Painful proof my pal Esther's fight is right

DAME Esther Rantzen has been my friend, mentor, confidante, companion and let me unleash my true fan-girl here - inspiration for almost 30 years.

- Vanessa Feltz

Some of us "celebrities" dabble in charitable works. We make donations, chair committees, become patrons, address envelopes and give the outfit we wore on Strictly opening night to the tombola. We try to "make a difference" but without direction or conviction. We don't have a world-changing strategy and if we did, for a moment, alight upon a situation needing urgent reformation, we haven't the faintest idea how to go about the transformation.

Not so Dame Esther. She is a visionary, an indefatigable grafter and possessed of lasersharp insight, knowing exactly what needs to be done and how to do it.

Without Esther hundreds of thousands of abused and neglected children rescued by her charity Childline would have struggled unaided.

Without Esther isolated elderly people would have existed in unacknowledged misery.

Although coping with grief after the death of her beloved husband Desmond Wilcox, Esther came to the aid of other solo folk and created the magnificent senior-focused charity The Silver Line.