of a culture of 'hysteria' and 'paranoia' around the issue of child protection. She has therefore been portrayed as being on the extreme conservative wing of the current child protection debate in the UK. However, Rantzen herself has stated that she regrets that the logical extension of some of her campaigns has been such things as schools refusing to allow grandparents to take photos of children. Policies that she is critical of. Her critics however have noted that she has been much less vociferous in using her media profile to support a scaled back 'common sense' approach to child protection than she was in initially 'building her career' by embracing and sensationalizing cases that led to this cultural shift.
In 1988, Rantzen created a TV series called Hearts of Gold celebrating people who have performed unsung acts of outstanding kindness or courage. The theme tune for "heats of Gold was written by her friend Lynsey De Paul
Lynsey De Paul
Lynsey de Paul is an English singer-songwriter. Allmusic journalist, Craig Harris stated, "one of the first successful female singer-songwriters in England, de Paul has had an illustrious career".-Early life:De Paul was born to Meta and Herbert Rubin, a property developer...
and was released as a single. After That's Life!
That's Life!
That's Life! was a magazine-style television series on BBC1 between 26 May 1973 and 19 June 1994, presented by Esther Rantzen throughout the entire run, with various changes of co-presenters. The show was generally recorded about an hour prior to transmission, which was originally on Saturday...
finished its 21 year run in 1994, she presented a talk show, Esther, on BBC Two from 1996-2002. The series received two BAFTA
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
nominations. She also presented the ITV campaigning programme, That's Esther, with co-presenters Lara Masters and Heather Mills. In 2004, Rantzen participated in the second series of the BBC One show Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing is a British television show, featuring celebrities with professional dance partners competing in Ballroom and Latin dances. The title of the show suggests a continuation of the long-running series Come Dancing, with an allusion to the film Strictly Ballroom...
(later exported to the U.S. as Dancing With The Stars
Dancing with the Stars
Dancing with the Stars is the name of several international television series based on the format of the British TV series Strictly Come Dancing, which is distributed by BBC Worldwide – the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the format has been licensed to over 35 countries...
). After an elegant waltz, an eccentric rumba and a disastrous tango with professional partner Anton du Beke, she was voted off, finishing in 8th place.
In 2006, Rantzen took part in the BBC Two programmes Would Like to Meet and Excuse my French
Excuse My French (2006 TV series)
Excuse My French was an RDF language programme on the BBC where three celebrities with varying levels of French had one month to learn enough of the language to be able to carry out a task related to their area of expertise in French. They did this while staying in a villa in Provence. They were...
, and was selected to present a new consumer affairs
Consumer protection
Consumer protection laws designed to ensure fair trade competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The laws are designed to prevent businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors and may provide additional...
show with former Watchdog
Watchdog (TV series)
Watchdog is a BBC television series that investigates viewers' reports of problematic experiences with traders, retailers, and other companies around the UK...
presenter Lynn Faulds Wood
Lynn Faulds Wood
Lynn Faulds Wood is a British television presenter and cancer campaigner.Born in Glasgow and brought up on Loch Lomondside, she first came to prominence as "Actionwoman" on Woman magazine, then Lynn's Action Line on the Sun. She moved to consumer champion on the breakfast television programmes...
, under the title Old Dogs New Tricks. She made a documentary for ITV called Winton's Children about Sir Nicholas Winton
Nicholas Winton
Sir Nicholas George Winton, MBE is a British humanitarian who organised the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport. Winton found homes for them and arranged for their safe...
who, as was first revealed on That's Life!, had rescued a generation of Czech children from the holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
and he was later nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
. After the death of Rantzen's husband, film-maker Desmond Wilcox
Desmond Wilcox
Desmond John Wilcox was a British documentary maker at the BBC and ITV. He was producer of This Week, Man Alive and That's Life!.- Early life :...
, she made a landmark programme, How to Have a Good Death for BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
, on palliative care
Palliative care
Palliative care is a specialized area of healthcare that focuses on relieving and preventing the suffering of patients...
. Recently she has campaigned on behalf of hospice care and better care for the elderly and terminally ill. She has also campaigned to raise awareness of M.E./C.F.S. (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome is the most common name used to designate a significantly debilitating medical disorder or group of disorders generally defined by persistent fatigue accompanied by other specific symptoms for a minimum of six months, not due to ongoing exertion, not substantially...
), as her eldest daughter Emily has suffered from the condition. She created the Children of Courage segment for the BBC's Children in Need
Children in Need
Children in Need is an annual British charity appeal organised by the BBC. Since 1980 it has raised over £500 million. The highlight of the Children in Need appeal is an annual telethon, held in November. A teddy bear named "Pudsey Bear" fronts the campaign, while Terry Wogan is a long...
programme.
