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Dame Esther Rantzen was honoured with the Gold Medal at the Royal Television Society Awards on Tuesday night, the charity’s highest accolade.
The Childline founder, 83, was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer last year and it was announced earlier this month she had registered for the assisted-dying clinic Dignitas, in Switzerland.
Rebecca Willcox, Dame Esther’s daughter, accepted the honour on her mother’s behalf at the ceremony at The Grosvenor House Hotel in London on Tuesday – as the broadcaster was too unwell to attend.
The award was presented by Susanna Reid, who called Esther ‘television’s original consumer’s champion and its most fearless campaigner’.
In an emotional speech after the ceremony, Rebecca said it ‘infuriates’ her that her mother had not been well enough to go to the event and accept the award herself.
Dame Esther Rantzen was honoured with the Gold Medal at the Royal Television Society Awards in London on Tuesday
Rebecca Willcox, Dame Esther’s daughter, accepted the honour on her mother’s behalf at the ceremony at The Grosvenor House Hotel – as the broadcaster was too unwell to attend
‘It’s totally bizarre to accept this on behalf of mum because she should be here,’ Rebecca said.
‘It was such a wonderful speech that Susanna Reid did and such a warm feeling from the room and it infuriates me that she can’t be here.’
Rebecca added: ‘Her health doesn’t allow it but I hope that she’s going to see it and I hope that she can feel what we all felt in the room.’
Dame Esther has joined the call by campaigners for a change to the law on assisted dying in the UK and led a chorus of dismay after a much-anticipated report by MPs into assisted dying failed to deliver any clear-cut findings or proposals.
Appearing on Vanessa Feltz’s Talk TV show earlier this month, Rebecca, 44, said her mother’s ‘ideal death’ would be surrounded by her loved ones but due to UK laws she cannot be accompanied by her family to Switzerland.
Under the law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland assisting suicide is punishable with up to 14 years in prison. There is no specific offence in Scotland.
Rebecca said: ‘Vanessa this is impossible I have been fine with every other interview but because it is you and you are a friend of the family, I’m finding it hard to verbalize it.
The award was presented by Susanna Reid , who called Esther ‘television’s original consumer’s champion and its most fearless campaigner’
In an emotional speech after the ceremony, Rebecca said it ‘infuriates’ her that her mother had not been well enough to go to the event and accept the award herself (Pictured in 2018)
‘It’s totally bizarre to accept this on behalf of mum because she should be here,’ Rebecca said (Pictured in
‘It is the question you can’t answer, as you know: ‘How is she?’ as everybody knows who has experienced cancer. You are as good as your last scan and for the moment the miracle drug she is on is working and is a holding drug.
‘The report which was clearly very thorough and sympathetic to everybody’s cause and spoke to a really wide range of society for people who have experienced it whose loved ones has done it, doctors, countries where it works and the interesting thing that I take away from it is the thing people worry about that palliative care will be degraded and that we will bring in euthanasia for those who just don’t want to carry on living.
‘We are not talking about the mental health side of things. We are talking about a physical illness which has a terminal diagnosis where your life would end within around six months.
‘It’s a question of saving people from a painful, undignified death.
‘Mum’s ideal death, my ideal death that I imagine, I share this with many people would be to be in bed surrounded by my loved ones.
‘Take a very gentle cocktail of whatever it may be, and I know I’m simply [saying] buying the medicine here, but then to gently drift off holding their hands. Who wouldn’t hold that?
Dame Esther has joined the call by campaigners for a change to the law on assisted dying in the UK and led a chorus of dismay after a much-anticipated report by MPs into assisted dying failed to deliver any clear-cut findings or proposals (Pictured in 1983)
‘Who instead would want to be in writhing agony for possibly months? How is it humane and progressive to think we are protecting people by not allowing them a painless, dignified death?’
Vanessa, who told viewers she a close friend of Esther’s, said before wiping away tears: ‘Rebecca, thank you very much, and give mummy all my love and a big kiss from me please.’
The inquiry, carried out by by the Health and Social Care Committee, was set up to provide ‘a basis for discussion’ into whether the law should be changed.
But the committee stopped short of calling for a House of Commons debate, which would have allowed MPs to thrash out their differences on existing legislation before holding a vote.
It instead recommended that the Government should consider how to respond if moves are made to bring assisted dying into law in parts of the UK.
Although currently illegal here, multiple crown dependencies – including Jersey and the Isle of Man – have taken steps towards legalising it.
Appearing on Vanessa’s Talk TV show earlier this month, Rebecca, 44, said her mother’s ‘ideal death’ would be surrounded by her loved ones but due to UK laws she cannot be accompanied by her family to Switzerland (Esther pictured in February)
Dame Esther said: ‘Many of us feel it is time this country caught up with the best practices abroad and the only way to achieve that is for a proper debate in Parliament with a free vote at the end of it.
‘I am profoundly disappointed that this report – which many of us have been waiting for – does not come up with that recommendation.
‘I am afraid in many ways it was a wasted opportunity. If they had said ‘we urgently need a Parliamentary debate and a free vote’, that could perhaps have fitted into my own timescale, but it doesn’t.’
Esther previously revealed she had not expected to spend this Christmas with her family after being diagnosed with cancer, but a ‘miracle’ drug had given her additional time with her loved ones.
