Back in the day That’s Life, on BBC1, was part of many people’s Sunday evening entertainment. Strange and wonderful characters and investigations from across the country were broadcast to the nation by Esther Rantzen and her team. One Sunday evening a Dorset police officer, based at the time in Weymouth, brought his in-laws’ talented parrot Olive to our screens. Olive could sing (well, sort of) and could mimic a trim phone. Living in The Park Hotel, Weymouth, Olive became a semi-famous local personality. Although Olive is no longer with us and PC Clive Chamberlain is now retired, the death of Esther Rantzen seems as good as time as any to remember our talented feathered friend.
How many can remember, Olive, Clive and The Park Hotel in the days of Sheila and David Biddlecombe?
A Tribute to Esther Rantzen
Dame Esther Rantzen, who has died aged 86, will be remembered for many things — Childline, The Silver Line, her campaigning and her extraordinary compassion, but for millions of Britons, she will always be the woman who made That’s Life! essential Sunday-night television.
For 21 years, from 1973 to 1994, Esther was the face of the BBC’s hugely popular consumer affairs programme, a show that managed to be funny, irreverent and mischievous while tackling some extraordinarily serious subjects.
That’s Life! was unlike almost anything else on British television. It could expose a dodgy product, investigate an outrageous consumer complaint and then have the nation laughing minutes later. It mixed investigative journalism with satire, human stories and a distinctive sense of humour.
But beneath the laughs was serious journalism.
The programme was prepared to take on subjects that were uncomfortable, disturbing and sometimes genuinely shocking. It investigated issues involving abuse, medical problems, dangerous products and failures by institutions that might otherwise have escaped public scrutiny.
Esther understood something that many broadcasters never quite grasped: serious journalism did not have to be solemn to be effective.
That’s Life! could make people laugh and then make them angry, upset or determined to demand change.
It also pioneered the idea that ordinary people mattered. Viewers were encouraged to come forward with their experiences and complaints, and the programme frequently transformed what might have been dismissed as an individual’s problem into a national story.
The programme’s success was extraordinary. It became one of Britain’s best-loved television programmes and turned Esther into a household name.
Yet perhaps its greatest achievement happened when the cameras were switched off.
Following a That’s Life! programme about a toddler who had starved to death, a temporary helpline was opened for viewers affected by the broadcast. The response was overwhelming.
Among those calling were children who were disclosing sexual abuse for the first time.
Esther realised that there needed to be somewhere specifically designed for children to speak about abuse and distress. That realisation led to the creation of Childline in 1986, one of the most important legacies of That’s Life!.
It is difficult to imagine a more powerful demonstration of what television journalism can achieve.
Esther did not regard viewers merely as an audience. She listened to them.
That instinct remained with her throughout her life. She later founded The Silver Line for lonely older people and, after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2023, became a prominent campaigner for assisted dying.
But it is That’s Life! that remains the defining television legacy.
Esther Rantzen proved that investigative journalism could be popular without being dumbed down, that humour could sit alongside serious reporting, and that television could actually make a difference to people’s lives.
She brought warmth to broadcasting without sacrificing journalistic purpose.
She was funny, fearless, occasionally mischievous and deeply human.
And when Britons think back to those That’s Life! years, many will remember more than a television programme.
They will remember Esther Rantzen, sitting in their living rooms, asking the questions, championing the underdog, exposing the absurd and, very often, making the nation laugh.
British television will not see her like again.
