How That's Life! gave Esther Rantzen a career-defining moment
How That's Life! gave Esther Rantzen a career-defining moment
Annabel Rackham - Culture reporter Wed, September 30, 2026 at 6:52 PM UTC
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Dame Esther Rantzen's commitment to charitable causes is something she will forever be remembered for.
Along with founding Childline, a helpline for children, and The Silver Line, which supports older people struggling with loneliness, she also created a broadcasting legacy during her time on That's Life!
She presented the hugely popular BBC One show from 1973 to 1994, helping transform it from a consumer rights programme to an issues-based series, drawing in huge audiences.
One of her most memorable career moments came during one particular episode in 1988 - the footage of which has gone viral several times over in recent years.
Dame Esther had been told the story of Nicholas Winton, the man who had organised the rescue of 669 children from Czechoslovakia, which was occupied in 1939 by Nazi forces.
Sir Nicholas Winton in 2014 receiving the highest order of the Czech Republic, the White Lion.
Sir Nicholas was able to rescue the mainly Jewish cohort of children after briefly visiting Prague.
He was knighted in 2003 for his humanitarian work.
Sir Nicholas, who was born to German-Jewish parents, made a list of the children that needed sponsorship and found homes for them to go to in Britain.
He worked alongside activists and humanitarians in Czechoslovakia to navigate complex political obstacles, such as getting children to Britain through the Netherlands, which had closed its borders to Jewish refugees.
Sir Nicholas was ultimately successful due to a House of Commons ruling on allowing young refugees in the country, which had been passed a couple of months before his rescue mission began.
With the help of his mother, he put photos of the children in British magazines such as Picture Post to help find them homes and organised for hostels to take in some refugees too.
He managed to raise money to cover travel for the children and provide them with essentials when they reached British soil.
His incredible work went largely unreported for nearly 50 years - until his wife found a scrapbook in their loft, which contained names of children he had rescued.
It was given to Holocaust researchers, who helped track down some of the children he had helped.
Sir Nicholas' story became national news when he appeared on That's Life! in February 1988 and Dame Esther Rantzen told viewers about his story.
Dame Esther Rantzen on the set of That's Life! in 1978
Speaking in February 2024, Dame Esther said when she first got in touch with Sir Nicholas, who she called Nicky, she "congratulated him on his extraordinary achievement".
She told The Radio Times he had expressed some disappointment about his efforts, commenting that "not enough" people had been saved.
"I was devastated that he felt he had failed. I wanted to prove to this extraordinary man that every life he had saved was precious," Dame Esther added.
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She invited him onto That's Life and during his first appearance, his scrapbook was shared with the audience, and two women he had saved as children - Vera Gissing and Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines - revealed their identities to him on TV.
They were sitting either side of Sir Nicholas, who had no idea of the surprise - something Dame Esther recalled as "incredibly moving".
Lady Milena is one of the most well-recognised Holocaust survivors in the UK.
She left Prague with her younger sister Eva at the age of nine, travelling on a special train arranged by Winton.
The two sisters were looked after by a Tameside family until their mother arrived the following year, having escaped via Norway.
Gissing, who was rescued from Prague in 1939 at the age of 11, lost most of her family during the Holocaust and ended up settling in the UK after the war ended.
"That was the only time in my career when I had to stop recording to wipe away my tears," Dame Esther also said.
The production team at That's Life were then contacted by several viewers who had watched the show and realised their connection to Sir Nicholas.
That gave the show's team an idea which would go on to become one of British television's most famous moments.
"In our next episode, I asked all those who owed their lives to him to stand, and Nicky, whom we had seated on the front row, turned to see the whole ground floor of the Television Theatre on their feet," Dame Esther recalled.
1988: Holocaust hero Nicholas Winton on That's Life
'Deeply moved'
This is a TV moment many will remember and in subsequent years has been rediscovered by new audiences thanks to social media.
Dame Esther said she watched the episode "many times" and "each time found myself deeply moved".
She says she kept in contact with Sir Nicholas, meeting regularly until his death in 2015 at the age of 106.
They would always have a connection due to the TV show, but Dame Esther said hearing the stories of the children he had saved also made her feel "immensely lucky" to have been a Jew born in England in the 1940s.
Sir Nicholas' work has been the subject of a number of different films and documentaries, most recently the biopic One Life.
Starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, the film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and was released in the UK in January 2024.
Dame Esther said it had been estimated "that 6, 000 people owe their very existence to Nicholas Winton".
She added: "The Jewish children Nicky rescued were almost the only ones in Czechoslovakia to survive the Holocaust".
And thanks to Dame Esther relaying his story to viewers on That's Life!, millions of people are now aware of the huge impact Sir Nicholas had.
Dame Esther Rantzen, broadcaster, campaigner and charity founder, dies aged 86
Dame Esther Rantzen: That's Life! presenter, Childline founder and campaigner for assisted dying
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
