The Shift with Sam Baker https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ en Sam Baker Ltd 2020 The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker.  Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women's voices once they pass 40? That's where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is changing? Each week, award-winning author and journalist Sam Baker asks a different woman how she got here, where she's going - and how it feels to be where she is right now. Expect intimate conversation, big laughs, occasional tears and an awful lot of ripping up the rule book and stamping on it... Past guests have included Nicola Sturgeon, Marian Keyes, Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, Minnie Driver, Philippa Perry, Anita Rani, Tracey Thorn, Isabel Allende, Bobbi Brown, Barbara Blake-Hannah and many more, talking everything from confidence to career reinvention, mental health, menopause and so much more. If you enjoy The Shift podcast, and you'd like to show the love, you can buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theshiftwithsambaker And if you really love The Shift and would like to hear more conversations with women over 40, why not become a member of our community and receive a weekly newsletter, get exclusive transcripts, join The Shift bookclub and so much more, please visit https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ For advertising enquiries, email sales@auddy.co https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/ca307044-48da-11ef-bc54-4b542b9ff10c/image/eb51c7bae8ff572c9c63cd96c36f576f.jpeg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress The Shift with Sam Baker https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ no episodic The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster Sam Baker sam baker The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker.  Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women's voices once they pass 40? That's where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is changing? Each week, award-winning author and journalist Sam Baker asks a different woman how she got here, where she's going - and how it feels to be where she is right now. Expect intimate conversation, big laughs, occasional tears and an awful lot of ripping up the rule book and stamping on it... Past guests have included Nicola Sturgeon, Marian Keyes, Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, Minnie Driver, Philippa Perry, Anita Rani, Tracey Thorn, Isabel Allende, Bobbi Brown, Barbara Blake-Hannah and many more, talking everything from confidence to career reinvention, mental health, menopause and so much more. If you enjoy The Shift podcast, and you'd like to show the love, you can buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theshiftwithsambaker And if you really love The Shift and would like to hear more conversations with women over 40, why not become a member of our community and receive a weekly newsletter, get exclusive transcripts, join The Shift bookclub and so much more, please visit https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ For advertising enquiries, email sales@auddy.co The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. 


Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women's voices once they pass 40? That's where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is changing? Each week, award-winning author and journalist Sam Baker asks a different woman how she got here, where she's going - and how it feels to be where she is right now. Expect intimate conversation, big laughs, occasional tears and an awful lot of ripping up the rule book and stamping on it... Past guests have included Nicola Sturgeon, Marian Keyes, Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, Minnie Driver, Philippa Perry, Anita Rani, Tracey Thorn, Isabel Allende, Bobbi Brown, Barbara Blake-Hannah and many more, talking everything from confidence to career reinvention, mental health, menopause and so much more.


If you enjoy The Shift podcast, and you'd like to show the love, you can buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theshiftwithsambaker


And if you really love The Shift and would like to hear more conversations with women over 40, why not become a member of our community and receive a weekly newsletter, get exclusive transcripts, join The Shift bookclub and so much more, please visit https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/


For advertising enquiries, email sales@auddy.co

]]> Sam Baker Ltd sam@sambaker.co.uk Bryony Gordon is done with people pleasing https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ There aren’t many people I let make a repeat visit to The Shift, but sometimes a guest proves so popular that I have to make an exception. That’s the case with journalist and author Bryony Gordon. The first time Bryony came on The Shift we talked mental health, alcoholism and the gratitude she felt in reaching 40 . A couple of years later it was all about perimenopause. Today, Bryony is back and we’re talking about what happens when you hit that pinch point in midlife where the people pleasing hormone heads for the door. First and foremost a newspaper columnist, Bryony spent 20 years at the telegraph and now writes a column for the Daily Mail. She is the author of four bestselling non-fiction books and has won awards for her mental health advocacy In Her debut novel, People Pleaser, we meet Olivia Greenwood, a woman in midlife who wakes up one morning and finds she’s lost the ability to bend over backwards to keep everyone else happy. It made me want to punch the air and eat a donut! Or four. Bryony and I met up to talk about people pleasing and spending the first forty years of our lives trying to be someone else and the next forty trying to be ourselves. We set the world to rights on man pleasing, fat shaming, mountjaro noise, fake eyelashes, wellness, work addiction, reinvention, perfectionism, learning to be willing to do things other people don’t like, mothering adolescents (her, not me) and star signs. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including People Pleaser by Bryony Gordon as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0000 full 21 289 sam baker What happens when you stop pleasing other people and start pleasing ourselves There aren’t many people I let make a repeat visit to The Shift, but sometimes a guest proves so popular that I have to make an exception. That’s the case with journalist and author Bryony Gordon. The first time Bryony came on The Shift we talked mental health, alcoholism and the gratitude she felt in reaching 40 . A couple of years later it was all about perimenopause. Today, Bryony is back and we’re talking about what happens when you hit that pinch point in midlife where the people pleasing hormone heads for the door. First and foremost a newspaper columnist, Bryony spent 20 years at the telegraph and now writes a column for the Daily Mail. She is the author of four bestselling non-fiction books and has won awards for her mental health advocacy In Her debut novel, People Pleaser, we meet Olivia Greenwood, a woman in midlife who wakes up one morning and finds she’s lost the ability to bend over backwards to keep everyone else happy. It made me want to punch the air and eat a donut! Or four. Bryony and I met up to talk about people pleasing and spending the first forty years of our lives trying to be someone else and the next forty trying to be ourselves. We set the world to rights on man pleasing, fat shaming, mountjaro noise, fake eyelashes, wellness, work addiction, reinvention, perfectionism, learning to be willing to do things other people don’t like, mothering adolescents (her, not me) and star signs. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including People Pleaser by Bryony Gordon as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices There aren’t many people I let make a repeat visit to The Shift, but sometimes a guest proves so popular that I have to make an exception. That’s the case with journalist and author Bryony Gordon.


The first time Bryony came on The Shift we talked mental health, alcoholism and the gratitude she felt in reaching 40 . A couple of years later it was all about perimenopause. Today, Bryony is back and we’re talking about what happens when you hit that pinch point in midlife where the people pleasing hormone heads for the door.


First and foremost a newspaper columnist, Bryony spent 20 years at the telegraph and now writes a column for the Daily Mail. She is the author of four bestselling non-fiction books and has won awards for her mental health advocacy


In Her debut novel, People Pleaser, we meet Olivia Greenwood, a woman in midlife who wakes up one morning and finds she’s lost the ability to bend over backwards to keep everyone else happy.


It made me want to punch the air and eat a donut! Or four.


Bryony and I met up to talk about people pleasing and spending the first forty years of our lives trying to be someone else and the next forty trying to be ourselves. We set the world to rights on man pleasing, fat shaming, mountjaro noise, fake eyelashes, wellness, work addiction, reinvention, perfectionism, learning to be willing to do things other people don’t like, mothering adolescents (her, not me) and star signs.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including People Pleaser by Bryony Gordon as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3980 Margaret Busby: Britain's first black female publisher on the power of passing it on https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the pioneering publisher, Margaret Busby. It is safe to say that without Margaret’s lifelong work the publishing industry today- and indeed our bookshelves - might look very different.  In 1965, at just 22, she became Britain’s youngest first black female publisher, when she formed Allison and busby with Clive Allison, who she met at a party at university. Margaret was editorial director there for 20 years - when the business was bought, the buyers retained Allison, but not Busby. Hmmm... Since then she has been a publisher, editor, writer, interviewer, scriptwriter, presenter and awards judge, including chairing the Booker Prize. She has also compiled two groundbreaking anthologies to champion the work of women of African descent, Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa. “[She] helped change the landscape of both UK publishing and arts coverage and so many black British artists owe her a debt. I know I do,” wrote Zadie Smith Her career has been the very definition of paying it forward, or as she puts it passing it on. At her home in North London, Margaret took me back through the incredible life she documents in her autobiography Part Of The Story. She told me about a lifetime spent being the only Black woman in the room and constantly being mistaken for an old white man! The importance of picking your battles, the women who shaped her, Why she will never stop opening the door for other black women, the irrelevance of age, why marriage is the least interesting form of emotional connection and loads more. If you’d like to see the pictures discussed in this episode,  you'll find them here - https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Part of the Story by Margaret Busby as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0000 full 21 288 sam baker the ground breaking publisher and one-woman hope machine discusses her brilliant career, breaking the mould, the power of passing it on and why age is a total irrelevance. My guest today is the pioneering publisher, Margaret Busby. It is safe to say that without Margaret’s lifelong work the publishing industry today- and indeed our bookshelves - might look very different.  In 1965, at just 22, she became Britain’s youngest first black female publisher, when she formed Allison and busby with Clive Allison, who she met at a party at university. Margaret was editorial director there for 20 years - when the business was bought, the buyers retained Allison, but not Busby. Hmmm... Since then she has been a publisher, editor, writer, interviewer, scriptwriter, presenter and awards judge, including chairing the Booker Prize. She has also compiled two groundbreaking anthologies to champion the work of women of African descent, Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa. “[She] helped change the landscape of both UK publishing and arts coverage and so many black British artists owe her a debt. I know I do,” wrote Zadie Smith Her career has been the very definition of paying it forward, or as she puts it passing it on. At her home in North London, Margaret took me back through the incredible life she documents in her autobiography Part Of The Story. She told me about a lifetime spent being the only Black woman in the room and constantly being mistaken for an old white man! The importance of picking your battles, the women who shaped her, Why she will never stop opening the door for other black women, the irrelevance of age, why marriage is the least interesting form of emotional connection and loads more. If you’d like to see the pictures discussed in this episode,  you'll find them here - https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Part of the Story by Margaret Busby as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the pioneering publisher, Margaret Busby. It is safe to say that without Margaret’s lifelong work the publishing industry today- and indeed our bookshelves - might look very different. 


In 1965, at just 22, she became Britain’s youngest first black female publisher, when she formed Allison and busby with Clive Allison, who she met at a party at university.


Margaret was editorial director there for 20 years - when the business was bought, the buyers retained Allison, but not Busby. Hmmm...


Since then she has been a publisher, editor, writer, interviewer, scriptwriter, presenter and awards judge, including chairing the Booker Prize. She has also compiled two groundbreaking anthologies to champion the work of women of African descent, Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa.


“[She] helped change the landscape of both UK publishing and arts coverage and so many black British artists owe her a debt. I know I do,” wrote Zadie Smith


Her career has been the very definition of paying it forward, or as she puts it passing it on.


At her home in North London, Margaret took me back through the incredible life she documents in her autobiography Part Of The Story.


She told me about a lifetime spent being the only Black woman in the room and constantly being mistaken for an old white man! The importance of picking your battles, the women who shaped her, Why she will never stop opening the door for other black women, the irrelevance of age, why marriage is the least interesting form of emotional connection and loads more.


If you’d like to see the pictures discussed in this episode,  you'll find them here - https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Part of the Story by Margaret Busby as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4143 Abi Morgan on rebuilding just about everything in your 50s - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This episode first aired in May 2022. Today’s guest is a woman I’ve admired for the longest time: stage and screenwriter Abi Morgan. Throughout her thirty year career Abi has written some of our most memorable drama: Shame, Sex Traffic, The Queen, Iron Lady, The Hour (for which she won an Emmy), Suffragette and, most recently, the BBCone hit, The Split. In her work, female characters took centre stage long before that became the fashionable thing to do. But now, Abi has been forced to take centre stage herself. Four years ago, she returned home one lunchtime to find her partner of 20 years, Jakob, collapsed on the bathroom floor. It was the start of a sequence of events that would upend their family forever. And it’s the subject of perhaps the most extraordinary memoir I have ever read - This is Not a Pity memoir. And it isn’t. It’s about love, trauma and ultimately - weirdly! - about hope. Abi joined me to talk candidly about the cataclysmic impact of Jake’s illness, the long - and ongoing - journey to rebuild their family and how, in the midst of all that, she coped with her own breast cancer diagnosis. She also told me about being a lone woman in a world of white men in leather jackets, budging up to make room at the table and why she’s done with being “user-friendly”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including This Is Not a Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0000 full 287 sam baker This episode first aired in May 2022. Today’s guest is a woman I’ve admired for the longest time: stage and screenwriter Abi Morgan. Throughout her thirty year career Abi has written some of our most memorable drama: Shame, Sex Traffic, The Queen, Iron Lady, The Hour (for which she won an Emmy), Suffragette and, most recently, the BBCone hit, The Split. In her work, female characters took centre stage long before that became the fashionable thing to do. But now, Abi has been forced to take centre stage herself. Four years ago, she returned home one lunchtime to find her partner of 20 years, Jakob, collapsed on the bathroom floor. It was the start of a sequence of events that would upend their family forever. And it’s the subject of perhaps the most extraordinary memoir I have ever read - This is Not a Pity memoir. And it isn’t. It’s about love, trauma and ultimately - weirdly! - about hope. Abi joined me to talk candidly about the cataclysmic impact of Jake’s illness, the long - and ongoing - journey to rebuild their family and how, in the midst of all that, she coped with her own breast cancer diagnosis. She also told me about being a lone woman in a world of white men in leather jackets, budging up to make room at the table and why she’s done with being “user-friendly”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including This Is Not a Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This episode first aired in May 2022.


Today’s guest is a woman I’ve admired for the longest time: stage and screenwriter Abi Morgan. Throughout her thirty year career Abi has written some of our most memorable drama: Shame, Sex Traffic, The Queen, Iron Lady, The Hour (for which she won an Emmy), Suffragette and, most recently, the BBCone hit, The Split. In her work, female characters took centre stage long before that became the fashionable thing to do.


But now, Abi has been forced to take centre stage herself. Four years ago, she returned home one lunchtime to find her partner of 20 years, Jakob, collapsed on the bathroom floor. It was the start of a sequence of events that would upend their family forever. And it’s the subject of perhaps the most extraordinary memoir I have ever read - This is Not a Pity memoir. And it isn’t. It’s about love, trauma and ultimately - weirdly! - about hope.


Abi joined me to talk candidly about the cataclysmic impact of Jake’s illness, the long - and ongoing - journey to rebuild their family and how, in the midst of all that, she coped with her own breast cancer diagnosis. She also told me about being a lone woman in a world of white men in leather jackets, budging up to make room at the table and why she’s done with being “user-friendly”.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including This Is Not a Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3105 Emily Nagoski knows the surprising secret to long term intimacy - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This episode of The Shift first aired in June 2024. I first came across today’s guest, Dr Emily Nagoski, on this very podcast, when my then guest Sarah Knight (creator of the NoFucks Given franchise) raved about the transformational power of her runaway bestseller, Come As You Are. I hunted it down and, like millions of women the world over, I was blown away. A sex expert speaking our language? Taking the pressure off, rather than piling it on? Never! So when I heard that the Kinsey-educated sex educator had turned her attention to long term relationships in her new book, Come Together, I was obsessed. Not least because it turns out that sex experts are human too and Emily had experienced her own fallow period. But instead of wallowing in it or panicking or buying uncomfortable knickers, Emily used her own story of sexual disconnection and reconnection as an opportunity to look at what makes and breaks sexual connections. And guess what: it’s not what you think. Emily joined me from her home in New England to discuss coming out as a sex expert who lost her sex drive, taking the shoulds out of your sex life, why passion is overrated, how to get the weeds out of your sexual garden! being told she no longer had a “young vagina” And why she only has one inarguable piece of advice: lube is good! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Come As You Are and Come Together as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0000 full 286 sam baker This episode of The Shift first aired in June 2024. I first came across today’s guest, Dr Emily Nagoski, on this very podcast, when my then guest Sarah Knight (creator of the NoFucks Given franchise) raved about the transformational power of her runaway bestseller, Come As You Are. I hunted it down and, like millions of women the world over, I was blown away. A sex expert speaking our language? Taking the pressure off, rather than piling it on? Never! So when I heard that the Kinsey-educated sex educator had turned her attention to long term relationships in her new book, Come Together, I was obsessed. Not least because it turns out that sex experts are human too and Emily had experienced her own fallow period. But instead of wallowing in it or panicking or buying uncomfortable knickers, Emily used her own story of sexual disconnection and reconnection as an opportunity to look at what makes and breaks sexual connections. And guess what: it’s not what you think. Emily joined me from her home in New England to discuss coming out as a sex expert who lost her sex drive, taking the shoulds out of your sex life, why passion is overrated, how to get the weeds out of your sexual garden! being told she no longer had a “young vagina” And why she only has one inarguable piece of advice: lube is good! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Come As You Are and Come Together as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This episode of The Shift first aired in June 2024.


