Esther Rantzen, the television personality and founder of Childline and the Silver Line telephone support services, has spoken about the sexual abuse she suffered in childhood.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs about the scandal surrounding the paedophile Jimmy Savile’s crimes at the BBC, Rantzen said television executives needed to remain alert to prevent children from being targeted.
“Paedophiles need access to children, so they will persuade the people who guard the threshold to let them through it. So in the entertainment industry we have to be aware.”
She spoke about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of a older male in childhood. “He was not a blood relative. I can still see him now. He used to call me ‘Bright Eyes’. It was not the most serious of assaults, but horrible. I told my lovely mum and she didn’t really believe it. She cared about the social circle and not creating problems. She probably wanted me to carry on meeting him, which I did until I was 18.”
There will always be a need for a charity like Childline, Rantzen argued, despite greater recognition of the prevalence of child abuse in society. “I reckon we will have to be there for ever. Children will always need to talk to a stranger about something they can’t say at home.”
Rantzen also spoke about the value of being a member of a minority ethnic community. Choosing the score to the Steven Spielberg film Schindler’s List as one of her allotted eight tracks, she told presenter Lauren Laverne she had come to realise “how much I owe my Jewish heritage”. “It is important to be a member of a minority, I think, because it teaches you so much about tolerance,” Rantzen, 78, said.
She also recalled her father’s working experiences. A Jewish engineer and inventor, he suffered discrimination in some jobs, but found a safe harbour working at the BBC for many years under the corporation’s first director-general, Lord Reith.
