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

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But these are not ordinary folk from middle Britain, the normal protagonists on Esther Rantzen's afternoon programme. This time, the devoted widow is Miss Rantzen herself. My three children Miriam, Rebecca and Joshua have been the most wonderful support, company, and source of love and laughter and I am deeply grateful to them.” Now, that she told the public about her cancer, many of her well-wishers are intrigued to know more about her smoking history. Talking about how she always asked people 'How do you do?' when meeting, Esther added: "Unfortunately, as I grumble in my new book, people now say 'How are you?' So actually I could give a complete list of everything that has been stopped, collapsed, lifted...no I may not tell you about that."

During the birth of Rebecca’s first child, Rantzen was jokingly dismissive of her daughter’s all-natural yoga-breathing birth plan, responding with ‘epidural, epidural, epidural’. In hospital, during a sharp contraction, she again said ‘epidural’, causing Rebecca to fling a plastic cup of water in her direction. ‘The nurse was so upset, not because my birth plan had been undermined, but because I had dared to throw water at a national treasure,’ Rebecca laughs. ‘In the end, mum was totally right. She always is, annoyingly, but it sometimes takes a long time to realise it.’ 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’. Esther, who was a trailblazer for several female broadcasters, became a household name during her time at the BBC. We pray for her health and wish her a speedy recovery. Esther Rantzen Personal Life ExploredMy 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. Rantzen went public in January with her diagnosis, saying in a statement: “I have decided not to keep this secret any more because I find it difficult to skulk around various hospitals wearing an unconvincing disguise, and because I would rather you heard the facts from me.

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. Most wounding of all, Cassandra claims that the TV star left Desmond Wilcox alone on the night before he died. But a source close to Rantzen said yesterday: 'Esther left Desmond's side briefly to fetch a Jewish prayer book and she is terribly keen to set the record straight over that. But she was very definitely with Desmond when he died.'

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And the embittered step-daughter is Cassandra, the child of legendary TV producer Desmond Wilcox, to whom Rantzen was happily and very publicly devoted for 32 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? Esther Rantzen is not just an ordinary journalist and television presenter next door, but she has offered many contributions to society.