Dame Esther and journalist reunited after 20 years

Dame Esther Rantzen has been reunited with a BBC journalist who was first interviewed by the former That's Life presenter when she was 16 years old.

Laura Ancell presents podcast DNA Trail: The Promise, but the two first spoke when Dame Esther interviewed Laura on BBC Radio Solent in 2005.

Laura was running the Race For Life for her father who had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Speaking on the podcast, Dame Esther thanked the Cancer Research UK running campaign for raising money for treatments that she is now benefiting from.

Dame Esther, who lives in the New Forest, has been diagnosed with the same type of cancer as Laura's father and she revealed in 2023 it was stage four.

In a reversal of roles, Laura, now 36, interviewed Dame Esther for the podcast in the same studio she was interviewed in 20 years previously.

Dame Esther said it took "immense courage" for Laura to talk to her in the live broadcast when her dad was stage four.

As a teenager Laura told Dame Esther on the breakfast show: "I decided it was a positive thing for me to do, to raise money for new treatments..."

Dame Esther said the developments in cancer research since their conversation in 2005 were "wonderful" and had "long-lasting effects" because of people like Laura and her father Bill Ancell.

Race For Life runners have collectively raised more than £970m since the campaign began 30 years ago.

Bill, who was from Brighton, fundraised by selling a CD called Music for Life in which he played the flamenco guitar.

Speaking on the podcast Dame Esther told Laura: "I admired you then and I admire you now."

Laura returned the compliment and said Dame Esther was "hugely inspiring" and an "incredible woman".

The podcast follows Laura's journey in fulfilling a promise she and her mother made to her father on his deathbed - that they would find his long-lost family.

DNA Trail: The Promise is available now as an eight episode box set on BBC Sounds.