I first came across today’s guest, Dr Emily Nagoski, on this very podcast, when my then guest Sarah Knight (creator of the NoFucks Given franchise) raved about the transformational power of her runaway bestseller, Come As You Are.

I hunted it down and, like millions of women the world over, I was blown away. A sex expert speaking our language? Taking the pressure off, rather than piling it on? Never!

So when I heard that the Kinsey-educated sex educator had turned her attention to long term relationships in her new book, Come Together, I was obsessed. Not least because it turns out that sex experts are human too and Emily had experienced her own fallow period.

But instead of wallowing in it or panicking or buying uncomfortable knickers, Emily used her own story of sexual disconnection and reconnection as an opportunity to look at what makes and breaks sexual connections.

And guess what: it’s not what you think.

Emily joined me from her home in New England to discuss coming out as a sex expert who lost her sex drive, taking the shoulds out of your sex life, why passion is overrated, how to get the weeds out of your sexual garden! being told she no longer had a “young vagina” And why she only has one inarguable piece of advice: lube is good!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Come As You Are and Come Together as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3419 Elif Shafak on the power of older women & why menopause can be the end of shame - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This episode of The Shift first aired in August 2021. My guest today is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed - and I’ve interviewed A LOT. Writer and academic, Elif Shafak has written 19 books and 12 novels and been shortlisted for countless literary prizes, including the Booker Prize. Known for her bravery and outspokenness in the face of oppressive regimes, she has almost 2million followers on social media and is the best-selling female novelist in Turkey - a country to which she has been unable to return for the past 5 years after being put on trial for, amongst other things, insulting Turkishness. Her latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, about the partition of Cyprus, is also about love, longing, exile and the environment. I think it might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever written, but you’ll have to judge for yourself. Elif talks about what home means to her, the importance of freedom and sharing your truth, the two very different women who made her, the importance of lifelong learning and the art of storytelling, and why menopause signals the end of “ayip” (shame). Oh, and being a middle-aged metalhead! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠, including The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and her most recent bestseller, the gorgeous There Are Rivers In The Sky, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 -0000 full 285 sam baker This episode of The Shift first aired in August 2021. My guest today is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed - and I’ve interviewed A LOT. Writer and academic, Elif Shafak has written 19 books and 12 novels and been shortlisted for countless literary prizes, including the Booker Prize. Known for her bravery and outspokenness in the face of oppressive regimes, she has almost 2million followers on social media and is the best-selling female novelist in Turkey - a country to which she has been unable to return for the past 5 years after being put on trial for, amongst other things, insulting Turkishness. Her latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, about the partition of Cyprus, is also about love, longing, exile and the environment. I think it might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever written, but you’ll have to judge for yourself. Elif talks about what home means to her, the importance of freedom and sharing your truth, the two very different women who made her, the importance of lifelong learning and the art of storytelling, and why menopause signals the end of “ayip” (shame). Oh, and being a middle-aged metalhead! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠, including The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and her most recent bestseller, the gorgeous There Are Rivers In The Sky, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This episode of The Shift first aired in August 2021.


My guest today is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed - and I’ve interviewed A LOT. Writer and academic, Elif Shafak has written 19 books and 12 novels and been shortlisted for countless literary prizes, including the Booker Prize. Known for her bravery and outspokenness in the face of oppressive regimes, she has almost 2million followers on social media and is the best-selling female novelist in Turkey - a country to which she has been unable to return for the past 5 years after being put on trial for, amongst other things, insulting Turkishness.

Her latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, about the partition of Cyprus, is also about love, longing, exile and the environment. I think it might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever written, but you’ll have to judge for yourself.

Elif talks about what home means to her, the importance of freedom and sharing your truth, the two very different women who made her, the importance of lifelong learning and the art of storytelling, and why menopause signals the end of “ayip” (shame). Oh, and being a middle-aged metalhead!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠, including The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and her most recent bestseller, the gorgeous There Are Rivers In The Sky, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2865 Christie Watson on menopause, mischief and midlife - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This episode of The Shift first aired in June 2022. I’ve lost count of the number of women I’ve spoken to who were taken totally by surprise by perimenopause but, to date, none of them actually had medical training. Todays guest changes all that. Before she was an award winning writer, Christie watson was a nurse. She spent 20 years on children’s intensive care before her debut won the Costa first novel award and altered the trajectory of her life. Since then Christie has written two bestselling nursing memoirs, including the wonderful The Language of Kindness, and a second novel. Then, aged 42, perimenopause totally floored her. A single mum of two teenagers, she suddenly found herself a “blubbering snot crying wreck” in Sainsburys car park - a stranger, inside and out. Sound familiar?! I met Christie to talk about her memoir about that experience, Quilt On Fire, in a no-man’s land opposite the US embassy. As you do. We discussed being blindsided by menopause, grey pubic hairs, biblical bleeding, and the impact of unresolved trauma. Plus being single in midlife and braving the dating shark tank, her own personal menopause club (lucky woman), having a vulva the size of Brazil, the joy of becoming visible to older women and why nobody really has their shit together. Oh and an unexpected use for frozen fish fingers.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including Quilt on Fire by Christie Watson and her latest thriller, Killing Me Softly, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 24 Mar 2026 01:00:00 -0000 full 284 sam baker This episode of The Shift first aired in June 2022. I’ve lost count of the number of women I’ve spoken to who were taken totally by surprise by perimenopause but, to date, none of them actually had medical training. Todays guest changes all that. Before she was an award winning writer, Christie watson was a nurse. She spent 20 years on children’s intensive care before her debut won the Costa first novel award and altered the trajectory of her life. Since then Christie has written two bestselling nursing memoirs, including the wonderful The Language of Kindness, and a second novel. Then, aged 42, perimenopause totally floored her. A single mum of two teenagers, she suddenly found herself a “blubbering snot crying wreck” in Sainsburys car park - a stranger, inside and out. Sound familiar?! I met Christie to talk about her memoir about that experience, Quilt On Fire, in a no-man’s land opposite the US embassy. As you do. We discussed being blindsided by menopause, grey pubic hairs, biblical bleeding, and the impact of unresolved trauma. Plus being single in midlife and braving the dating shark tank, her own personal menopause club (lucky woman), having a vulva the size of Brazil, the joy of becoming visible to older women and why nobody really has their shit together. Oh and an unexpected use for frozen fish fingers.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including Quilt on Fire by Christie Watson and her latest thriller, Killing Me Softly, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This episode of The Shift first aired in June 2022.


I’ve lost count of the number of women I’ve spoken to who were taken totally by surprise by perimenopause but, to date, none of them actually had medical training. Todays guest changes all that. Before she was an award winning writer, Christie watson was a nurse. She spent 20 years on children’s intensive care before her debut won the Costa first novel award and altered the trajectory of her life.

Since then Christie has written two bestselling nursing memoirs, including the wonderful The Language of Kindness, and a second novel. Then, aged 42, perimenopause totally floored her. A single mum of two teenagers, she suddenly found herself a “blubbering snot crying wreck” in Sainsburys car park - a stranger, inside and out. Sound familiar?!

I met Christie to talk about her memoir about that experience, Quilt On Fire, in a no-man’s land opposite the US embassy. As you do. We discussed being blindsided by menopause, grey pubic hairs, biblical bleeding, and the impact of unresolved trauma. Plus being single in midlife and braving the dating shark tank, her own personal menopause club (lucky woman), having a vulva the size of Brazil, the joy of becoming visible to older women and why nobody really has their shit together. Oh and an unexpected use for frozen fish fingers. 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including Quilt on Fire by Christie Watson and her latest thriller, Killing Me Softly, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3051 Martha Wainwright on music, motherhood & finding love in midlife - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This episode of The Shift revisited was first aired in February 2023. I first met today's guest, Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, when I interviewed her in Glasgow at the end of 2022. We got talking about the nuts and bolts of midlife in the green room and I was thrilled when she agreed to continue the conversation on The Shift. One of our foremost singer songwriters, Martha has released seven critically acclaimed albums. The latest of which, Love Will Be Reborn, is on repeat on my personal playlist. She’s also - let’s just get this out of the way now - the daughter of “folk royalty” Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister of singer Rufus Wainwright. In short, she comes from a family of very distinct voices, which made finding her own a particular challenge. Martha joined me from her home in Montreal to discuss her extraordinarily frank memoir, the aptly titled Stories I Might Regret Telling You. This conversation goes to all the places: the struggle to make motherhood and the music industry mix, surviving her grim divorce, finding new love with a good man, leaning into your looks, and the agony of being unable to conceive in her 40s. Martha is as candid as her songwriting. Oh and she gave us a guided tour of her enormous vagina painting! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠, including Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 17 Mar 2026 01:00:00 -0000 full 283 sam baker plus finding your voice, leaning into your looks and her very big vagina painting! This episode of The Shift revisited was first aired in February 2023. I first met today's guest, Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, when I interviewed her in Glasgow at the end of 2022. We got talking about the nuts and bolts of midlife in the green room and I was thrilled when she agreed to continue the conversation on The Shift. One of our foremost singer songwriters, Martha has released seven critically acclaimed albums. The latest of which, Love Will Be Reborn, is on repeat on my personal playlist. She’s also - let’s just get this out of the way now - the daughter of “folk royalty” Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister of singer Rufus Wainwright. In short, she comes from a family of very distinct voices, which made finding her own a particular challenge. Martha joined me from her home in Montreal to discuss her extraordinarily frank memoir, the aptly titled Stories I Might Regret Telling You. This conversation goes to all the places: the struggle to make motherhood and the music industry mix, surviving her grim divorce, finding new love with a good man, leaning into your looks, and the agony of being unable to conceive in her 40s. Martha is as candid as her songwriting. Oh and she gave us a guided tour of her enormous vagina painting! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠, including Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This episode of The Shift revisited was first aired in February 2023.


I first met today's guest, Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, when I interviewed her in Glasgow at the end of 2022. We got talking about the nuts and bolts of midlife in the green room and I was thrilled when she agreed to continue the conversation on The Shift.


One of our foremost singer songwriters, Martha has released seven critically acclaimed albums. The latest of which, Love Will Be Reborn, is on repeat on my personal playlist.


She’s also - let’s just get this out of the way now - the daughter of “folk royalty” Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister of singer Rufus Wainwright. In short, she comes from a family of very distinct voices, which made finding her own a particular challenge.


Martha joined me from her home in Montreal to discuss her extraordinarily frank memoir, the aptly titled Stories I Might Regret Telling You. This conversation goes to all the places: the struggle to make motherhood and the music industry mix, surviving her grim divorce, finding new love with a good man, leaning into your looks, and the agony of being unable to conceive in her 40s. Martha is as candid as her songwriting. Oh and she gave us a guided tour of her enormous vagina painting!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠, including Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3086 Prue Leith: 'I've had HRT patches on my bum for more than 40 years!' https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Somehow it’s the end of our 20th season and I’m delighted to say that my guest today is a woman who has spent the last decade giving us a masterclass in ageing. One of my very own old bird role models, Prue Leith. Now 86, Prue has lived a multitude of lives. Chef, businesswoman, author, food columnist, board director, DBE, campaigner for Dignity in Dying and television host, most recently, of course, a nine year stint on Great British Bake Off, which she quit earlier this year. She opened her restaurant Leith’s in 1969, was awarded a Michelin star and turned it into an empire including a catering business and a cookery school, which won her the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the year. After she sold those businesses Prue became a successful food columnist, author and broadcaster. She has written 14 cookbooks, nine novels, a memoir, and currently has a column in the Oldie. How the hell has she done it? Well lucky us, she’s just written a new book, her 25th, Being Old and Learning To Love It and she’s here to tell us.  Prue joined me from the cotswolds to talk about what she loves - and hates about being old. Reclaiming being an ‘old woman’, widowhood, luck, brain fog, why she has no time for age-related fashion rules  and why she thinks it’s a crime to be bored. Plus taking HRT for 40+ years and having ‘patches on her bum’ for most of her life! CW: On a more serious note there’s also discussion of suicide, the right to die and Prue’s own end of life plans. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Being Old and Learning to Love it by Prue Leith as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 10 Mar 2026 01:00:00 -0000 full 20 282 sam baker The former Bake Off judge on being a later life icon, and the right to die Somehow it’s the end of our 20th season and I’m delighted to say that my guest today is a woman who has spent the last decade giving us a masterclass in ageing. One of my very own old bird role models, Prue Leith. Now 86, Prue has lived a multitude of lives. Chef, businesswoman, author, food columnist, board director, DBE, campaigner for Dignity in Dying and television host, most recently, of course, a nine year stint on Great British Bake Off, which she quit earlier this year. She opened her restaurant Leith’s in 1969, was awarded a Michelin star and turned it into an empire including a catering business and a cookery school, which won her the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the year. After she sold those businesses Prue became a successful food columnist, author and broadcaster. She has written 14 cookbooks, nine novels, a memoir, and currently has a column in the Oldie. How the hell has she done it? Well lucky us, she’s just written a new book, her 25th, Being Old and Learning To Love It and she’s here to tell us.  Prue joined me from the cotswolds to talk about what she loves - and hates about being old. Reclaiming being an ‘old woman’, widowhood, luck, brain fog, why she has no time for age-related fashion rules  and why she thinks it’s a crime to be bored. Plus taking HRT for 40+ years and having ‘patches on her bum’ for most of her life! CW: On a more serious note there’s also discussion of suicide, the right to die and Prue’s own end of life plans. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Being Old and Learning to Love it by Prue Leith as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Somehow it’s the end of our 20th season and I’m delighted to say that my guest today is a woman who has spent the last decade giving us a masterclass in ageing. One of my very own old bird role models, Prue Leith.


Now 86, Prue has lived a multitude of lives. Chef, businesswoman, author, food columnist, board director, DBE, campaigner for Dignity in Dying and television host, most recently, of course, a nine year stint on Great British Bake Off, which she quit earlier this year.


She opened her restaurant Leith’s in 1969, was awarded a Michelin star and turned it into an empire including a catering business and a cookery school, which won her the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the year.


After she sold those businesses Prue became a successful food columnist, author and broadcaster. She has written 14 cookbooks, nine novels, a memoir, and currently has a column in the Oldie.


How the hell has she done it? Well lucky us, she’s just written a new book, her 25th, Being Old and Learning To Love It and she’s here to tell us. 


