Andy Burnham says Childline "changed countless lives" at 40th anniversary tribute

Guests gathered in London on Wednesday to mark Childline's 40th anniversary, a week after the charity's founder, Dame Esther Rantzen, died at 86 following a cancer diagnosis. Tributes came from her daughter Rebecca Wilcox, who said her mother treated the helpline as a favoured child, and from Childline ambassador Geri Halliwell-Horner, who said its work should carry on. Andy Burnham was among those paying tribute to Rantzen. Childline was created after calls flooded a temporary helpline set up following a television programme about a toddler who starved to death; most early callers were children describing sexual abuse they had not told anyone about. Now part of the NSPCC, it has provided over six million counselling sessions. Its official 40th anniversary falls on October 30.