Dame Esther Rantzen's daughter Rebecca Wilcox has revealed that her mother told her "gotta die sometime" as she dictated a final message in her last days. The broadcaster died on September 30, aged 86, after a lengthy battle with stage four lung cancer.
Rebecca described the past few years as "three and a half years of build-up" before Esther's death, following her diagnosis in January 2023. At the time, Esther told the Mirror how the diagnosis made her realise "how very lucky I've been in my life", referencing her work with Childline, which she founded, and Silver Line, a charity for older people.
Esther's Final Message and Reflections
Esther added: "I'm not good at regrets. What I treasure most are the fantastic friendships I have made thanks to That's Life! during the last 50 years, the people I met, and the team who worked so hard, and laughed so hard, together for so long."
In her later years, Esther backed the assisted dying bill, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, but it failed to pass in the Commons. Rebecca says this decision still leaves her angry.
Rebecca's Account of Her Mother's Last Days
Rebecca told the Mail: "I haven't got to a place where I can even verbalise what they've done to even just my family, let alone so many other people. I'm as furious as a person can be that democracy was vandalised."
Rebecca also revealed that Esther asked her to take down her final farewell message. She said: "When she said things like, 'Now that I am dead', I just remember going, 'God, Mum!' She said, 'Gotta die sometime. Keep going'."
She added: "We knew it was coming. We had three and a half years of build-up, knowing there was this cliff we were all going to fall off, happiness-wise, but it has still sideswiped us with its impossible... horribleness."
Grief and the Funeral
Rebecca acknowledged that grief is simply "awful", and that pretending otherwise about "how awful it is" would serve no one well. She made similar remarks on Good Morning Britain on October 30, marking Childline's 40th anniversary, where she described cancer as "evil".
"It's not a new thing to say that. It takes away the body, but she still had her mind. Grief is really hard; it's a piece of work. It is the price you pay for having loved somebody, and God, I loved mum."
Earlier this month, close family and friends gathered for a private funeral, which Rebecca described as "important" for the grandchildren. In October, Esther's final note was made public, beginning: "It would have transformed the way I died if the law had allowed me to ask for assistance to die when my life had become unbearable."
She continued: "Not because I would have used that choice but because the last days and weeks would have been infused with the hope and confidence of a swift, pain-free death, and my family would not have had to witness any suffering or lack of dignity and privacy at the end."