Prue joined me from the cotswolds to talk about what she loves - and hates about being old. Reclaiming being an ‘old woman’, widowhood, luck, brain fog, why she has no time for age-related fashion rules  and why she thinks it’s a crime to be bored. Plus taking HRT for 40+ years and having ‘patches on her bum’ for most of her life!


CW: On a more serious note there’s also discussion of suicide, the right to die and Prue’s own end of life plans.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Being Old and Learning to Love it by Prue Leith as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3337 Poorna Bell is rewriting the rules around ageing https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This week I’m delighted to welcome back the powerhouse Poorna Bell. Poorna is a journalist, author and speaker known for her advocacy on body image and diversity. And now she’s adding ageing to the list of things she is not about to shut up about. When Poorna first came on The Shift she had not long turned 40 and it’s fair to say she was a little trepidatious about the ageing process. Hardly surprising since the narrative that’s pedalled to younger women is that there’s nothing worse than being a woman over 40.  Now 45 and perimenopausal, she’s shouting out loud about the potential of ageing life and the revolution she sees happening all around her amongst older women. Poorna has written two novels and three works of non-fiction. She’s here to talk about the latest. In the brilliant She Wanted More Poorna addresses the stories she was told about ageing and talks to other women about their experience. The aim? To rewrite the fear based narrative around ageing and reimagine what older life can look like for women. Poorna joined me to talk about so many things I can’t even begin to list them. But amongst others we discussed why changing the menopause conversation is good, but putting every last thing down to menopause isn’t. Why nobody benefits from playing the game. Hetero conformity. The productivity trap. Telling new stories around being single. Sexlessness. Learning our mothers’ stories. Weeding our lives and why the best years of our lives are definitely not behind us. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including She Wanted More by Poorna Bell as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 03 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0000 full 20 281 sam baker The story women are told about ageing simply isn't true This week I’m delighted to welcome back the powerhouse Poorna Bell. Poorna is a journalist, author and speaker known for her advocacy on body image and diversity. And now she’s adding ageing to the list of things she is not about to shut up about. When Poorna first came on The Shift she had not long turned 40 and it’s fair to say she was a little trepidatious about the ageing process. Hardly surprising since the narrative that’s pedalled to younger women is that there’s nothing worse than being a woman over 40.  Now 45 and perimenopausal, she’s shouting out loud about the potential of ageing life and the revolution she sees happening all around her amongst older women. Poorna has written two novels and three works of non-fiction. She’s here to talk about the latest. In the brilliant She Wanted More Poorna addresses the stories she was told about ageing and talks to other women about their experience. The aim? To rewrite the fear based narrative around ageing and reimagine what older life can look like for women. Poorna joined me to talk about so many things I can’t even begin to list them. But amongst others we discussed why changing the menopause conversation is good, but putting every last thing down to menopause isn’t. Why nobody benefits from playing the game. Hetero conformity. The productivity trap. Telling new stories around being single. Sexlessness. Learning our mothers’ stories. Weeding our lives and why the best years of our lives are definitely not behind us. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including She Wanted More by Poorna Bell as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week I’m delighted to welcome back the powerhouse Poorna Bell. Poorna is a journalist, author and speaker known for her advocacy on body image and diversity. And now she’s adding ageing to the list of things she is not about to shut up about.


When Poorna first came on The Shift she had not long turned 40 and it’s fair to say she was a little trepidatious about the ageing process. Hardly surprising since the narrative that’s pedalled to younger women is that there’s nothing worse than being a woman over 40. 


Now 45 and perimenopausal, she’s shouting out loud about the potential of ageing life and the revolution she sees happening all around her amongst older women.


Poorna has written two novels and three works of non-fiction. She’s here to talk about the latest. In the brilliant She Wanted More Poorna addresses the stories she was told about ageing and talks to other women about their experience. The aim? To rewrite the fear based narrative around ageing and reimagine what older life can look like for women.


Poorna joined me to talk about so many things I can’t even begin to list them. But amongst others we discussed why changing the menopause conversation is good, but putting every last thing down to menopause isn’t. Why nobody benefits from playing the game. Hetero conformity. The productivity trap. Telling new stories around being single. Sexlessness. Learning our mothers’ stories. Weeding our lives and why the best years of our lives are definitely not behind us.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including She Wanted More by Poorna Bell as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3812 Elizabeth Gilbert: "It's quite radical, what happens to us as we get older" https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today doesn’t really need an introduction. Elizabeth Gilbert is many things - an internationally bestselling author of the global phenomenon, Eat Pray Love, a Time 100 most influential person, a speaker and a teacher, with millions of online followers. But she is also, to put it in her own words, a ‘human permission slip’, the woman who told an entire generation of women it was OK to do whatever they needed to do, to travel for the sake of travelling. EPL sold millions of copies worldwide, was translated into 46 languages and the movie adaptation, starring Julia Roberts, grossed $200 million at the box office. Liz went on to write two bestselling novels (The Signature of all Things and City of Girls), the creativity book Big Magic (which has a permanent place on my shelf) and three more memoirs.  Her latest, All The Way To The River, caused a media furore when it was published, in large part because of the candour with which Liz spoke about her own addictions - to love, sex, and control - and her relationship with her best friend, Rayya Elias who became her lover when Rayya was diagnosed with cancer. Liz joined me, on the 20th anniversary of Eat Pray Love to talk about it’s life changing impact, the responsibility to take risks and the crucial importance of financial independence. We also discussed radical ageing, public shaming, walking away from the idea of the great love story, developing a sober dating plan, what women really want and why we all just want to be swamp witches! A quick note for British fans: Liz will be at the Barbican on Monday March 2nd, to get tickets go to https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2026/event/an-evening-with-elizabeth-gilbert-all-the-way-to-the-river * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including All the way to the river by Elizabeth Gilbert as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 24 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0000 full 20 280 sam baker The 'Eat Pray Love lady' on love addiction, sober dating, public shaming and risk taking My guest today doesn’t really need an introduction. Elizabeth Gilbert is many things - an internationally bestselling author of the global phenomenon, Eat Pray Love, a Time 100 most influential person, a speaker and a teacher, with millions of online followers. But she is also, to put it in her own words, a ‘human permission slip’, the woman who told an entire generation of women it was OK to do whatever they needed to do, to travel for the sake of travelling. EPL sold millions of copies worldwide, was translated into 46 languages and the movie adaptation, starring Julia Roberts, grossed $200 million at the box office. Liz went on to write two bestselling novels (The Signature of all Things and City of Girls), the creativity book Big Magic (which has a permanent place on my shelf) and three more memoirs.  Her latest, All The Way To The River, caused a media furore when it was published, in large part because of the candour with which Liz spoke about her own addictions - to love, sex, and control - and her relationship with her best friend, Rayya Elias who became her lover when Rayya was diagnosed with cancer. Liz joined me, on the 20th anniversary of Eat Pray Love to talk about it’s life changing impact, the responsibility to take risks and the crucial importance of financial independence. We also discussed radical ageing, public shaming, walking away from the idea of the great love story, developing a sober dating plan, what women really want and why we all just want to be swamp witches! A quick note for British fans: Liz will be at the Barbican on Monday March 2nd, to get tickets go to https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2026/event/an-evening-with-elizabeth-gilbert-all-the-way-to-the-river * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including All the way to the river by Elizabeth Gilbert as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today doesn’t really need an introduction. Elizabeth Gilbert is many things - an internationally bestselling author of the global phenomenon, Eat Pray Love, a Time 100 most influential person, a speaker and a teacher, with millions of online followers. But she is also, to put it in her own words, a ‘human permission slip’, the woman who told an entire generation of women it was OK to do whatever they needed to do, to travel for the sake of travelling.


EPL sold millions of copies worldwide, was translated into 46 languages and the movie adaptation, starring Julia Roberts, grossed $200 million at the box office.


Liz went on to write two bestselling novels (The Signature of all Things and City of Girls), the creativity book Big Magic (which has a permanent place on my shelf) and three more memoirs. 


Her latest, All The Way To The River, caused a media furore when it was published, in large part because of the candour with which Liz spoke about her own addictions - to love, sex, and control - and her relationship with her best friend, Rayya Elias who became her lover when Rayya was diagnosed with cancer.


Liz joined me, on the 20th anniversary of Eat Pray Love to talk about it’s life changing impact, the responsibility to take risks and the crucial importance of financial independence.


We also discussed radical ageing, public shaming, walking away from the idea of the great love story, developing a sober dating plan, what women really want and why we all just want to be swamp witches!

A quick note for British fans: Liz will be at the Barbican on Monday March 2nd, to get tickets go to

https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2026/event/an-evening-with-elizabeth-gilbert-all-the-way-to-the-river

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including All the way to the river by Elizabeth Gilbert as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4407 Fatima Bhutto: surviving a coercive relationship & letting go of shame https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today, Fatima Bhutto, knows more than most about loss and living with a traumatic family legacy. Now 43, Fatima is descended from one of Pakistan’s most prominent political dynasties. When she was just 14, her father, the politician Murtaza Bhutto, was killed by his political opponents during the premiership of his sister, Benazir Bhutto. Her grandfather, the former President and Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was also killed by the state. I tell you this because, despite now being a prominent writer and speaker in her own right, Fatima is the first to admit how much this shaped her. She is the author of two novels including the Women’s Prize long listed The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, and three works of non-fiction. The most recent is The Hour of The Wolf, an unflinching memoir about the decade Fatima spent in a coercive relationship in her thirties, and her beloved dog, Coco, the jack Russell terrier who became her lifeline. Fatima joined me to talk candidly about the single dad she adored, the impact of intergenerational trauma and her longing for motherhood. We also discussed why no-one is immune from coercion, learning to let go of shame, toxic self-esteem, how it feels to be older than her father and, wait for it, there is some joy!, being a dog lady! And yes, I promise, there is a happy ever after.  CW: I should warn you there is discussion of coercive control from the outset. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Hour of the Wolf by Fatima Bhutto as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0000 full 20 279 sam baker My guest today, Fatima Bhutto, knows more than most about loss and living with a traumatic family legacy. Now 43, Fatima is descended from one of Pakistan’s most prominent political dynasties. When she was just 14, her father, the politician Murtaza Bhutto, was killed by his political opponents during the premiership of his sister, Benazir Bhutto. Her grandfather, the former President and Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was also killed by the state. I tell you this because, despite now being a prominent writer and speaker in her own right, Fatima is the first to admit how much this shaped her. She is the author of two novels including the Women’s Prize long listed The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, and three works of non-fiction. The most recent is The Hour of The Wolf, an unflinching memoir about the decade Fatima spent in a coercive relationship in her thirties, and her beloved dog, Coco, the jack Russell terrier who became her lifeline. Fatima joined me to talk candidly about the single dad she adored, the impact of intergenerational trauma and her longing for motherhood. We also discussed why no-one is immune from coercion, learning to let go of shame, toxic self-esteem, how it feels to be older than her father and, wait for it, there is some joy!, being a dog lady! And yes, I promise, there is a happy ever after.  CW: I should warn you there is discussion of coercive control from the outset. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Hour of the Wolf by Fatima Bhutto as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today, Fatima Bhutto, knows more than most about loss and living with a traumatic family legacy.


Now 43, Fatima is descended from one of Pakistan’s most prominent political dynasties. When she was just 14, her father, the politician Murtaza Bhutto, was killed by his political opponents during the premiership of his sister, Benazir Bhutto. Her grandfather, the former President and Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was also killed by the state.


I tell you this because, despite now being a prominent writer and speaker in her own right, Fatima is the first to admit how much this shaped her.


She is the author of two novels including the Women’s Prize long listed The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, and three works of non-fiction. The most recent is The Hour of The Wolf, an unflinching memoir about the decade Fatima spent in a coercive relationship in her thirties, and her beloved dog, Coco, the jack Russell terrier who became her lifeline.


Fatima joined me to talk candidly about the single dad she adored, the impact of intergenerational trauma and her longing for motherhood.


We also discussed why no-one is immune from coercion, learning to let go of shame, toxic self-esteem, how it feels to be older than her father and, wait for it, there is some joy!, being a dog lady! And yes, I promise, there is a happy ever after. 


CW: I should warn you there is discussion of coercive control from the outset.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Hour of the Wolf by Fatima Bhutto as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3428 Catherine Newman on surviving the midlife sandwich – THE SHIFT LIVE https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This is a special live episode of The Shift with Sam Baker podcast, recorded live at the wonderful Portobello Bookshop in Edinburgh.  Catherine Newman is the author of some of the most on-the-nose books about being a woman in midlife that I’ve ever read - her bestselling debut, We All Want Impossible Things, Sandwich and, now, Wreck. Imagine if Nora Ephron and Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton met in a bar and did edibles together and you have something approximating Catherine’s creation, Rocky, and her family - Nick, Willa and Jamie and her 93 year old dad.  A normal loving, anxious, messy, unpredictable, relatable, family, living through a year of what ifs that veer uncomfortably close to home. Wreck asks, how do we live when we don’t know what next?  I think that’s something we can all identify with right now! Catherine has also written two memoirs and a couple of children’s books, is an award-winning writer and columnist and contributes regularly to the New York Times and O, the oprah magazine. For ten years she also wrote Real Simple’s etiquette column and she has an excellent substack, Crone Sandwich. Which I highly recommend you check out. Catherine and I chatted generational (mis)understanding, surviving the midlife sandwich, giving up drinking, life after menopause, rewriting your family's life and being a covert cookbook nerd. f you’re listening to this on the podcast, you can get a signed copy of Wreck by going to Portobello Bookshop’s website - theportobellobookshop.com. * Alternatively, you can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Wreck and Sandwich by Catherine Newman as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 10 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0000 full 20 278 sam baker This is a special live episode of The Shift with Sam Baker podcast, recorded live at the wonderful Portobello Bookshop in Edinburgh.  Catherine Newman is the author of some of the most on-the-nose books about being a woman in midlife that I’ve ever read - her bestselling debut, We All Want Impossible Things, Sandwich and, now, Wreck. Imagine if Nora Ephron and Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton met in a bar and did edibles together and you have something approximating Catherine’s creation, Rocky, and her family - Nick, Willa and Jamie and her 93 year old dad.  A normal loving, anxious, messy, unpredictable, relatable, family, living through a year of what ifs that veer uncomfortably close to home. Wreck asks, how do we live when we don’t know what next?  I think that’s something we can all identify with right now! Catherine has also written two memoirs and a couple of children’s books, is an award-winning writer and columnist and contributes regularly to the New York Times and O, the oprah magazine. For ten years she also wrote Real Simple’s etiquette column and she has an excellent substack, Crone Sandwich. Which I highly recommend you check out. Catherine and I chatted generational (mis)understanding, surviving the midlife sandwich, giving up drinking, life after menopause, rewriting your family's life and being a covert cookbook nerd. f you’re listening to this on the podcast, you can get a signed copy of Wreck by going to Portobello Bookshop’s website - theportobellobookshop.com. * Alternatively, you can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Wreck and Sandwich by Catherine Newman as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a special live episode of The Shift with Sam Baker podcast, recorded live at the wonderful Portobello Bookshop in Edinburgh. 


Catherine Newman is the author of some of the most on-the-nose books about being a woman in midlife that I’ve ever read - her bestselling debut, We All Want Impossible Things, Sandwich and, now, Wreck.


Imagine if Nora Ephron and Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton met in a bar and did edibles together and you have something approximating Catherine’s creation, Rocky, and her family - Nick, Willa and Jamie and her 93 year old dad.  A normal loving, anxious, messy, unpredictable, relatable, family, living through a year of what ifs that veer uncomfortably close to home. Wreck asks, how do we live when we don’t know what next? 


