If I close my eyes, a good 40-plus years later, I can still smell the Vosene shampoo from my damp hair - brushed into a rigid side-shed by my maw - as I lay in front of the two-bar electric fire in a fresh pair of jammies, eyes glued to the telly for the big 9.25pm kick-off. Yes, folks, Sunday wasn’t only bath night (whether I needed it or not), it was also my weekly appointment with one of the greatest programmes in TV history… That’s Life!
It’s now 50 years since the long-running BBC consumer and current affairs show first appeared on our screens (it ran from 1973 to 1996, a wee bit longer than my stint on STV’s The Hour) and, as a huge fan, I was gutted to read this week that legendary host Esther Rantzen is battling cancer. I very much doubt you’ll read this, Esther, but all the very best to you, darling.
Forget the boyish good looks at the top of the page, dear reader, I can easily recall the days of just three TV channels and Esther was a HUGE star. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the brilliant 80s sketch show Not The Nine O’Clock News paid her the ultimate tribute with a hilarious parody of That’s Life. (Find it on YouTube and I promise you’ll be rolling about).
After a traditional Sunday night desert of dreariness – Highway with Harry Secombe, Last Of The Summer Wine and all that depressing guff – Esther and the gang offered a wee oasis of TV gold to take my mind off the dreaded return to school on Monday morning. From the famous theme tune at the start (heavy on the trombone) to the cartoon credits at the end (with a nod to the stories on that week’s show), I never missed an episode.
Well, not until 1983 when I would BEG my old dear to let us switch over at 10pm for Spitting Image. (What’s that? Watch it on the telly in my room? Aye right, I’ll crack the jokes…) As well as the serious, campaigning stuff - after Esther highlighted the dangers of highly flammable pyjamas, I started watching the programme from the safety of the couch - a lot of the lighter content is still indelibly etched on my mind.
Admit it, my fellow 50-somethings, when you encounter an over-zealous official lacking a touch of common sense - a traffic warden, for example - I bet you STILL sing: “Jobsworth, jobsworth, it’s more than my job’s worth…” I do! Who can forget Esther’s eccentric colleague Cyril Fletcher - resplendent in a tuxedo/smoking jacket, sitting in a leather armchair next to a standard lamp - reciting his “odd odes” and reading out typos from that week’s newspapers? “I’m indebted to a Mrs Smithers from Gloucester who says…”
Oh how we laughed when a story about, say, a 40-year-old mum appeared in print as a 40-year-old BUM. (It’s also thanks to Cyril I first heard my mum use the expression “he’s got one eye going for the messages and the other one coming back with the change”…) The funny shaped vegetables - invariably a carrot that looked like a willy - were also hilarious. (Well, not for one of my poor mates at school who had a willy shaped like a carrot…)
Anyone remember the old dear (Annie?) who used to pop up every week in Esther’s vox pops on the streets of London? Whether it was sampling bat soup or, I dunno, whisky distilled from old bath water, she was always up for the cup. Another popular feature was Britain’s Talented Pets and that will SURELY ring a bell when I remind you of the three Alsatian dogs drinking from the owner’s quick-fire soda siphon… Naw? Okay, last chance… what about the wee “talking” dug that could say “sausages”? Come on, that was one of THE telly highlights of the 1980s!
Esther Rantzen has also entered the annals of popular culture. For example, when a struggling football team announces free entry for kids, who hasn’t joked - with a nod to the brilliant charity she founded - “Right, I’m going to phone Childline…” Only the other night, while chatting about the current NHS crisis, I found myself using the old cracker: “Every single nurse works harder than Esther Rantzen’s toothbrush.” See what I mean? She’s a true legend. Take care, Esther, and all the very best.
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