Older and Bolder: My A-Z of surviving almost everything

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Multi-award-winning broadcaster, founder of Childline and The Silver Line, campaigner, mother, grandmother and joyous trailblazer of our times, Dame Esther Rantzen dazzles in the glory of getting older and ever bolder. Yes, I was a complete wimp. Although being controller is such a huge, demanding job it would have meant I spent far less time supporting Childline. And I would have had to give up That’s Life!, which would have meant not exposing Crookham Court, a boarding school owned by a paedophile who employed several paedophile teachers and routinely abused the boys. In my childhood, older people were at the centre of family life. I saw my grandmothers every week. Now families are so scattered, many older people live on their own, not wanting to become a ‘burden’. That’s one of the two ‘b’ words we hear most often at the Silver Line, the other being ‘busy’. In 1968, Rantzen, at the time a researcher for Braden's Week, became a presenter for the show, then a few years later the BBC replaced Braden's Week with That's Life! with Rantzen as the main presenter. That's Life! ran on BBC1 for 21 years becoming one of the most popular shows on British television.

Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life. She is now at her New Forest home and ‘enjoying each day in a granular way that I never did when I was tearing around like a wasp in a jam jar’, she says. ‘Having stage 4 cancer does concentrate the mind, and makes each day even more precious.’We may not all achieve what Dame Esther has, but here we can soak up her wisdom, laugh with her, learn from her, embrace the passing years and march boldly on. Read more Details From 1st July 2021, VAT will be applicable to those EU countries where VAT is applied to books - this additional charge will be collected by Fed Ex (or the Royal Mail) at the time of delivery. Shipments to the USA & Canada: My garden is a constant pleasure. It’s great fun watching the tadpoles grow legs and shed their tails. An extraordinary development; it makes human puberty look like nothing.

Read more: ITV Love Island winners Davide Sanclimenti and Ekin-Su Culculoglu split after 11 months together Miriam, who has ME and lives at home with Rantzen, is clearly extremely proud of her mum. ‘It’s very moving when people helped by Childline or the Silver Line share what her work means to them,’ she says. ‘But my overriding gratitude is for everything that Mum has taught me about cultivating joy, and being creative and undaunted in the face of challenges.’ The 82-year-old revealed more about her condition as she sat down for an interview with The One Show host Alex Jones in the garden of her New Forest home on Friday night (June 30). Asking her where she is now with her diagnosis, Esther heartbreakingly replied that she had asked her doctor when she is going to die. When I was a child, I had a local GP who was on call day and night. Now I have a local surgery with a group of GPs, all excellent, and I don’t mind having telephone conversations instead of trips to the surgery.There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.

I’m not good at regrets. What I treasure most are the fantastic friendships I have made thanks to That’s Life! during the last 50 years, the people I met, and the team who worked so hard, and laughed so hard, together for so long.” During her interview on The One Show, Dame Esther said specialists have warned that she will die "sometime in the next 10 years". In spite of this grim diagnosis, she is continuing to fight the disease after coming to terms with the fact she has cancer. Patsy Wilcox had always refused to divorce her husband, but agreed when Rantzen became pregnant. Rantzen and Wilcox later married in December 1977.I recognise how much I owe to being Jewish. The closeness of my family, the priority of education, the culture we share as Jews are the basis of so many of my values. And I have found that it’s very important to be a member of a minority, and to recognise how much the tolerant majority has given me, in terms of opportunities and experiences. We Jews need to pass on the same tolerance and opportunities to other minorities, don’t we? I have an observant daughter and she constantly keeps me in touch with the High Holy Days, but I have become agnostic myself over the years. If they tell us they feel suicidal because they cannot bear being in the wrong body, we take that seriously. In every case, we see our role as giving the child confidence, and assuring them that they are valued, and that we care about their safety. You have three adult children: Miriam, 45, Rebecca, 43, and Joshua, 41. What have you learned about parenting, specifically parenting during the difficult teen years? The 82-year-old has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. She shared her diagnosis with the public in January and since then she has been receiving treatment and trying to remain positive. She says she has been "skulking around various hospitals wearing unconvincing disguises" as she opened up about her cancer battle with Alex Jones on The One Show. In 1976, Rantzen devised the documentary series The Big Time, which launched Sheena Easton's singing career. Childline was launched on the BBC series called Childwatch, which revealed that child abuse, especially sexual abuse, was far more common than the public realised and that the vast majority of it happened within families. So painful was this message that one tabloid called Childwatch ‘the most dangerous show on television’.