I think that’s something we can all identify with right now!


Catherine has also written two memoirs and a couple of children’s books, is an award-winning writer and columnist and contributes regularly to the New York Times and O, the oprah magazine. For ten years she also wrote Real Simple’s etiquette column and she has an excellent substack, Crone Sandwich. Which I highly recommend you check out.


Catherine and I chatted generational (mis)understanding, surviving the midlife sandwich, giving up drinking, life after menopause, rewriting your family's life and being a covert cookbook nerd.


f you’re listening to this on the podcast, you can get a signed copy of Wreck by going to Portobello Bookshop’s website - theportobellobookshop.com.


* Alternatively, you can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Wreck and Sandwich by Catherine Newman as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3481 Amy Larocca: 'the wellness industry sets women up to fail' https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Say the word wellness and it conjures an instant image in our minds… glowing skin, enviable abs, sludgy looking juice, tasteful muted leisurewear and lots and lots of money. Where we used to have diets and anti-ageing cream, we now have peloton and ashwaghanda gummies and collagen powder. Or we do if we can afford to. So I’m delighted to welcome to The Shift, the award-winning American journalist Amy Larocca, who has written an entire book on the subject, How To Be Well, aptly subtitled ‘finding a way through the self-care epidemic without losing your mind and your money’. I’ve been a fan of Amy’s work for a long time because for 20 years she was the fashion editor of New York magazine and like me is interested in the recent shift from owning the latest it bag to owning the latest it abs. She also wrote a great piece for the New York Times back in 2022 called Welcome to the menopause Gold Rush which I must have shared hundreds of times and will link to in the show notes. Amy joined me to talk about how easy it is to get sucked in by the virtue trap of wellness promise, how suddenly everyone’s a frontiers woman, bovine colostrum (yes really), how the industry is sucking in teenage boys and the price of entry to adult womanhood. We also discussed Oprah, HRT, bionic babies biohacking and so much more! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including How To Be Well by Amy Larocca as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 03 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0000 full 20 277 sam baker The menopause goldrush and how to survive the self-care epidemic Say the word wellness and it conjures an instant image in our minds… glowing skin, enviable abs, sludgy looking juice, tasteful muted leisurewear and lots and lots of money. Where we used to have diets and anti-ageing cream, we now have peloton and ashwaghanda gummies and collagen powder. Or we do if we can afford to. So I’m delighted to welcome to The Shift, the award-winning American journalist Amy Larocca, who has written an entire book on the subject, How To Be Well, aptly subtitled ‘finding a way through the self-care epidemic without losing your mind and your money’. I’ve been a fan of Amy’s work for a long time because for 20 years she was the fashion editor of New York magazine and like me is interested in the recent shift from owning the latest it bag to owning the latest it abs. She also wrote a great piece for the New York Times back in 2022 called Welcome to the menopause Gold Rush which I must have shared hundreds of times and will link to in the show notes. Amy joined me to talk about how easy it is to get sucked in by the virtue trap of wellness promise, how suddenly everyone’s a frontiers woman, bovine colostrum (yes really), how the industry is sucking in teenage boys and the price of entry to adult womanhood. We also discussed Oprah, HRT, bionic babies biohacking and so much more! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including How To Be Well by Amy Larocca as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Say the word wellness and it conjures an instant image in our minds… glowing skin, enviable abs, sludgy looking juice, tasteful muted leisurewear and lots and lots of money.


Where we used to have diets and anti-ageing cream, we now have peloton and ashwaghanda gummies and collagen powder. Or we do if we can afford to.


So I’m delighted to welcome to The Shift, the award-winning American journalist Amy Larocca, who has written an entire book on the subject, How To Be Well, aptly subtitled ‘finding a way through the self-care epidemic without losing your mind and your money’.


I’ve been a fan of Amy’s work for a long time because for 20 years she was the fashion editor of New York magazine and like me is interested in the recent shift from owning the latest it bag to owning the latest it abs. She also wrote a great piece for the New York Times back in 2022 called Welcome to the menopause Gold Rush which I must have shared hundreds of times and will link to in the show notes.


Amy joined me to talk about how easy it is to get sucked in by the virtue trap of wellness promise, how suddenly everyone’s a frontiers woman, bovine colostrum (yes really), how the industry is sucking in teenage boys and the price of entry to adult womanhood. We also discussed Oprah, HRT, bionic babies biohacking and so much more!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including How To Be Well by Amy Larocca as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3577 Gretchen Rubin on happiness, acceptance and the secrets of adulthood https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Hello and welcome to The Shift - the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post-40. Created and hosted by me, journalist and author, Sam Baker. Have I got a treat for you today. Because my guest this week is Gretchen Rubin, one of the most influential writers on habits, happiness and human nature.  Gretchen is the author of the NYT bestsellers The Happiness Project and Better Than Before, she’s sold millions of copies worldwide in more than 35 languages and every week hundreds of thousands tune into her award winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin for an injection of, well, a common sense guide to contentment.  The Happiness Project was a phenomenon. It spent two years on the American bestseller lists and spawned “happiness” groups all over the country.  It’s fair to say her pursuit of happiness changed her life. Now she’s distilled all that down into a handy guide packed with simple truths for our increasingly complex lives, called Secrets of Adulthood. You know how we’re always saying, I wish I could bottle that. Well Gretchen has booked it! Given the whole hell in a handcart vibe of the past year I couldn’t think of anyone better to give us a bit of a pep talk for 2026. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Secrets of Adulthood and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 27 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0000 full 20 276 sam baker The happiness guru shares her secrets to adulthood and introduces us to the 'open door' stage of life Hello and welcome to The Shift - the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post-40. Created and hosted by me, journalist and author, Sam Baker. Have I got a treat for you today. Because my guest this week is Gretchen Rubin, one of the most influential writers on habits, happiness and human nature.  Gretchen is the author of the NYT bestsellers The Happiness Project and Better Than Before, she’s sold millions of copies worldwide in more than 35 languages and every week hundreds of thousands tune into her award winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin for an injection of, well, a common sense guide to contentment.  The Happiness Project was a phenomenon. It spent two years on the American bestseller lists and spawned “happiness” groups all over the country.  It’s fair to say her pursuit of happiness changed her life. Now she’s distilled all that down into a handy guide packed with simple truths for our increasingly complex lives, called Secrets of Adulthood. You know how we’re always saying, I wish I could bottle that. Well Gretchen has booked it! Given the whole hell in a handcart vibe of the past year I couldn’t think of anyone better to give us a bit of a pep talk for 2026. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Secrets of Adulthood and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hello and welcome to The Shift - the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post-40. Created and hosted by me, journalist and author, Sam Baker.


Have I got a treat for you today. Because my guest this week is Gretchen Rubin, one of the most influential writers on habits, happiness and human nature. 


Gretchen is the author of the NYT bestsellers The Happiness Project and Better Than Before, she’s sold millions of copies worldwide in more than 35 languages and every week hundreds of thousands tune into her award winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin for an injection of, well, a common sense guide to contentment. 


The Happiness Project was a phenomenon. It spent two years on the American bestseller lists and spawned “happiness” groups all over the country. 


It’s fair to say her pursuit of happiness changed her life.


Now she’s distilled all that down into a handy guide packed with simple truths for our increasingly complex lives, called Secrets of Adulthood. You know how we’re always saying, I wish I could bottle that. Well Gretchen has booked it!


Given the whole hell in a handcart vibe of the past year I couldn’t think of anyone better to give us a bit of a pep talk for 2026.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Secrets of Adulthood and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3604 no Melani Sanders DOES NOT CARE - and she doesn’t care that she doesn’t care! https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Hello and welcome to SEASON 20! of The Shift - the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post-40. Created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. At any one time, approximately 13 million women in the UK are ‘in menopause’, in the US that number rises to a humungous 75million. And yet, as you will be well aware, until just a few years ago, if you said the word menopause out loud in public the response was…. Tumbleweed. At best. That was my experience and it was the experience of today’s guest, Melani Sanders whose message has become a siren call for peri and menopausal women everywhere - WE DO NOT CARE. Melani founded the We Do Not Care Club by accident, when a message she posted out of her own perimenopausal despair went viral on social media. Her followers doubled and then tripled and her post was flooded with comments from women who knew just how she felt because they felt the same. Now the 45 year old mum of three has over 3 million followers on social media (2 million insta followers @justbeingmelani and 1.5m on TikTok) and she’s written the Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook - a guide for women in perimenopause, menopause and beyond who are over it. And who isn’t?! Melani joined me from her home in Florida to share her own perimenopause experience, her struggle to get medical treatment, her decision to use GLPs, the importance of saying it out loud and the moment she realised that not only did she not care - she didn’t care that she didn’t care!  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Official We Do Not Care Handbook by Melani Sanders as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 20 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0000 full 20 275 sam baker The founder of the We Do Not Care Club on perimenopause, insomnia, anger, itching, the whole shebang Hello and welcome to SEASON 20! of The Shift - the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post-40. Created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. At any one time, approximately 13 million women in the UK are ‘in menopause’, in the US that number rises to a humungous 75million. And yet, as you will be well aware, until just a few years ago, if you said the word menopause out loud in public the response was…. Tumbleweed. At best. That was my experience and it was the experience of today’s guest, Melani Sanders whose message has become a siren call for peri and menopausal women everywhere - WE DO NOT CARE. Melani founded the We Do Not Care Club by accident, when a message she posted out of her own perimenopausal despair went viral on social media. Her followers doubled and then tripled and her post was flooded with comments from women who knew just how she felt because they felt the same. Now the 45 year old mum of three has over 3 million followers on social media (2 million insta followers @justbeingmelani and 1.5m on TikTok) and she’s written the Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook - a guide for women in perimenopause, menopause and beyond who are over it. And who isn’t?! Melani joined me from her home in Florida to share her own perimenopause experience, her struggle to get medical treatment, her decision to use GLPs, the importance of saying it out loud and the moment she realised that not only did she not care - she didn’t care that she didn’t care!  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Official We Do Not Care Handbook by Melani Sanders as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hello and welcome to SEASON 20! of The Shift - the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post-40. Created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker.


At any one time, approximately 13 million women in the UK are ‘in menopause’, in the US that number rises to a humungous 75million. And yet, as you will be well aware, until just a few years ago, if you said the word menopause out loud in public the response was…. Tumbleweed. At best.


That was my experience and it was the experience of today’s guest, Melani Sanders whose message has become a siren call for peri and menopausal women everywhere - WE DO NOT CARE.


Melani founded the We Do Not Care Club by accident, when a message she posted out of her own perimenopausal despair went viral on social media. Her followers doubled and then tripled and her post was flooded with comments from women who knew just how she felt because they felt the same.


Now the 45 year old mum of three has over 3 million followers on social media (2 million insta followers @justbeingmelani and 1.5m on TikTok) and she’s written the Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook - a guide for women in perimenopause, menopause and beyond who are over it. And who isn’t?!


Melani joined me from her home in Florida to share her own perimenopause experience, her struggle to get medical treatment, her decision to use GLPs, the importance of saying it out loud and the moment she realised that not only did she not care - she didn’t care that she didn’t care! 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Official We Do Not Care Handbook by Melani Sanders as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3122 Dr Gladys McGarey: Life lessons from a 103 year old - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Last but very much not least is my oldest ever guest Dr Gladys McGarey. Dr Gladys was 102 when we recorded this episode. She has sadly since died, in September 2024, two months before her 104th birthday... ---- A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote candidly about losing her partner in life and work after 46 years. Not because he passed away, but because he handed her divorce papers! That would have floored most of us, but despite being sideswiped, Dr Gladys McGarey, picked herself up, started a new medical practice with her daughter before becoming a speaker, author and all-round inspiration. All this at the age of 70. Since then Dr Gladys, who is known as the mother of holistic medicine, has received countless awards including the Humanities Award for Outstanding Service to Mankind.  At 85 she travelled to Afghanistan to teach rural women safer birthing practices. At her 90th birthday party she jumped out of her birthday cake. At 102 she became the proud owner of an adult tricycle. Who is this woman? And how does she do it? I HAD to know. Now on the cusp of 103, Dr Gladys joined me from her home in Arizona to tell me her secrets to health and happiness. We discussed ageing into health, femifesting (as opposed to manifesting), how divorce was the remaking of her, finding her voice at 93 and why we should all spend our energy wildly! I know this isn’t the first time I’ve said I found my old bird role model, but seriously. Dr Gladys is IT. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 13 Jan 2026 01:00:00 -0000 full 274 sam baker To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Last but very much not least is my oldest ever guest Dr Gladys McGarey. Dr Gladys was 102 when we recorded this episode. She has sadly since died, in September 2024, two months before her 104th birthday... ---- A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote candidly about losing her partner in life and work after 46 years. Not because he passed away, but because he handed her divorce papers! That would have floored most of us, but despite being sideswiped, Dr Gladys McGarey, picked herself up, started a new medical practice with her daughter before becoming a speaker, author and all-round inspiration. All this at the age of 70. Since then Dr Gladys, who is known as the mother of holistic medicine, has received countless awards including the Humanities Award for Outstanding Service to Mankind.  At 85 she travelled to Afghanistan to teach rural women safer birthing practices. At her 90th birthday party she jumped out of her birthday cake. At 102 she became the proud owner of an adult tricycle. Who is this woman? And how does she do it? I HAD to know. Now on the cusp of 103, Dr Gladys joined me from her home in Arizona to tell me her secrets to health and happiness. We discussed ageing into health, femifesting (as opposed to manifesting), how divorce was the remaking of her, finding her voice at 93 and why we should all spend our energy wildly! I know this isn’t the first time I’ve said I found my old bird role model, but seriously. Dr Gladys is IT. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Last but very much not least is my oldest ever guest Dr Gladys McGarey. Dr Gladys was 102 when we recorded this episode. She has sadly since died, in September 2024, two months before her 104th birthday...

----


A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote candidly about losing her partner in life and work after 46 years. Not because he passed away, but because he handed her divorce papers!

That would have floored most of us, but despite being sideswiped, Dr Gladys McGarey, picked herself up, started a new medical practice with her daughter before becoming a speaker, author and all-round inspiration. All this at the age of 70.

Since then Dr Gladys, who is known as the mother of holistic medicine, has received countless awards including the Humanities Award for Outstanding Service to Mankind. 

At 85 she travelled to Afghanistan to teach rural women safer birthing practices. At her 90th birthday party she jumped out of her birthday cake. At 102 she became the proud owner of an adult tricycle.

Who is this woman? And how does she do it? I HAD to know.

Now on the cusp of 103, Dr Gladys joined me from her home in Arizona to tell me her secrets to health and happiness. We discussed ageing into health, femifesting (as opposed to manifesting), how divorce was the remaking of her, finding her voice at 93 and why we should all spend our energy wildly!

I know this isn’t the first time I’ve said I found my old bird role model, but seriously. Dr Gladys is IT.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2730 no Isabel Allende on feminism, anger and being 'fatally heterosexual' - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up, bestselling novelist Isabel Allende... ---- The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. In her latest, The Soul of A Woman, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want? From her home in Northern California, Isabel explains why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. By the end of this episode, I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 06 Jan 2026 01:00:00 -0000 full 273 sam baker To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up, bestselling novelist Isabel Allende... ---- The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. In her latest, The Soul of A Woman, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want? From her home in Northern California, Isabel explains why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. By the end of this episode, I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up, bestselling novelist Isabel Allende...

