3:28pm Friday 24th October 2008
By Chris Yandell
HAMPSHIRE celebrity Esther Rantzen is set to swap the tranquil surroundings of the New Forest for the wild jungle of Australia.
The Daily Echo can reveal how the television personality is being lined up for the next series of I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!.
While Esther is used to New Forest ponies and the odd deer trotting past her Bransgore country home getaway, she will be facing wildlife of an altogether different kind if she gets into the jungle.
Not only could Esther come faceto- face with spiders and snakes, she will be confronting the infamous bushtucker trials that have in the past seen celebrities munch their way through witchetty grubs and fish eyeballs.
Last night wildlife experts in the New Forest said Esther could prepare for her spell in the jungle by sampling such delicacies as earthworms, wood ants and cockroaches.
As well as eating insects the celebrities will face all sorts of other challenges as they wait to see who will be evicted next.
Esther is being lined up to occupy the “strong, older woman” slot previously filled by Jan Leeming, Jennie Bond and Christine Hamilton.
Esther, 68, could be on her way to Murwillumbah in New South Wales, where the popular show has been filmed since 2002, as early as next month.
In a recent interview Esther said she was determined to make the most of her life after realising that the years were slipping by.
“At 20 we thought we would live forever,” she said. “Now, as some of those closest to us are taken from us, we become very aware of our own mortality. Life is precious and should not be wasted.”
Former world champion boxer Chris Eubank, tennis player Pat Cash and pop star Donny Osmond are among the other celebrities rumoured to be appearing on the show.
Esther is taking part to raise funds for Childline, the telephone counselling service she launched after a survey revealed shocking levels of child abuse.
Previous I’m A Celebrity contestants include David Gest, who visited a Woodlands nursing home last week after learning that Titanic survivor Millvina Dean, 96, was having to sell memorabilia from the liner to pay nursing fees. He presented her with a cheque for £3,000.
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