Esther Rantzen
It wasn’t all laughing and joking though for Esther as the girls started talking about their partners, which led Esther to think about her late husband. Nicola said "Tommy’s the most wonderful person I’ve ever met in my life and he’s my best friend. We laugh together, we have a lot of fun."
Carly agreed: "Isn’t it mad. When you can laugh at someone. We can sit on a long plane journey and we’re cracking up and he says the most stupid things he would never say in front of other people."
Nicola asked what star sign Joe [Cole] was - he is a Scorpio - and Esther said: "I am a Cancer."
"A home maker," pointed out Nicola.
"I never was’ said Esther. ‘I was doing my career. I didn’t marry until I was 37," and she started to sob as she thought about her late husband.
She later explained tearfully in the Bush Telegraph. "Listening to the girls. They were talking about the laughter and companionship and things and I had a partnership like theirs. I had somebody. I miss him obviously. My late husband was [a] warm, generous, loving person with a fantastic sense of humour and it would be so good to come back from here and we would have laughed together about the whole experience about little things that happen. When you’ve got a companion like this it’s whatever life throws at you, you share."
She continued: "The girls, look at the way they helped me. I couldn’t really say anything and they didn’t need me to explain anything. I had loo roll coming from one side and cuddles coming from the other. They’re just charming."
Nicola said to Esther that she thought she had been insensitive towards her. She later said to Carly: "I feel so guilty because we were sitting here talking about Joe and Tom. She’s widowed. She just burst into tears. That was insensitive. He was her soul mate. That’s the person she thinks about and she can’t ever see him again and we’re moaning about three weeks. I hope she’s alright."
Later, Esther spoke to Carly Nicola and Simon and pointed out similarities between home and the camp. "Do you know what struck me. I’ve got a son and two daughters. And my husband was sometimes very grumpy and sometimes very funny. I’m at home."