----


The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. In her latest, The Soul of A Woman, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want?

From her home in Northern California, Isabel explains why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. By the end of this episode, I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2301 Lynda La Plante on a lifetime of breaking boundaries - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up, screenwriting legend Lynda La Plante... ---- My guest this week is a woman who - to coin a bit of 1980s jargon - punched through the glass ceiling for women in TV, creating not just one but a series of female lead characters who broke the mould. And not just any old female lead but OLDER female leads. There would be no Happy Valley or Scott & Bailey if it wasn’t for Lynda La Plante’s groundbreaking creation, detective Jane Tennison, brought to life by Helen Mirren. The BAFTA and Emmy award winning screenwriter of Prime Suspect, Widows and many other hit TV shows, Lynda has written 43 bestselling books, including the young Tennison series - the latest of which is Unholy Murder - that takes Jane Tennison back to the 80s as she battles to break through in the macho Met.  Lynda is now 78 and it’s 30 years since her groundbreaking creation hit our small screens (back when there were only four channels and primetime telly really mattered). But Lynda started out as a dyslexic drama student who, she says, was “too short and plain” to get good parts. Lucky for us, she decided to try her hand at writing them instead. Lynda tells me what it was really like to be a woman in TV in the 80s and 90s (and noughties!), the humiliation that shaped her, how she learnt not to let things get to her and why you should always always ALWAYS read the small print! She has a few things to say about contemporary crime TV drama, but this is a bit of a masterclass for any wannabe crime writers. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 30 Dec 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 272 sam baker To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up, screenwriting legend Lynda La Plante... ---- My guest this week is a woman who - to coin a bit of 1980s jargon - punched through the glass ceiling for women in TV, creating not just one but a series of female lead characters who broke the mould. And not just any old female lead but OLDER female leads. There would be no Happy Valley or Scott & Bailey if it wasn’t for Lynda La Plante’s groundbreaking creation, detective Jane Tennison, brought to life by Helen Mirren. The BAFTA and Emmy award winning screenwriter of Prime Suspect, Widows and many other hit TV shows, Lynda has written 43 bestselling books, including the young Tennison series - the latest of which is Unholy Murder - that takes Jane Tennison back to the 80s as she battles to break through in the macho Met.  Lynda is now 78 and it’s 30 years since her groundbreaking creation hit our small screens (back when there were only four channels and primetime telly really mattered). But Lynda started out as a dyslexic drama student who, she says, was “too short and plain” to get good parts. Lucky for us, she decided to try her hand at writing them instead. Lynda tells me what it was really like to be a woman in TV in the 80s and 90s (and noughties!), the humiliation that shaped her, how she learnt not to let things get to her and why you should always always ALWAYS read the small print! She has a few things to say about contemporary crime TV drama, but this is a bit of a masterclass for any wannabe crime writers. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up, screenwriting legend Lynda La Plante...

----

My guest this week is a woman who - to coin a bit of 1980s jargon - punched through the glass ceiling for women in TV, creating not just one but a series of female lead characters who broke the mould. And not just any old female lead but OLDER female leads. There would be no Happy Valley or Scott & Bailey if it wasn’t for Lynda La Plante’s groundbreaking creation, detective Jane Tennison, brought to life by Helen Mirren. The BAFTA and Emmy award winning screenwriter of Prime Suspect, Widows and many other hit TV shows, Lynda has written 43 bestselling books, including the young Tennison series - the latest of which is Unholy Murder - that takes Jane Tennison back to the 80s as she battles to break through in the macho Met. 

Lynda is now 78 and it’s 30 years since her groundbreaking creation hit our small screens (back when there were only four channels and primetime telly really mattered). But Lynda started out as a dyslexic drama student who, she says, was “too short and plain” to get good parts. Lucky for us, she decided to try her hand at writing them instead. Lynda tells me what it was really like to be a woman in TV in the 80s and 90s (and noughties!), the humiliation that shaped her, how she learnt not to let things get to her and why you should always always ALWAYS read the small print!

She has a few things to say about contemporary crime TV drama, but this is a bit of a masterclass for any wannabe crime writers.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3246 Helen Garner on divorce, grandmothering and the erotic gaze - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up is Australian literary legend Helen Garner who, in her 83rd year has finally broken out in the UK and US and won the Baillie Gifford Prize for her collected diaries, How To End A Story... --- My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit vague. Because despite being one of Australia’s greatest living writers she is surprisingly little known here. But not for much longer because, at the age of 81, she is finally about to see almost all her books in print in the UK and US for the first time. Born in 1941 in Geelong, Victoria, the eldest of six, Helen has lived a fascinating life and one that has found its way into her 13 books. Her debut Monkey Grip, published in 1977 when she was a single mother, is still in print today; her second novel, The Children’s Bach (which is where I recommend you start if you’ve never read her), has been compared with Hemingway and Fitzgerald; and, her true crime classic, This House of Grief, has been declared one of the best books of the 21st century. Not bad for a regular kid from, as she puts it, “an ordinary Australian home - not many books and not much talk.” I was lucky enough to get to chat to Helen (and her chooks) from her home near Melbourne. In fact she kept me up long past my bedtime (!) as we discussed the difficult father-daughter relationship, making peace with the older generations and the emotional impact of being a war baby. She also told me why getting married a fourth time would have been the definition of madness, how she couldn’t give a monkeys about the withdrawal of the erotic gaze and why grandmothering has been the greatest pleasure of her life.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 271 sam baker To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up is Australian literary legend Helen Garner who, in her 83rd year has finally broken out in the UK and US and won the Baillie Gifford Prize for her collected diaries, How To End A Story... --- My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit vague. Because despite being one of Australia’s greatest living writers she is surprisingly little known here. But not for much longer because, at the age of 81, she is finally about to see almost all her books in print in the UK and US for the first time. Born in 1941 in Geelong, Victoria, the eldest of six, Helen has lived a fascinating life and one that has found its way into her 13 books. Her debut Monkey Grip, published in 1977 when she was a single mother, is still in print today; her second novel, The Children’s Bach (which is where I recommend you start if you’ve never read her), has been compared with Hemingway and Fitzgerald; and, her true crime classic, This House of Grief, has been declared one of the best books of the 21st century. Not bad for a regular kid from, as she puts it, “an ordinary Australian home - not many books and not much talk.” I was lucky enough to get to chat to Helen (and her chooks) from her home near Melbourne. In fact she kept me up long past my bedtime (!) as we discussed the difficult father-daughter relationship, making peace with the older generations and the emotional impact of being a war baby. She also told me why getting married a fourth time would have been the definition of madness, how she couldn’t give a monkeys about the withdrawal of the erotic gaze and why grandmothering has been the greatest pleasure of her life.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. Next up is Australian literary legend Helen Garner who, in her 83rd year has finally broken out in the UK and US and won the Baillie Gifford Prize for her collected diaries, How To End A Story...

---

My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit vague. Because despite being one of Australia’s greatest living writers she is surprisingly little known here.

But not for much longer because, at the age of 81, she is finally about to see almost all her books in print in the UK and US for the first time.

Born in 1941 in Geelong, Victoria, the eldest of six, Helen has lived a fascinating life and one that has found its way into her 13 books. Her debut Monkey Grip, published in 1977 when she was a single mother, is still in print today; her second novel, The Children’s Bach (which is where I recommend you start if you’ve never read her), has been compared with Hemingway and Fitzgerald; and, her true crime classic, This House of Grief, has been declared one of the best books of the 21st century.

Not bad for a regular kid from, as she puts it, “an ordinary Australian home - not many books and not much talk.”

I was lucky enough to get to chat to Helen (and her chooks) from her home near Melbourne. In fact she kept me up long past my bedtime (!) as we discussed the difficult father-daughter relationship, making peace with the older generations and the emotional impact of being a war baby. She also told me why getting married a fourth time would have been the definition of madness, how she couldn’t give a monkeys about the withdrawal of the erotic gaze and why grandmothering has been the greatest pleasure of her life. 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2963 Miriam Margolyes on the power of living life without secrets - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ • To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. First up Miriam Margolyes... ---- It’s the final episode of the season and all my podcasting dreams have come true. Because my guest this week - by popular demand and a whole ton of begging - is the one, the only, the legend that is Miriam Margolyes. Miriam started her career in theatre and radio, voiced some of the best known ads of the late 20th century (hello Cadburys Caramel bunny), won a BAFTA for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence and millions of tiny hearts as Professor Sprout in Harry Potter. At 82, she is busier than ever; A Vogue cover star, one of TV’s best-loved documentary makers and the bestselling author of two memoirs, This Much Is True and Oh Miriam! Can you tell how excited I was?! I met Miriam in Glasgow ahead of her live show to talk about everything from having her womb out in her mid-30s (she only went to the dr for a sore nose!), wearing trainers to Buckingham palace (before that was a thing) and why she’s really really bored of being labelled “just a lesbian”. We also discussed never wanting children, her 54 year love match and the power of living a life with no secrets. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 16 Dec 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 270 sam baker • To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. First up Miriam Margolyes... ---- It’s the final episode of the season and all my podcasting dreams have come true. Because my guest this week - by popular demand and a whole ton of begging - is the one, the only, the legend that is Miriam Margolyes. Miriam started her career in theatre and radio, voiced some of the best known ads of the late 20th century (hello Cadburys Caramel bunny), won a BAFTA for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence and millions of tiny hearts as Professor Sprout in Harry Potter. At 82, she is busier than ever; A Vogue cover star, one of TV’s best-loved documentary makers and the bestselling author of two memoirs, This Much Is True and Oh Miriam! Can you tell how excited I was?! I met Miriam in Glasgow ahead of her live show to talk about everything from having her womb out in her mid-30s (she only went to the dr for a sore nose!), wearing trainers to Buckingham palace (before that was a thing) and why she’s really really bored of being labelled “just a lesbian”. We also discussed never wanting children, her 54 year love match and the power of living a life with no secrets. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices • To celebrate the old bird/broad role models who’ve appeared on The Shift with Sam Baker, I’ll be rerunning some of these conversations throughout December and into January. First up Miriam Margolyes...

----

It’s the final episode of the season and all my podcasting dreams have come true. Because my guest this week - by popular demand and a whole ton of begging - is the one, the only, the legend that is Miriam Margolyes.

Miriam started her career in theatre and radio, voiced some of the best known ads of the late 20th century (hello Cadburys Caramel bunny), won a BAFTA for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence and millions of tiny hearts as Professor Sprout in Harry Potter.

At 82, she is busier than ever; A Vogue cover star, one of TV’s best-loved documentary makers and the bestselling author of two memoirs, This Much Is True and Oh Miriam! Can you tell how excited I was?!

I met Miriam in Glasgow ahead of her live show to talk about everything from having her womb out in her mid-30s (she only went to the dr for a sore nose!), wearing trainers to Buckingham palace (before that was a thing) and why she’s really really bored of being labelled “just a lesbian”. We also discussed never wanting children, her 54 year love match and the power of living a life with no secrets.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3032 Lady Glenconner on stepping into the spotlight at 87 https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest on the final episode of this season is Anne, Lady Glenconner.  Now 93, Lady Glenconner has lived to put it bluntly, one hell of a life. She was born in 1932, the eldest daughter of the 5th earl of Leicester and brought up in the early 20th century’s rigid social hierarchy on the ancestral estate of Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Which, incidentally, she didn’t inherit because primogeniture, of which more later.  The royal family were a part of her life from birth. She played with princess Margaret - a fellow naughty girl - in the gardens as a three year old. At just 17 she was a travelling salesperson for her mother’s pottery business before she was called back to be a maid of honour at the Queen’s Coronation. At 39 she became Princess Margaret’s lady in waiting. A role she kept for more than 30 years, until the princess’s death. And then, aged 87, she decided to write a book. That book, Lady In Waiting, was a bestseller on both sides of the atlantic, spending 35 weeks in the bestseller lists in the UK and three months in the states and going on to sell over a million copies. She has since written two murder mysteries and three more memoirs, the latest of which is the memoir come handbook, Manners and Mischief, an A-Z of a well-lived life. How much more life does this woman have up her sleeve? Plenty, I suspect. Lady Anne joined me to talk about her temptestuous life, the importance of lifelong friendship, knowing you’re a disappointment from birth and the joy of suddenly being in the spotlight after spending her entire life in a supporting role. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Manners & Mischief by Lady Glenconner as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 Dec 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 19 269 sam baker The original Lady Mary (Downton Abbey) on life with the royals and rock'n'roll royalty My guest on the final episode of this season is Anne, Lady Glenconner.  Now 93, Lady Glenconner has lived to put it bluntly, one hell of a life. She was born in 1932, the eldest daughter of the 5th earl of Leicester and brought up in the early 20th century’s rigid social hierarchy on the ancestral estate of Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Which, incidentally, she didn’t inherit because primogeniture, of which more later.  The royal family were a part of her life from birth. She played with princess Margaret - a fellow naughty girl - in the gardens as a three year old. At just 17 she was a travelling salesperson for her mother’s pottery business before she was called back to be a maid of honour at the Queen’s Coronation. At 39 she became Princess Margaret’s lady in waiting. A role she kept for more than 30 years, until the princess’s death. And then, aged 87, she decided to write a book. That book, Lady In Waiting, was a bestseller on both sides of the atlantic, spending 35 weeks in the bestseller lists in the UK and three months in the states and going on to sell over a million copies. She has since written two murder mysteries and three more memoirs, the latest of which is the memoir come handbook, Manners and Mischief, an A-Z of a well-lived life. How much more life does this woman have up her sleeve? Plenty, I suspect. Lady Anne joined me to talk about her temptestuous life, the importance of lifelong friendship, knowing you’re a disappointment from birth and the joy of suddenly being in the spotlight after spending her entire life in a supporting role. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Manners & Mischief by Lady Glenconner as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest on the final episode of this season is Anne, Lady Glenconner. 


Now 93, Lady Glenconner has lived to put it bluntly, one hell of a life.


She was born in 1932, the eldest daughter of the 5th earl of Leicester and brought up in the early 20th century’s rigid social hierarchy on the ancestral estate of Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Which, incidentally, she didn’t inherit because primogeniture, of which more later. 


The royal family were a part of her life from birth. She played with princess Margaret - a fellow naughty girl - in the gardens as a three year old. At just 17 she was a travelling salesperson for her mother’s pottery business before she was called back to be a maid of honour at the Queen’s Coronation.


At 39 she became Princess Margaret’s lady in waiting. A role she kept for more than 30 years, until the princess’s death.


And then, aged 87, she decided to write a book. That book, Lady In Waiting, was a bestseller on both sides of the atlantic, spending 35 weeks in the bestseller lists in the UK and three months in the states and going on to sell over a million copies.


She has since written two murder mysteries and three more memoirs, the latest of which is the memoir come handbook, Manners and Mischief, an A-Z of a well-lived life. How much more life does this woman have up her sleeve? Plenty, I suspect.


