Dame Esther Rantzen has received a Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 2021 Women of the Year Awards.
Esther Rantzen at the Women of the Year Awards 2021
The 67th annual event took place on Monday (11.10.21) to recognise and celebrate 400 women from across the UK who have achieved remarkable things this year, including the 81-year-old broadcaster, who was recognised for her charity work, including setting up Childline in 1986 and The Silver Line in 2013.
She said of the accolade: "“Created by Lady Tony Lothian, herself an outstanding achiever who was supportive to other women and enormous fun to know, this is the event of the year. It’s not only greatly enjoyable, every year I am awestruck and inspired by the creativity and courage of the award winners.
"So I am astonished this year to be awarded the Women of the Year Life-time Achievement Award. I feel incredibly lucky, and I know I owe everything to the opportunities I have been given throughout my life, to the dedicated teams I have worked with, and still do, and to the freedom I as a British woman have been allowed in a world where millions of women have had their freedoms denied or snatched from them.
"They will be in our hearts and minds at the lunch today, in the hope that they too will have the freedom to achieve, and fulfil their dreams.”
As well as paying tribute to the Tokyo 2020 Olympians and Paralympians, the event - which was presented by Sue Perkins at the Royal Lancaster London - also recognised Heba Bevan OBE, founder of smartsensor technology company UtterBerry Ltd, with Vodafone's Woman of the Year Innovation Award, while Lorraine Kelly presented the Lorraine Kindness Award to Laura McSorley, who set up the Kindness Homeless Street Team in Glasgow to support the homeless and vulnerable people in her city.
Mursal Hedayat MBE was given the Barclays Woman in the Community Award for her work with her company Chatterbox.
She founded the online lan
President of Women of the Year and ITV newsreader Julie Etchingham was "delighted" to have the event back in person after conducting a virtual ceremony last year.
She said: "I’m so delighted we have everyone back together in person to celebrate the 67th Women of the Year Lunch and Awards. From our frontline Covid heroes, to our brilliant Paralympians and Olympians, to the women who quietly get supporting their communities, and to the young women inspiring us with shaping a post Covid society with their ingenuity - this is a celebration like no other. We can’t wait to honour and thank them for all they do to make our world a better place.”
Tagged in Esther Rantzen Suranne Jones Sue Perkins