ESTHER’S CAREER

Esther is best known for her 21-year stint on That’s Life (BBC1), hosting the magazine show from 1973 to 1994.

Her varied and acclaimed broadcasting career includes appearances on some of the UK’S biggest TV shows from Who Do You Think You Are?, Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! to Grumpy Old Women, New Tricks and Would Like To Meet.

She founded Childline, the first national helpline for children in danger or distress, in 1986 and in 2013 set up the charity The Silver Line, to help combat isolation and loneliness in older people.

That’s Life! was influential in many ways, including in the introduction of the videolink for child witnesses in court procedures, and it led to the launch of Childline after Esther suggested a Childwatch programme to BBC1 controller Michael Grade after the death of a toddler who had starved to death, locked in a bedroom. Rebecca Wilcox began her television career as an investigative undercover reporter on BBC3’S Conning The Conmen. A regular reporter and consumer journalist on Watchdog, she has also presented Your Money Their Tricks ( BBC1) with Sian Williams and Nicky Campbell and co-presented the undercover restaurant expose series Dishing The Dirt (ITV) with Phil Vickery and is a consumer expert for ITV’S This Morning. Rebecca is one of Esther’s three children, with Miriam and Joshua, with her husband and fellow broadcaster Desmond Wilcox who died in 2000.