Lady Anne joined me to talk about her temptestuous life, the importance of lifelong friendship, knowing you’re a disappointment from birth and the joy of suddenly being in the spotlight after spending her entire life in a supporting role.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Manners & Mischief by Lady Glenconner as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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]]> 3367 no Karen Dobres: how menopause & football turned me into an accidental radical https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the accidental radical Karen Dobres. Until her early fifties, Karen’s life had taken a path familiar to so many women. From modelling in her early twenties, she trained as a counsellor and worked alongside bringing up a family. So far, so familiar. Then, as she puts it, she had her final period, attended her first football match and everything changed. Growing up in the 70s, when girls weren’t allowed to play football at school (although the law had changed to technically allow us to play in 1971, Karen had less than no interest in football, until she discovered women’s football, became a passionate supporter and director of Lewes FC, famed for being the first team to pay its male and female players the same.  Her five years on the board there are the subject of her new book, Pitch Invasion.  Karen joined me to talk about what it takes to be a feminist on a football club board and her part in helping to turn the pitch into a place that welcomes women. the benefits of being an outsider. Why manspreading starts in the playground. How menopause gave her permission to get angry. The importance of celebrating what our bodies can do, not what they look like. Why football is helping put a little prick in the Trump balloon. And why she created a town called fuckery! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Pitch Invasion by Karen Dobres as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 02 Dec 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 19 268 sam baker How a feminist who'd never been to a football match became a director of Lewes FC My guest today is the accidental radical Karen Dobres. Until her early fifties, Karen’s life had taken a path familiar to so many women. From modelling in her early twenties, she trained as a counsellor and worked alongside bringing up a family. So far, so familiar. Then, as she puts it, she had her final period, attended her first football match and everything changed. Growing up in the 70s, when girls weren’t allowed to play football at school (although the law had changed to technically allow us to play in 1971, Karen had less than no interest in football, until she discovered women’s football, became a passionate supporter and director of Lewes FC, famed for being the first team to pay its male and female players the same.  Her five years on the board there are the subject of her new book, Pitch Invasion.  Karen joined me to talk about what it takes to be a feminist on a football club board and her part in helping to turn the pitch into a place that welcomes women. the benefits of being an outsider. Why manspreading starts in the playground. How menopause gave her permission to get angry. The importance of celebrating what our bodies can do, not what they look like. Why football is helping put a little prick in the Trump balloon. And why she created a town called fuckery! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Pitch Invasion by Karen Dobres as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the accidental radical Karen Dobres. Until her early fifties, Karen’s life had taken a path familiar to so many women. From modelling in her early twenties, she trained as a counsellor and worked alongside bringing up a family. So far, so familiar. Then, as she puts it, she had her final period, attended her first football match and everything changed.


Growing up in the 70s, when girls weren’t allowed to play football at school (although the law had changed to technically allow us to play in 1971, Karen had less than no interest in football, until she discovered women’s football, became a passionate supporter and director of Lewes FC, famed for being the first team to pay its male and female players the same. 

Her five years on the board there are the subject of her new book, Pitch Invasion. 


Karen joined me to talk about what it takes to be a feminist on a football club board and her part in helping to turn the pitch into a place that welcomes women. the benefits of being an outsider. Why manspreading starts in the playground. How menopause gave her permission to get angry. The importance of celebrating what our bodies can do, not what they look like. Why football is helping put a little prick in the Trump balloon. And why she created a town called fuckery!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Pitch Invasion by Karen Dobres as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3691 Samantha Ellis on food, family and finding your identity in your 40s https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is a woman on a mission to preserve the language of her grandparents. Playwright, screenwriter and novelist Samantha Ellis is the author of one of my personal favourites How To Be A Heroine. Sam was in her early 40s and a new mum when it dawned on her that her mother tongue - or milk language - was on the verge of dying out. The daughter of Iraqi-Jewish refugees, Sam grew up surrounded by the noisy vivid hot sounds of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, but when she tried to tell her son he was chopping onions on her heart, she realised she couldn’t find the words - and even if she could, he wouldn’t understand them. In her evocatively titled book of the same name, Sam goes back through the lives of her parents and grandparents, from Iraq to Israel to London and in so doing discovers far more about herself than she could ever have imagined. Sam takes us on a journey back to 1950s Baghdad to share what she discovered about herself and her family heritage and how it’s shaped her as she heads towards 50. We also discussed intergenerational trauma, uses for coriander, cooking as a cure for overthinking, learning to belly dance and the unexpected joy of not being allowed to hold your stomach in! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Chopping Onions on My Heart by Samantha Ellis as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 25 Nov 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 19 267 sam baker My guest today is a woman on a mission to preserve the language of her grandparents. Playwright, screenwriter and novelist Samantha Ellis is the author of one of my personal favourites How To Be A Heroine. Sam was in her early 40s and a new mum when it dawned on her that her mother tongue - or milk language - was on the verge of dying out. The daughter of Iraqi-Jewish refugees, Sam grew up surrounded by the noisy vivid hot sounds of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, but when she tried to tell her son he was chopping onions on her heart, she realised she couldn’t find the words - and even if she could, he wouldn’t understand them. In her evocatively titled book of the same name, Sam goes back through the lives of her parents and grandparents, from Iraq to Israel to London and in so doing discovers far more about herself than she could ever have imagined. Sam takes us on a journey back to 1950s Baghdad to share what she discovered about herself and her family heritage and how it’s shaped her as she heads towards 50. We also discussed intergenerational trauma, uses for coriander, cooking as a cure for overthinking, learning to belly dance and the unexpected joy of not being allowed to hold your stomach in! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Chopping Onions on My Heart by Samantha Ellis as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a woman on a mission to preserve the language of her grandparents. Playwright, screenwriter and novelist Samantha Ellis is the author of one of my personal favourites How To Be A Heroine. Sam was in her early 40s and a new mum when it dawned on her that her mother tongue - or milk language - was on the verge of dying out.


The daughter of Iraqi-Jewish refugees, Sam grew up surrounded by the noisy vivid hot sounds of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, but when she tried to tell her son he was chopping onions on her heart, she realised she couldn’t find the words - and even if she could, he wouldn’t understand them.


In her evocatively titled book of the same name, Sam goes back through the lives of her parents and grandparents, from Iraq to Israel to London and in so doing discovers far more about herself than she could ever have imagined.


Sam takes us on a journey back to 1950s Baghdad to share what she discovered about herself and her family heritage and how it’s shaped her as she heads towards 50. We also discussed intergenerational trauma, uses for coriander, cooking as a cure for overthinking, learning to belly dance and the unexpected joy of not being allowed to hold your stomach in!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Chopping Onions on My Heart by Samantha Ellis as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3606 Holly Dawson on facing permanent memory loss at 40 https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ For many of us losing our memory is our worst nightmare. To be told that that is happening when you are still young (ish) is close to unimaginable. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, writer, teacher and reader in residence at Charleston, Holly Dawson. Holly was just 40 when she started to lose her grasp of where she was. She was ultimately diagnosed with epilepsy. A scan of her brain revealed a benign tumour and Holly found herself faced with the prospect of losing both her memory and her words, which had always been her friend and were her main source of income Holly set out to build a picture of herself while she still could - from childhood to womanhood, daughter, book worm, dancer, gardener, mother.  The result is her memoir, of sorts, All of Us Atoms. Holly overcame her reluctance to talk about herself to discuss the moment she started to lose her words. How it felt to fail the memory test after a lifetime of never failing anything.The toxic myth of the straight line. Having her first natural period at 40. Her love of digging and chickens and mess. Why it took until her 40s to realise she doesn’t have to be good at everything and why she will not be giving up anything for love. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including All Of Us Atoms by Holly Dawson as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 18 Nov 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 19 266 sam baker on periods, digging, chickens, perfectionism, mess and memory For many of us losing our memory is our worst nightmare. To be told that that is happening when you are still young (ish) is close to unimaginable. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, writer, teacher and reader in residence at Charleston, Holly Dawson. Holly was just 40 when she started to lose her grasp of where she was. She was ultimately diagnosed with epilepsy. A scan of her brain revealed a benign tumour and Holly found herself faced with the prospect of losing both her memory and her words, which had always been her friend and were her main source of income Holly set out to build a picture of herself while she still could - from childhood to womanhood, daughter, book worm, dancer, gardener, mother.  The result is her memoir, of sorts, All of Us Atoms. Holly overcame her reluctance to talk about herself to discuss the moment she started to lose her words. How it felt to fail the memory test after a lifetime of never failing anything.The toxic myth of the straight line. Having her first natural period at 40. Her love of digging and chickens and mess. Why it took until her 40s to realise she doesn’t have to be good at everything and why she will not be giving up anything for love. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including All Of Us Atoms by Holly Dawson as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices For many of us losing our memory is our worst nightmare. To be told that that is happening when you are still young (ish) is close to unimaginable. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, writer, teacher and reader in residence at Charleston, Holly Dawson.


Holly was just 40 when she started to lose her grasp of where she was. She was ultimately diagnosed with epilepsy. A scan of her brain revealed a benign tumour and Holly found herself faced with the prospect of losing both her memory and her words, which had always been her friend and were her main source of income


Holly set out to build a picture of herself while she still could - from childhood to womanhood, daughter, book worm, dancer, gardener, mother. 


The result is her memoir, of sorts, All of Us Atoms.


Holly overcame her reluctance to talk about herself to discuss the moment she started to lose her words. How it felt to fail the memory test after a lifetime of never failing anything.The toxic myth of the straight line. Having her first natural period at 40. Her love of digging and chickens and mess. Why it took until her 40s to realise she doesn’t have to be good at everything and why she will not be giving up anything for love.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including All Of Us Atoms by Holly Dawson as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3758 Bobbi Brown on doing it all her own way in her 60s https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ If you, like me, have lived most of your life in fear of foundation, this week’s guest is your saviour. Because this woman saved us no-makeup makeup girls’ lives.  Back in 1991, Bobbi Brown was a makeup artist frustrated by the fact that most makeup looked like a mask. So she produced a range of 10 lipsticks that actually matched people’s lips. Shocker! Those lipsticks were the start of something huge: the first eponymous make up artist led beauty brand. A brand that Bobbi sold to Estee Lauder just four years later for a reported $74.5million dollars  Then, after 22 years at Estee Lauder, Bobbi left the company. Suddenly. Then… silence. What nobody knew at the time was that at the age of 37 she had signed a 25 year non-compete. Twenty five years! And she used that time to regain her mojo. Then, Bobbi reappeared with her brilliant new brand Jones Road, (hands up I’m a big fan) and now she’s decided it’s time to tell her own story, in her own words in her autobiography, Still Bobbi.  Back in 2022, to celebrate the launch of Jones Road, Bobbi joined me from her house in the Hamptons to talk about how she reinvented yourself in her sixties. We also discussed the emotional wrench of leaving her name and her legacy behind, how to get what you want at work (and at home), seeing the beauty in growing older and the joy of nobody trying to fix you. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Still Bobbi by Bobbi Brown as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 11 Nov 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 19 265 sam baker Life, legacy, reinvention and why nothing's more beautiful than growing older If you, like me, have lived most of your life in fear of foundation, this week’s guest is your saviour. Because this woman saved us no-makeup makeup girls’ lives.  Back in 1991, Bobbi Brown was a makeup artist frustrated by the fact that most makeup looked like a mask. So she produced a range of 10 lipsticks that actually matched people’s lips. Shocker! Those lipsticks were the start of something huge: the first eponymous make up artist led beauty brand. A brand that Bobbi sold to Estee Lauder just four years later for a reported $74.5million dollars  Then, after 22 years at Estee Lauder, Bobbi left the company. Suddenly. Then… silence. What nobody knew at the time was that at the age of 37 she had signed a 25 year non-compete. Twenty five years! And she used that time to regain her mojo. Then, Bobbi reappeared with her brilliant new brand Jones Road, (hands up I’m a big fan) and now she’s decided it’s time to tell her own story, in her own words in her autobiography, Still Bobbi.  Back in 2022, to celebrate the launch of Jones Road, Bobbi joined me from her house in the Hamptons to talk about how she reinvented yourself in her sixties. We also discussed the emotional wrench of leaving her name and her legacy behind, how to get what you want at work (and at home), seeing the beauty in growing older and the joy of nobody trying to fix you. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Still Bobbi by Bobbi Brown as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices If you, like me, have lived most of your life in fear of foundation, this week’s guest is your saviour. Because this woman saved us no-makeup makeup girls’ lives. 


Back in 1991, Bobbi Brown was a makeup artist frustrated by the fact that most makeup looked like a mask. So she produced a range of 10 lipsticks that actually matched people’s lips. Shocker! Those lipsticks were the start of something huge: the first eponymous make up artist led beauty brand. A brand that Bobbi sold to Estee Lauder just four years later for a reported $74.5million dollars 


Then, after 22 years at Estee Lauder, Bobbi left the company. Suddenly. Then… silence. What nobody knew at the time was that at the age of 37 she had signed a 25 year non-compete. Twenty five years! And she used that time to regain her mojo.


Then, Bobbi reappeared with her brilliant new brand Jones Road, (hands up I’m a big fan) and now she’s decided it’s time to tell her own story, in her own words in her autobiography, Still Bobbi. 


Back in 2022, to celebrate the launch of Jones Road, Bobbi joined me from her house in the Hamptons to talk about how she reinvented yourself in her sixties. We also discussed the emotional wrench of leaving her name and her legacy behind, how to get what you want at work (and at home), seeing the beauty in growing older and the joy of nobody trying to fix you.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Still Bobbi by Bobbi Brown as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3067 Hollie McNish on sex, shame and telling the truth about womanhood https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Today’s episode is basically a massive treat for me. Hollie McNish is my favourite poet. I first encountered her over a decade ago when I was doing an event for my thriller, The Woman Who Ran, at a literary festival. Hollie was in the big venue next door. The signing queue went on for miles. Let’s just say, it wasn’t for me. Hollie’s poetry speaks to people, women, mainly, let’s be honest. And we are quite literally queueing up to see her. Hollie’s poetry has millions of views on social media, she sells out thousand seater stadiums and by the second poem everyone is on their feet, Weeping, howling, cheering, above all, laughing, at the unassuming woman on stage talking about blood and blow jobs. Hollie has written seven works of poetry, including Nobody Told Me, a poetic memoir about politics and parenthood, that won the Ted Hughes Prize. The latest, Virgin, has all the Hollie McNish hallmarks - candour, rage, laugh out loud humour, and a determination to to say out loud the things others think but dare not say. Hollie joined me for the best Monday morning I’ve had in a long time. We talked about everything from poetry and politics to Single motherhood and success to sleazy old men and why she’s sick of society shaming teenagers. We also discussed how dirty dancing informed her feminism, How she got the confidence to stand up on stage and talk about blow jobs And Why this age is so good so its detractors should just shut the f*ck up. Wisdom of the week goes to Hollie’s mum who says, 'if you can enjoy a tree you’ll be all right.' * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Virgin by Hollie McNish as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 04 Nov 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 19 264 sam baker The award-winning poet is here to say what everyone else is thinking Today’s episode is basically a massive treat for me. Hollie McNish is my favourite poet. I first encountered her over a decade ago when I was doing an event for my thriller, The Woman Who Ran, at a literary festival. Hollie was in the big venue next door. The signing queue went on for miles. Let’s just say, it wasn’t for me. Hollie’s poetry speaks to people, women, mainly, let’s be honest. And we are quite literally queueing up to see her. Hollie’s poetry has millions of views on social media, she sells out thousand seater stadiums and by the second poem everyone is on their feet, Weeping, howling, cheering, above all, laughing, at the unassuming woman on stage talking about blood and blow jobs. Hollie has written seven works of poetry, including Nobody Told Me, a poetic memoir about politics and parenthood, that won the Ted Hughes Prize. The latest, Virgin, has all the Hollie McNish hallmarks - candour, rage, laugh out loud humour, and a determination to to say out loud the things others think but dare not say. Hollie joined me for the best Monday morning I’ve had in a long time. We talked about everything from poetry and politics to Single motherhood and success to sleazy old men and why she’s sick of society shaming teenagers. We also discussed how dirty dancing informed her feminism, How she got the confidence to stand up on stage and talk about blow jobs And Why this age is so good so its detractors should just shut the f*ck up. Wisdom of the week goes to Hollie’s mum who says, 'if you can enjoy a tree you’ll be all right.' * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Virgin by Hollie McNish as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s episode is basically a massive treat for me. Hollie McNish is my favourite poet. I first encountered her over a decade ago when I was doing an event for my thriller, The Woman Who Ran, at a literary festival. Hollie was in the big venue next door. The signing queue went on for miles. Let’s just say, it wasn’t for me. Hollie’s poetry speaks to people, women, mainly, let’s be honest. And we are quite literally queueing up to see her.