In addition to her television career, as a patron or vice-president of fifteen charities, she mainly concentrates on working for children or disabled people. Most of her voluntary effort is for ChildLine as a volunteer counsellor on the helpline, and as a fund-raiser and spokesperson for children's rights. For twenty years she chaired ChildLine's Board of Trustees, and since ChildLine merged with the NSPCC, she has served as a Trustee of the NSPCC, as well as being President of ChildLine. In a 2008 Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
article that was largely critical of "politically correct" rules preventing grandparents from photographing grandchildren in nativity plays, or policewomen giving children lifts to school, Rantzen partially blamed herself: "I was part of the revolution in child protection which created these insidious jobsworths."
Rantzen also edits the problems page "Ask Esther" in the children's newspaper First News
First News (newspaper)
First News is a weekly newspaper aimed at 7-14 year olds. It is in tabloid format, and aims to present current events in a child-friendly format, alongside news on entertainment, sport and computer games...
.
Rantzen appeared on the 2008 series of ITV show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. Rantzen was the fifth celebrity to leave the camp. She appeared in Celebrity Cash in the Attic in 2010, raising £1,975 for ChildLine.
She has also been the face of the Accident Advice Helpline
Accident Advice Helpline
Accident Advice Helpline Direct Ltd is a claims management company located in Stanmore, Middlesex, Greater London. They specialise in providing information and access to personal injury solicitors under the terms of the conditional fee agreement , colloquially known as no win no fee in the...
since 2003.
Parliamentary candidate
On 26 May 2009, Rantzen announced her intention to stand as an independent candidate for Parliament, if the incumbent Labour MP Margaret MoranMargaret Moran
Margaret Moran is a former Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. She was the Member of Parliament for Luton South from 1997 to 2010....
stood for Luton South again, on Stephen Rhodes BBC Three Counties Breakfast Show. Rantzen's decision was made against the backdrop of the Parliamentary expenses scandal
United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal
The United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal was a major political scandal triggered by the leak and subsequent publication by the Telegraph Group in 2009 of expense claims made by members of the United Kingdom Parliament over several years...
and Moran's expense claims for dry rot in her second home in Southampton. Two days later, Moran announced she would not be standing at the next General Election, but Rantzen said she was still considering standing herself. Her candidacy was confirmed on 28 July 2009. Rantzen stood for election in Luton South against eleven other candidates, of whom four were independent, including Stephen Rhodes, as well as Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and UKIP candidates. Rantzen has been in contact with the Independent Network
Independent Network
The Independent Network is a United Kingdom-based non-profit organisation supporting independent politicians and political candidates.Founded in 2005, the IN consists of supporters and volunteers who advocate non-partisan politics. Martin Bell and Richard Taylor have been involved...
, an organisation which seeks to support independent candidates, and attended a workshop in Birmingham in January 2010. Bookmakers were offering odds of her winning at around 6 to 1 with the Conservatives favourites to win the seat. Her political progress was documented in an online blog she wrote. At the May 2010 election, Rantzen came top of the independent candidates, but the Labour Party candidate Gavin Shuker
Gavin Shuker
Gavin Shuker is an English Labour Co-operative politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Luton South since 2010. Shuker successfully defended the seat after his predecessor Margaret Moran stood down following controversy over her expenses.-Education:A Lutonian, Shuker was educated at...
won the seat. In accordance with UK Parliamentary electoral process, she lost her deposit
Deposit (politics)
A deposit is a sum of money that a candidate must pay in return for the right to stand for election to certain political offices, particularly seats in legislatures.-United Kingdom:...
coming fourth (behind the three main parties) with a 4.4% share of the vote as only candidates who receive over 5% of the total votes cast have their deposit returned, (Labour won with 34.9%, the Conservatives scored 29.4%, and the Liberal Democrats scored 22.7%).
Personal life
In 1968 Rantzen fell in love with Desmond WilcoxDesmond Wilcox
Desmond John Wilcox was a British documentary maker at the BBC and ITV. He was producer of This Week, Man Alive and That's Life!.- Early life :...
, who was the head of her department and was married at the time to her friend Patsy who also worked at the BBC. After several years they decided to live together, and informed BBC management of their relationship. Management's solution was to move the entire production team of That's Life! out of Wilcox's department. What they didn't consider was that the new arrangement meant that Rantzen and Patsy were now working in the same department, causing both women concern. Patsy Wilcox had always refused to divorce her husband, but agreed when Rantzen became pregnant. After Rantzen and Wilcox married in December 1977, BBC management moved her back into General Features department run by him.
