IS REVIVED, ESTHER LOOKS BACK
TOP TEAM Esther with Paul Heiney, Cyril Fletcher, Chris Searle and Richard Stilgoe JOKES One of the funny signs featured All the team would disguise themselves and then burst out on unsuspecting members of the public, encouraging them to sing and dance with us. It was called Get Britain Singing.
I took part only once, dressed as a nurse. I went into a men’s hospital ward and had let out one note when I heard a death rattle in the corner. I realised I’d killed someone so decided never to risk it again.
But Gavin Campbell was brilliant – though a little worried he was being typecast – because, due to the fact he That’s Life! quite often offered helplines on subjects we dealt with.
When we opened one for children suffering abuse – for just 48 hours – we had around 100 calls from kids who had never been able to ask for help.
It was then I had a lightbulb moment and realised that this was more important than anything else we’d ever talked about on the show.
I said: “Do you think it would be possible to launch a helpline for young people that could be open every day.”
Then we put together a programme called Childwatch and launched the service. Since then 4.5 million children have been helped by the incredible, dedicated team behind Childline. Victoria Wood once said: “I don’t know why they go on about Esther’s teeth. Have you seen her dresses?”
That was after she appeared on a series of That’s Life!, right. And, to be fair, my dresses were a bit strange.
We had all sorts of famous faces on the show – including Molly Sugden from Are You Being Served? and Richard Stilgoe.
Comic geniuses Les Dawson and Spike Milligan appeared in items.
Boy George did too. Because we’d had some complaints from some members of his fan club one of our very talented reporters, Bill Buckley, dressed up as him and started singing one of his numbers. The man was well over 6ft, we tended to dress him as a woman. We achieved a miracle at Liverpool Flower Festival when Adrian Mills, dressed as a scarecrow, jerked into life. A woman in a wheelchair was so terrified she leapt out of it and ran away. Little Ben was two years old and had just days to live when we were contacted by his mum Debbie asking us to highlight his situation.
Like lots of people, his only hope was a liver transplant but organ donation in Britain had virtually stopped. So That’s Life! filmed him and he was such a beautiful child that the whole nation took him to their hearts.
He was on the front page of every paper and Marti Webb even recorded a charity single for him, a cover of Michael Jackson song, Ben.
His plight affected me deeply. He was the same age as my son and I still remember being called in the middle of the night to be told he’d passed away. It was terrible.
But, thanks to Ben, transplants shot up and other little children, many regarded as having little hope, suddenly had their lives saved. himself crept up behind him – and they ended up singing a duet. We loved surprises on the show. We needed to stay unpredictable.