Hollie’s poetry has millions of views on social media, she sells out thousand seater stadiums and by the second poem everyone is on their feet, Weeping, howling, cheering, above all, laughing, at the unassuming woman on stage talking about blood and blow jobs.


Hollie has written seven works of poetry, including Nobody Told Me, a poetic memoir about politics and parenthood, that won the Ted Hughes Prize. The latest, Virgin, has all the Hollie McNish hallmarks - candour, rage, laugh out loud humour, and a determination to to say out loud the things others think but dare not say.

Hollie joined me for the best Monday morning I’ve had in a long time. We talked about everything from poetry and politics to Single motherhood and success to sleazy old men and why she’s sick of society shaming teenagers. We also discussed how dirty dancing informed her feminism, How she got the confidence to stand up on stage and talk about blow jobs And Why this age is so good so its detractors should just shut the f*ck up.


Wisdom of the week goes to Hollie’s mum who says, 'if you can enjoy a tree you’ll be all right.'


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Virgin by Hollie McNish as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4158 yes Jen Hatmaker: “It’s like I woke up halfway through my life” https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ We talk a lot about women who want out, who want to set light to everything and walk away. But we don’t talk so much about the women who find someone else has put a bomb under their lives and left them standing in the rubble. That’s what happened to Jen Hatmaker…  After 45 years of living life according to the good girl rules, she woke up in the middle of the night to find her husband of 26 years voice texting his girlfriend in bed beside her. In that minute, Everything she thought she knew was over.  And not once, but twice. Because Jen, a bestselling author who had previously been a Christian women’s influencer and grew up under the True Love Waits doctrine had also experienced a crisis of faith that caused her to move away from conservative stances she’d grown up with. Now Jen has written a book, Awake, about what happens when you reach middle age and find that the very things that formed your identity are no longer there.  Jen joined me to talk about the moment her life exploded, her midlife sexual renaissance, how she learnt to trust her body and take control of her finances in middle age. We also discussed society’s obsession with marriage, her annual retreat to me camp and why she’s a total sucker for glow! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Awake by Jen Hatmaker as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 28 Oct 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 19 263 sam baker Jen Hatmaker’s life exploded in middle age. Five years on, she’s made a better one We talk a lot about women who want out, who want to set light to everything and walk away. But we don’t talk so much about the women who find someone else has put a bomb under their lives and left them standing in the rubble. That’s what happened to Jen Hatmaker…  After 45 years of living life according to the good girl rules, she woke up in the middle of the night to find her husband of 26 years voice texting his girlfriend in bed beside her. In that minute, Everything she thought she knew was over.  And not once, but twice. Because Jen, a bestselling author who had previously been a Christian women’s influencer and grew up under the True Love Waits doctrine had also experienced a crisis of faith that caused her to move away from conservative stances she’d grown up with. Now Jen has written a book, Awake, about what happens when you reach middle age and find that the very things that formed your identity are no longer there.  Jen joined me to talk about the moment her life exploded, her midlife sexual renaissance, how she learnt to trust her body and take control of her finances in middle age. We also discussed society’s obsession with marriage, her annual retreat to me camp and why she’s a total sucker for glow! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Awake by Jen Hatmaker as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices We talk a lot about women who want out, who want to set light to everything and walk away. But we don’t talk so much about the women who find someone else has put a bomb under their lives and left them standing in the rubble. That’s what happened to Jen Hatmaker… 


After 45 years of living life according to the good girl rules, she woke up in the middle of the night to find her husband of 26 years voice texting his girlfriend in bed beside her. In that minute, Everything she thought she knew was over. 


And not once, but twice. Because Jen, a bestselling author who had previously been a Christian women’s influencer and grew up under the True Love Waits doctrine had also experienced a crisis of faith that caused her to move away from conservative stances she’d grown up with.


Now Jen has written a book, Awake, about what happens when you reach middle age and find that the very things that formed your identity are no longer there. 


Jen joined me to talk about the moment her life exploded, her midlife sexual renaissance, how she learnt to trust her body and take control of her finances in middle age. We also discussed society’s obsession with marriage, her annual retreat to me camp and why she’s a total sucker for glow!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Awake by Jen Hatmaker as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3184 THE SHIFT LIVE: Mary Portas on fashion, Ab Fab & how her childhood shaped her https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This episode of The Shift podcast, with the High Street legend, Mary Portas, is brought to you live from Cheltenham Literature Festival Mary is one of the UK’s most high profile and innovative business women. She made her name transforming dusty old Harvey Nichols into global fashion destination Harvey Nicks (with a little bit of help from Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley and Absolutely Fabulous!), leaving after a decade to found Portas her own creative company, helping to transform some of the many companies and brands who’d tried and failed to poach her. Mary went from industry famous to on-the-street famous when over three and a half million people tuned into BBC’s Mary Queen of Shops back in 2007 and she has been a regular on our TVs ever since. She has advised the government on the future of high streets, created twenty six Mary’s Living & Giving shops for Save The Children and written six books. But we’re here to talk about those Harvey Nicks years and the book she’s written about them in the heady whirl of the 90s - I Shop Therefore I Am.  Mary takes us on a no-holds barred journey from shop window to boardroom. It’s a joyous gossip-filled riot but also a candid look at the childhood that shaped her, her passion for shops (not fashion) and crucially how and why we shop. And in amongst it all we might get a bit emotional! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including I Shop, Therefore I am by Mary Portas as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 19 262 sam baker The Queen of Shops on stepmothers, strength and making her way in retail This episode of The Shift podcast, with the High Street legend, Mary Portas, is brought to you live from Cheltenham Literature Festival Mary is one of the UK’s most high profile and innovative business women. She made her name transforming dusty old Harvey Nichols into global fashion destination Harvey Nicks (with a little bit of help from Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley and Absolutely Fabulous!), leaving after a decade to found Portas her own creative company, helping to transform some of the many companies and brands who’d tried and failed to poach her. Mary went from industry famous to on-the-street famous when over three and a half million people tuned into BBC’s Mary Queen of Shops back in 2007 and she has been a regular on our TVs ever since. She has advised the government on the future of high streets, created twenty six Mary’s Living & Giving shops for Save The Children and written six books. But we’re here to talk about those Harvey Nicks years and the book she’s written about them in the heady whirl of the 90s - I Shop Therefore I Am.  Mary takes us on a no-holds barred journey from shop window to boardroom. It’s a joyous gossip-filled riot but also a candid look at the childhood that shaped her, her passion for shops (not fashion) and crucially how and why we shop. And in amongst it all we might get a bit emotional! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including I Shop, Therefore I am by Mary Portas as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This episode of The Shift podcast, with the High Street legend, Mary Portas, is brought to you live from Cheltenham Literature Festival

Mary is one of the UK’s most high profile and innovative business women. She made her name transforming dusty old Harvey Nichols into global fashion destination Harvey Nicks (with a little bit of help from Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley and Absolutely Fabulous!), leaving after a decade to found Portas her own creative company, helping to transform some of the many companies and brands who’d tried and failed to poach her.


Mary went from industry famous to on-the-street famous when over three and a half million people tuned into BBC’s Mary Queen of Shops back in 2007 and she has been a regular on our TVs ever since. She has advised the government on the future of high streets, created twenty six Mary’s Living & Giving shops for Save The Children and written six books.


But we’re here to talk about those Harvey Nicks years and the book she’s written about them in the heady whirl of the 90s - I Shop Therefore I Am. 


Mary takes us on a no-holds barred journey from shop window to boardroom. It’s a joyous gossip-filled riot but also a candid look at the childhood that shaped her, her passion for shops (not fashion) and crucially how and why we shop. And in amongst it all we might get a bit emotional!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including I Shop, Therefore I am by Mary Portas as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2974 Lyse Doucet – my extraordinary 40 years on the frontline https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet. Since starting work at the corporation almost forty years ago, Lyse has covered all the major wars in the Middle East, reporting from Afghanistan Iraq Iran Jordan Israel Pakistan Egypt Libya and most recently Gaza. And that’s before we get started on the rest of the world. Sudan. The tsunami in Indonesia. And you may well remember her reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 from a rooftop in Kyiv. When we spoke Lyse had recently made it back to Canada via the Egypt/Gaza border, before heading to the UK to promote her first book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, a quietly devastating, utterly humane look at a history of the people of Afghanistan, told through the staff of the Intercontinental in Kabul where Lyse has been staying since 1988. When she first checked in, the day after her 30th birthday, the man on reception asked her how long she’d be staying, she guessed six weeks… she’s been there on and off ever since. Lyse joined me for a fascinating free range conversation about her extraordinary life and career. We talked about finding her north star, why gender is irrelevant when it comes to reporting war, what nobody tells you about kindness, the moment she realised her job was going to come first in her life, the power and importance of female friendship in a war zone and why even sometimes reporters have to look away. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 19 261 sam baker The BBC's chief international correspondent on the moment she learnt work had to come before EVERYTHING else My guest today is the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet. Since starting work at the corporation almost forty years ago, Lyse has covered all the major wars in the Middle East, reporting from Afghanistan Iraq Iran Jordan Israel Pakistan Egypt Libya and most recently Gaza. And that’s before we get started on the rest of the world. Sudan. The tsunami in Indonesia. And you may well remember her reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 from a rooftop in Kyiv. When we spoke Lyse had recently made it back to Canada via the Egypt/Gaza border, before heading to the UK to promote her first book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, a quietly devastating, utterly humane look at a history of the people of Afghanistan, told through the staff of the Intercontinental in Kabul where Lyse has been staying since 1988. When she first checked in, the day after her 30th birthday, the man on reception asked her how long she’d be staying, she guessed six weeks… she’s been there on and off ever since. Lyse joined me for a fascinating free range conversation about her extraordinary life and career. We talked about finding her north star, why gender is irrelevant when it comes to reporting war, what nobody tells you about kindness, the moment she realised her job was going to come first in her life, the power and importance of female friendship in a war zone and why even sometimes reporters have to look away. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet.


Since starting work at the corporation almost forty years ago, Lyse has covered all the major wars in the Middle East, reporting from Afghanistan Iraq Iran Jordan Israel Pakistan Egypt Libya and most recently Gaza. And that’s before we get started on the rest of the world. Sudan. The tsunami in Indonesia. And you may well remember her reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 from a rooftop in Kyiv.


When we spoke Lyse had recently made it back to Canada via the Egypt/Gaza border, before heading to the UK to promote her first book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, a quietly devastating, utterly humane look at a history of the people of Afghanistan, told through the staff of the Intercontinental in Kabul where Lyse has been staying since 1988. When she first checked in, the day after her 30th birthday, the man on reception asked her how long she’d be staying, she guessed six weeks… she’s been there on and off ever since.


Lyse joined me for a fascinating free range conversation about her extraordinary life and career. We talked about finding her north star, why gender is irrelevant when it comes to reporting war, what nobody tells you about kindness, the moment she realised her job was going to come first in her life, the power and importance of female friendship in a war zone and why even sometimes reporters have to look away.



* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4045 no India Knight on finally gaining a sense of self in her 50s - from the archives https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ (This episode first aired in November 2023) Today’s guest is the Sunday Times’ Style’s beauty columnist India Knight. Every week thousands of women turn to her column for beauty advice - not beauty junkies, not trend followers, just regular women like you and me who want to know what works, why it works and what’s worth spending their hard earned cash on. Now India has turned that column into a book, “India Knight’s Beauty Edit: what works when you’re older” giving practical advice if you’ve suddenly found your skin, body, hair, or all three, are changing and your tried and tested “look” is no longer working for you. India joined me to talk about Why she doesn’t miss anything about being younger (no, not a single thing), how she gained a sense of self in her 50s, why skincare is the foundation of everything and what happened to make her - a loud and proud tweakement refusenik - finally cave. If you can’t be arsed hunting down beauty tutorials on tiktok and there is no way on earth you’re going to use 35 products where 2 or 3 will do this chat is for you. Finally I understand the point of serum. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Sali Hughes and Anita B. You’ll find a link to them in the show notes. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including India's new book, Home, based on her substack of the same name, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 260 sam baker (This episode first aired in November 2023) Today’s guest is the Sunday Times’ Style’s beauty columnist India Knight. Every week thousands of women turn to her column for beauty advice - not beauty junkies, not trend followers, just regular women like you and me who want to know what works, why it works and what’s worth spending their hard earned cash on. Now India has turned that column into a book, “India Knight’s Beauty Edit: what works when you’re older” giving practical advice if you’ve suddenly found your skin, body, hair, or all three, are changing and your tried and tested “look” is no longer working for you. India joined me to talk about Why she doesn’t miss anything about being younger (no, not a single thing), how she gained a sense of self in her 50s, why skincare is the foundation of everything and what happened to make her - a loud and proud tweakement refusenik - finally cave. If you can’t be arsed hunting down beauty tutorials on tiktok and there is no way on earth you’re going to use 35 products where 2 or 3 will do this chat is for you. Finally I understand the point of serum. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Sali Hughes and Anita B. You’ll find a link to them in the show notes. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including India's new book, Home, based on her substack of the same name, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices (This episode first aired in November 2023)

Today’s guest is the Sunday Times’ Style’s beauty columnist India Knight. Every week thousands of women turn to her column for beauty advice - not beauty junkies, not trend followers, just regular women like you and me who want to know what works, why it works and what’s worth spending their hard earned cash on.

Now India has turned that column into a book, “India Knight’s Beauty Edit: what works when you’re older” giving practical advice if you’ve suddenly found your skin, body, hair, or all three, are changing and your tried and tested “look” is no longer working for you.

India joined me to talk about Why she doesn’t miss anything about being younger (no, not a single thing), how she gained a sense of self in her 50s, why skincare is the foundation of everything and what happened to make her - a loud and proud tweakement refusenik - finally cave. If you can’t be arsed hunting down beauty tutorials on tiktok and there is no way on earth you’re going to use 35 products where 2 or 3 will do this chat is for you. Finally I understand the point of serum.