By that time, however, That's Life! was achieving huge audiences ratings, and reaching the number one position, gaining more viewers than Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
. This created tension among colleagues in General Features, who ascribed the success of the programme to Wilcox's relationship with Rantzen. They complained to management, quoting the BBC's regulation that husbands and wives should not work in the same department. As a result Desmond Wilcox resigned, and set up his own independent production company, making documentaries such as The Visit, which included a series of programmes about The Boy David. For these, as well as previous films, he received many international awards, including the Grierson Life-Time Achievement Award
Grierson Awards
The Grierson Awards celebrate innovative and exciting new documentary films. The awards have been set up by The Grierson Trust to commemorate the life and work of world renowned Documentary Filmmaker John Grierson. The awards were first set-up in 1972 and have run annually...
in 2001. Wilcox and Rantzen had three children — Miriam Emily (now known as Emily, b. 1978), Rebecca (b. 1980), and Joshua (b. 1981). Currently, Emily is studying psychology, Rebecca
Rebecca Wilcox
Rebecca Wilcox is an English television presenter, mainly for the BBC.The middle of three children born to journalist turned television presenter Esther Rantzen and producer Desmond Wilcox, she has an older sister Emily and younger brother Josh...
is a television producer/journalist, and Joshua is a medical student at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry.
Having suffered coronary heart disease for 15 years, Desmond Wilcox died in 2000, aged 69. After his conversion to Judaism (Rantzen is Jewish), the couple had a second wedding ceremony in 1999 in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, which was covered by Hello!
Hello!
Hello is a weekly magazine specializing in celebrity news and human-interest stories, published in the United Kingdom since 1988. Hello is sister magazine to ¡Hola!, the Spanish weekly magazine launched in Spain in 1944...
magazine. Wilcox's last words to Rantzen before he died in 2000 were "I adore you", She created a memorial service for him (as he had stipulated in St Martin's in the Fields), at which the eulogy was given by David Jackson (aka "The Boy David"). In 2007, Rantzen opened the Desmond Wilcox Media Centre in Rainhill High School, Merseyside. Each year Rantzen presents the Desmond Wilcox Award to volunteers working for the Hearing Dogs for the Deaf
Hearing Dogs for Deaf People
Hearing Dogs for Deaf People is a British charitable organisation founded in 1982.-External links and references:*...
charity, he having raised a large amount of funds for them. She remains single.
In 1981, Rantzen gained national media attention when, whilst filming interviews with the general public for That's Life! in London's North End Road, she attracted the attention of Police Constable A Herbert who felt that she was obstructing the pavement while handing out bat stew. After warning her to move on, the police officer arrested Rantzen for causing obstruction and she was taken away in a police van. The entire incident was filmed and shown during the next episode of the series to delighted audience response. The case later went to court and Rantzen was convicted and fined £15.
In 2009, Rantzen responded to a spate of attacks on Roma Gypsies by teenagers from loyalist areas of Belfast by commenting that violence can be addictive. The controversial statements made on the BBC's Question Time
Question Time
Question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers , which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be cancelled in exceptional circumstances...
programme were widely discussed. Responding to the attacks and Rantzen's comments, Barbara Muldoon of the Anti-Racism Network told a rally of some 500 people in Belfast that "The people of Northern Ireland - unlike in England - did not recently elect two neo-Nazis to the European parliament."
She writes regularly for the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express on social issues. She is the author of several books including an autobiography, Esther, a book on growing old disgracefully, If Not Now When, and a novel A Secret Life.
Honours
In 1991, Rantzen was made an Officer of the Order of the British EmpireOrder of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(OBE) for services to broadcasting, and has received honorary doctorates from five universities (including the Southampton Institute
Southampton Solent University
Southampton Solent University is a university of 17,000 students based in Southampton, United Kingdom. Its main campus is located on East Park Terrace near the city centre....
, the London South Bank University
London South Bank University
London South Bank University is a university in south London. With over 25,000 students and 1,700 staff, it is based in the London Borough of Southwark, near the South Bank of the River Thames, from which it takes its name...
and the University of Portsmouth
University of Portsmouth
The University of Portsmouth is a university in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. The University was ranked 60th out of 122 in The Sunday Times University Guide...
) for her humanitarian work and her career as a broadcaster. She is an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford
Somerville College, Oxford
Somerville College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and was one of the first women's colleges to be founded there...
, and Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool John Moores University is a British 'modern' university located in the city of Liverpool, England. The university is named after John Moores and was previously called Liverpool Mechanics' School of Arts and later Liverpool Polytechnic before gaining university status in 1992, thus...
