THE ENGLISH TV personality Esther Rantzen, who founded UK children’s helpline ChildLine, has said she was the victim of child abuse herself as a schoolgirl.
As the charity approaches its 25th anniversary, Ms Rantzen said she was molested by a “relative” in the 1950s.
The That's Life star, who campaigned to become an MP in Luton last year, made the disclosure when being interviewed about the creation of ChildLine in 1986. Ms Rantzen founded the service after a one-off BBC TV programme Childwatchwas inundated with calls from children desperate for help. The charity now offers a 24/7 helpline for children in danger or distress.
Yesterday Ms Rantzen said she decided to talk about what happened to her when she was asked by a journalist if any one moment in her own childhood had influenced her decision to want to set up ChildLine. “I went to talk about the beginning of ChildLine and how it happened and then he said, ‘have you ever experienced something like this in your own life?’, and you’ve got the decision at that moment, you either refuse to answer or you tell the truth.
"I felt that it was really incumbent on me, since we encourage children to talk to us, and since the book I'm doing called Running out of Tearsis based on adults' memories of their own childhood, I couldn't very well not go down that road myself."
She has described the incident, which happened when she was a schoolgirl, as a “grope” by the man, who was not a blood relative, but “somebody who was called an uncle”.
Ms Rantzen said the man, now dead, did not repeat the abuse, but had told her not to tell anyone.
“What I would stress is that my experience was nothing compared with the children that ring ChildLine,” she said.
“This was not a prolonged gruelling process. It was not something that happened over many years, which happens to many children who ring ChildLine.” – (PA)