DS Icon: Claire Rayner

It is very rare that we get all sentimental and emotional on the DS Icons section. Usually we prefer to celebrate, laugh and sing from the rooftops about our heroes. But it isn't often that an Icon like Claire Rayner comes along. The TV agony aunt and all-round good egg passed away earlier this week and the world was instantly a less great place to live in. Although it is not nearly enough, the least we could do is honour her in our usual Icons fashion.

Rayner was a huge TV star in the '80s and '90s and regardless of her skills as a nurse, agony aunt and journalist, she was always game for a laugh. Tackling all the usual showbiz hot spots back in the day (You Bet!, Play Your Cards Right, An Audience With...) and holding court with her own spot on the much-missed Pebble Mill, she was rarely away from the nation's screens. And according to Wiki, she was also the first person to demonstrate how to use a condom on pre-watershed British TV. For that astonishing fact alone, she deserves her status as this week's Icon.