. She was raised to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on 17 June 2006 for services to children.
She has received a number of professional awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women in Film and Television
Women in Film and Television International
Women In Film & Television International is a global network of some 37 Women In Film chapters worldwide with over 10,000 members, dedicated to advancing professional development and achievement for women working in all areas of film, video, and other screen-based media...
organisation, the Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...
's Special Judges' Award for Journalism, their Fellowship, and Membership of their Hall of Fame. She also was the first woman to receive a Dimbleby Award from BAFTA for factual presentation. She received the Snowdon Award for services to disabled people.
Rantzen is President of ChildLine, and of the Association for Young People with M.E. (AYME). She is a Patron of various hospices and charities for children and disabled people, including the Red Balloon for bullied children, the Iain Rennie Hospice at Home, the Hillingdon Manor School for autistic children, the North London Hospice, and the Campaign for Courtesy. She has also served on a number of government committees, including the National Consumer Council, the Health Education Authority and the Campaign for Quality Television.
Rantzen was also honoured in the BBC Comedy series Bottom
Bottom (TV series)
Bottom was a British sitcom television series that originally aired on BBC2 between 1991 and 1995. It was written by comic duo Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson who star as Richie and Eddie, two flatmates living on the dole in Hammersmith, London...
when she had a cocktail named after her. The cocktail consisted of Ouzo
Ouzo
Ouzo is an anise-flavored aperitif that is widely consumed in Greece and Cyprus, and a symbol of Greek culture.-History:Traditionally, tsipouro is said to have been the pet project of a group of 14th century monks living in a monastery on holy Mount Athos. One version of it is flavored with anise...
, Pernod, marmalade
Marmalade
Marmalade is a fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits, boiled with sugar and water. The benchmark citrus fruit for marmalade production in Britain is the "Seville orange" from Spain, Citrus aurantium var...
and salt.
Family origins
Rantzen was the subject of an episode of the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? broadcast on 3 September 2008. Her paternal line was traced back, as far as the 1760s, to an established Jewish neighbourhood in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
. Tracing Rantzen's forebears was greatly helped by the rarity of the surname "Rantzen" (even in Warsaw) and the survival of records in Warsaw. In the late 1850s, her great-great-grandfather emigrated to England and settled, as a cap
Flat cap
A flat cap is a rounded men or women's cap with a small stiff brim in front. Cloths used to make the cap include original wool, tweed , and cotton. Less common materials may include leather. Cord flat caps are also worn in various colours. The inside of the cap is usually lined with silk for...
-maker, in Spitalfields
Spitalfields
Spitalfields is a former parish in the borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London, near to Liverpool Street station and Brick Lane. The area straddles Commercial Street and is home to many markets, including the historic Old Spitalfields Market, founded in the 17th century, Sunday...
, a slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
district of London's East End. Rantzen's great-grandfather moved to a more comfortable neighbourhood with the help of his brother-in-law, Barney Barnato
Barney Barnato
Barney Barnato , born Barnet Isaacs, was a British Randlord, one of the entrepreneurs who gained control of diamond mining, and later gold mining, in South Africa from the 1870s.-Background:...
(born Barnett Isaacs), who had become extremely wealthy as a diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
merchant in South Africa. Her father's middle name was Barnato.
Barnato died relatively young in unusual circumstances, being lost at sea, but left a generous legacy to his sister Sarah (nee Isaacs) Rantzen. In the BBC programme Rantzen professed her gratitude for the comfortable upbringing she had enjoyed in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
but also, having visited the site of the family home in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw later destroyed by the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp....
, she was moved by "survivor guilt
Survivor guilt
Survivor, survivor's, or survivors guilt or syndrome is a mental condition that occurs when a person perceives themselves to have done wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not...
".
On her wealthy maternal side Rantzen's great-grandfather, Montague Richard Leverson, at the age of 18 accidentally fatally shot the parlour maid Priscilla Fitzpatrick at the family home in fashionable Queen Square, Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury
-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...
, London. Later, in his 30s and working as a solicitor, Montague disappeared with a very large sum of money belonging to his clients, fleeing to Paris and abandoning Rantzen's great-grandmother. She having divorced him, he then moved to the USA. He later returned to England, in his 80s, took back his nationality, and married again at the age of 82. Montague Leverson was the maternal grandfather of British composer Gerald Finzi
Gerald Finzi
Gerald Raphael Finzi was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a song-writer, but also wrote in other genres...
. Rantzen is also related to Ada Leverson, "The Sphinx", the novelist, Yellow Book contributor and friend of Oscar Wilde, portrayed in the film by Zoe Wannamaker.