If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Sali Hughes and Anita B. You’ll find a link to them in the show notes.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including India's new book, Home, based on her substack of the same name, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3095 Hilma Wolitzer: 80 years of writing – and not done yet (from the archives) https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ (This episode first aired in August 2022.) My guest today is the writer Hilma Wolitzer. Born in 1930, Hilma had her first poem published at the age of 9. She then shelved that ambition in favour of marriage and children, as women were expected to in the 1950s. 26 years later she had her first short story published. Then there was no stopping her.  Her first novel was published at the age of 44 and since then she has published 14 books. The most recent of which is the career-spanning short story collection - the brilliantly named, Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket. If you, like me, love Elizabeth Strout, I guarantee you will love this.  Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to speak to Hilma from her apartment in New York about writing at 9 and 90, being raised to be a housewife by a housewife and how feminism changed her life. She also talked about losing her husband of 68 years to covid during lockdown, why she can’t think of anything worse than dating again, why she’s not done yet and why she doesn’t mind being an old woman but she definitely doesn’t want to be an old girl. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 259 sam baker If you love Elizabeth Strout, you'll love Hilma! (Oh, and she's the mother of bestselling writer Meg Wolitzer.) (This episode first aired in August 2022.) My guest today is the writer Hilma Wolitzer. Born in 1930, Hilma had her first poem published at the age of 9. She then shelved that ambition in favour of marriage and children, as women were expected to in the 1950s. 26 years later she had her first short story published. Then there was no stopping her.  Her first novel was published at the age of 44 and since then she has published 14 books. The most recent of which is the career-spanning short story collection - the brilliantly named, Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket. If you, like me, love Elizabeth Strout, I guarantee you will love this.  Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to speak to Hilma from her apartment in New York about writing at 9 and 90, being raised to be a housewife by a housewife and how feminism changed her life. She also talked about losing her husband of 68 years to covid during lockdown, why she can’t think of anything worse than dating again, why she’s not done yet and why she doesn’t mind being an old woman but she definitely doesn’t want to be an old girl. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices (This episode first aired in August 2022.)

My guest today is the writer Hilma Wolitzer. Born in 1930, Hilma had her first poem published at the age of 9. She then shelved that ambition in favour of marriage and children, as women were expected to in the 1950s. 26 years later she had her first short story published. Then there was no stopping her. 

Her first novel was published at the age of 44 and since then she has published 14 books. The most recent of which is the career-spanning short story collection - the brilliantly named, Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket. If you, like me, love Elizabeth Strout, I guarantee you will love this. 

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to speak to Hilma from her apartment in New York about writing at 9 and 90, being raised to be a housewife by a housewife and how feminism changed her life. She also talked about losing her husband of 68 years to covid during lockdown, why she can’t think of anything worse than dating again, why she’s not done yet and why she doesn’t mind being an old woman but she definitely doesn’t want to be an old girl.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3230 Caryn Franklin on why fashion still fails older women - from the archives (This episode was first published in November 2022.) Today's guest is one of my personal heroes, Caryn Franklin. Caryn started her career in the 80s as a fashion editor before moving into TV where she presented, amongst other things, BBC’s The Clothes Show. Always outspoken, Caryn has spent four decades being a thorn in the fashion industry’s side. Championing diversity of all forms LONG before it became the cool thing to do.  She cofounded All Walks Beyond The Catwalk to promote body equality in fashion, chaired Fashion Targets Breast Cancer and was awarded an MBE for her services to fashion. Now she’s written Skewed, with Professor Keon West, to examine how media bias distorts our views of others. To bring it back down to my usual level, She is also the owner of my fantasy hair! Caryn joined me by popular demand to talk 40 years of fighting for diversity, why the fashion industry is still so bloody bad at catering for older women and why clothes should be a superpower. She also shared her experiencing of being a carer to her first daughter’s father in her 30s and how that changed the way she felt about ageing, how going grey nearly cost her her job and how HRT gave her her life back.  * You can buy You can buy Skewed by Caryn Franklin and Professor Keon West from audible. All the other books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 23 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 258 sam baker (This episode was first published in November 2022.) Today's guest is one of my personal heroes, Caryn Franklin. Caryn started her career in the 80s as a fashion editor before moving into TV where she presented, amongst other things, BBC’s The Clothes Show. Always outspoken, Caryn has spent four decades being a thorn in the fashion industry’s side. Championing diversity of all forms LONG before it became the cool thing to do.  She cofounded All Walks Beyond The Catwalk to promote body equality in fashion, chaired Fashion Targets Breast Cancer and was awarded an MBE for her services to fashion. Now she’s written Skewed, with Professor Keon West, to examine how media bias distorts our views of others. To bring it back down to my usual level, She is also the owner of my fantasy hair! Caryn joined me by popular demand to talk 40 years of fighting for diversity, why the fashion industry is still so bloody bad at catering for older women and why clothes should be a superpower. She also shared her experiencing of being a carer to her first daughter’s father in her 30s and how that changed the way she felt about ageing, how going grey nearly cost her her job and how HRT gave her her life back.  * You can buy You can buy Skewed by Caryn Franklin and Professor Keon West from audible. All the other books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices (This episode was first published in November 2022.)

Today's guest is one of my personal heroes, Caryn Franklin. Caryn started her career in the 80s as a fashion editor before moving into TV where she presented, amongst other things, BBC’s The Clothes Show. Always outspoken, Caryn has spent four decades being a thorn in the fashion industry’s side. Championing diversity of all forms LONG before it became the cool thing to do. 

She cofounded All Walks Beyond The Catwalk to promote body equality in fashion, chaired Fashion Targets Breast Cancer and was awarded an MBE for her services to fashion. Now she’s written Skewed, with Professor Keon West, to examine how media bias distorts our views of others.

To bring it back down to my usual level, She is also the owner of my fantasy hair!

Caryn joined me by popular demand to talk 40 years of fighting for diversity, why the fashion industry is still so bloody bad at catering for older women and why clothes should be a superpower. She also shared her experiencing of being a carer to her first daughter’s father in her 30s and how that changed the way she felt about ageing, how going grey nearly cost her her job and how HRT gave her her life back. 


* You can buy You can buy Skewed by Caryn Franklin and Professor Keon West from audible. All the other books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3396 Lisa Jewell on hitting a golden seam of success in her 50s - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ (This episode first aired in September 2022.) Today’s guest is one of Britain’s best loved novelists, Lisa Jewell. Her career started with a smash hit debut novel Ralph’s Party - which she started writing as a bet at the age of 27 while she was unemployed, and, according to her, “totally lacking in direction and ambition”. It was the book of the moment and for 14 novels it looked like her career - although ticking along nicely - would never hit those heights again.  Then her writing took a turn for the dark and her career took a turn for the stratospheric. Lisa Jewell, it transpired had a knack for a killer twist. That knack propelled her to the top of the bestseller lists on both sides of the atlantic with And Then She Was Gone. That was six books ago and she’s never been more successful.  I went to see Lisa in her envy-inducing North London home to talk about her latest book, The Family Remains, the debt she owes Bridget Jones and the sequel she wishes had never seen the light of day. We also chatted about hitting “a golden seam” in her 50s, her unexpectedly scary perimenopause symptoms, testosterone overload, and her extremely proactive ovaries! Plus she shares her controversial secret to successfully parenting teenage girls. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 16 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 257 sam baker The transatlantic bestselling author of Don't Let Him In on menopause, testosterone and proactive ovaries! (This episode first aired in September 2022.) Today’s guest is one of Britain’s best loved novelists, Lisa Jewell. Her career started with a smash hit debut novel Ralph’s Party - which she started writing as a bet at the age of 27 while she was unemployed, and, according to her, “totally lacking in direction and ambition”. It was the book of the moment and for 14 novels it looked like her career - although ticking along nicely - would never hit those heights again.  Then her writing took a turn for the dark and her career took a turn for the stratospheric. Lisa Jewell, it transpired had a knack for a killer twist. That knack propelled her to the top of the bestseller lists on both sides of the atlantic with And Then She Was Gone. That was six books ago and she’s never been more successful.  I went to see Lisa in her envy-inducing North London home to talk about her latest book, The Family Remains, the debt she owes Bridget Jones and the sequel she wishes had never seen the light of day. We also chatted about hitting “a golden seam” in her 50s, her unexpectedly scary perimenopause symptoms, testosterone overload, and her extremely proactive ovaries! Plus she shares her controversial secret to successfully parenting teenage girls. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices (This episode first aired in September 2022.)

Today’s guest is one of Britain’s best loved novelists, Lisa Jewell. Her career started with a smash hit debut novel Ralph’s Party - which she started writing as a bet at the age of 27 while she was unemployed, and, according to her, “totally lacking in direction and ambition”. It was the book of the moment and for 14 novels it looked like her career - although ticking along nicely - would never hit those heights again. 

Then her writing took a turn for the dark and her career took a turn for the stratospheric. Lisa Jewell, it transpired had a knack for a killer twist. That knack propelled her to the top of the bestseller lists on both sides of the atlantic with And Then She Was Gone. That was six books ago and she’s never been more successful. 

I went to see Lisa in her envy-inducing North London home to talk about her latest book, The Family Remains, the debt she owes Bridget Jones and the sequel she wishes had never seen the light of day. We also chatted about hitting “a golden seam” in her 50s, her unexpectedly scary perimenopause symptoms, testosterone overload, and her extremely proactive ovaries! Plus she shares her controversial secret to successfully parenting teenage girls.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3711 Thomasina Miers on the midlife Mexican escape that rebuilt her https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Hello and welcome to the final episode of season 18. 18!!!! My guest today is the cook, Thomasina Miers. Despite being taught to cook as a child, Tommi didn’t really embrace her love of food until her late 20s when a trip to Mexico inspired a love of Mexican food that was to change her life. In 2005, she became the first person ever to win Masterchef and two years later she co-founded the successful Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca. Tommi has also cheffed in Michelin star kitchens, set up Chefs in Schools and also works with the soil association. She was awarded an OBE in 2019 for her services to the food industry.  She has also written nine cookbooks, the latest of which is Mexican Table which celebrates the flavour, culture and ingredients of the country she loves and has been visiting for over 30 years.  Tommi and I talked feeling a failure in your twenties, being diagnosed with ADHD in your 40s, finding herself through cooking, how she learnt to stop using work to self medicate, recovering from the perimenopause crash, how a midlife family flit to Mexico rebuilt her and why she hopes she’ll still be in hot pants at 80. CW alcoholism mental health and passing reference to suicide  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Mexican Table by Thomasina Miers as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 18 256 sam baker The chef, masterchef winner and Wahaca founder on menopause hell and midlife recovery Hello and welcome to the final episode of season 18. 18!!!! My guest today is the cook, Thomasina Miers. Despite being taught to cook as a child, Tommi didn’t really embrace her love of food until her late 20s when a trip to Mexico inspired a love of Mexican food that was to change her life. In 2005, she became the first person ever to win Masterchef and two years later she co-founded the successful Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca. Tommi has also cheffed in Michelin star kitchens, set up Chefs in Schools and also works with the soil association. She was awarded an OBE in 2019 for her services to the food industry.  She has also written nine cookbooks, the latest of which is Mexican Table which celebrates the flavour, culture and ingredients of the country she loves and has been visiting for over 30 years.  Tommi and I talked feeling a failure in your twenties, being diagnosed with ADHD in your 40s, finding herself through cooking, how she learnt to stop using work to self medicate, recovering from the perimenopause crash, how a midlife family flit to Mexico rebuilt her and why she hopes she’ll still be in hot pants at 80. CW alcoholism mental health and passing reference to suicide  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Mexican Table by Thomasina Miers as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hello and welcome to the final episode of season 18. 18!!!!


My guest today is the cook, Thomasina Miers.


Despite being taught to cook as a child, Tommi didn’t really embrace her love of food until her late 20s when a trip to Mexico inspired a love of Mexican food that was to change her life.


In 2005, she became the first person ever to win Masterchef and two years later she co-founded the successful Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca. Tommi has also cheffed in Michelin star kitchens, set up Chefs in Schools and also works with the soil association. She was awarded an OBE in 2019 for her services to the food industry. 


She has also written nine cookbooks, the latest of which is Mexican Table which celebrates the flavour, culture and ingredients of the country she loves and has been visiting for over 30 years. 


Tommi and I talked feeling a failure in your twenties, being diagnosed with ADHD in your 40s, finding herself through cooking, how she learnt to stop using work to self medicate, recovering from the perimenopause crash, how a midlife family flit to Mexico rebuilt her and why she hopes she’ll still be in hot pants at 80.


CW alcoholism mental health and passing reference to suicide 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Mexican Table by Thomasina Miers as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3198 Laura Lippmann is having a second coming at 60 https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ A few weeks ago, I was pootling around on substack where The Shift newsletter lives - https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ - and I noticed I had a DM from a new subscriber. It turned out to be from one of my favourite crime writers - the award winning Laura Lippmann, who some of you might know from the recent apple TV+ series of her novel, The Lady In The Lake. Laura had been brought to The Shift by a piece I wrote a year or so ago about how all of my friends were getting divorced. “I feel like such a schmuck,” she wrote “because I stuck it out like the Good Girl I was raised to be, only to be dumped 9 days after my 61st birthday (and one month before the Covid lockdowns). I didn’t even have the triumphant narrative of: “Reader, I left him.” But, five years out, I think I’m happier than I’ve ever been.” That happiness is evident in her immensely enjoyable new book, her 20th, I think!, Murder Takes A Vacation, about a woman in her 60s slowly realising that life is full of possibility. (And dead bodies, of course!) Laura joined me from Baltimore to talk about her second coming, why not everyone is good at marriage, the dissonance of divorce, making bad choices, the death of the good girl and how she finally gave up diets. Laura is living her best old lady life and I’m here for it. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Murder Takes A Vacation by Laura Lippmann as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 02 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 18 255 sam baker the hit crime writer on divorce, diets, the death of the good girl and why marriage is doomed when there are two alphas A few weeks ago, I was pootling around on substack where The Shift newsletter lives - https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ - and I noticed I had a DM from a new subscriber. It turned out to be from one of my favourite crime writers - the award winning Laura Lippmann, who some of you might know from the recent apple TV+ series of her novel, The Lady In The Lake. Laura had been brought to The Shift by a piece I wrote a year or so ago about how all of my friends were getting divorced. “I feel like such a schmuck,” she wrote “because I stuck it out like the Good Girl I was raised to be, only to be dumped 9 days after my 61st birthday (and one month before the Covid lockdowns). I didn’t even have the triumphant narrative of: “Reader, I left him.” But, five years out, I think I’m happier than I’ve ever been.” That happiness is evident in her immensely enjoyable new book, her 20th, I think!, Murder Takes A Vacation, about a woman in her 60s slowly realising that life is full of possibility. (And dead bodies, of course!) Laura joined me from Baltimore to talk about her second coming, why not everyone is good at marriage, the dissonance of divorce, making bad choices, the death of the good girl and how she finally gave up diets. Laura is living her best old lady life and I’m here for it. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Murder Takes A Vacation by Laura Lippmann as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices A few weeks ago, I was pootling around on substack where The Shift newsletter lives - https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ - and I noticed I had a DM from a new subscriber. It turned out to be from one of my favourite crime writers - the award winning Laura Lippmann, who some of you might know from the recent apple TV+ series of her novel, The Lady In The Lake.


Laura had been brought to The Shift by a piece I wrote a year or so ago about how all of my friends were getting divorced.


“I feel like such a schmuck,” she wrote “because I stuck it out like the Good Girl I was raised to be, only to be dumped 9 days after my 61st birthday (and one month before the Covid lockdowns). I didn’t even have the triumphant narrative of: “Reader, I left him.” But, five years out, I think I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”


That happiness is evident in her immensely enjoyable new book, her 20th, I think!, Murder Takes A Vacation, about a woman in her 60s slowly realising that life is full of possibility. (And dead bodies, of course!)


Laura joined me from Baltimore to talk about her second coming, why not everyone is good at marriage, the dissonance of divorce, making bad choices, the death of the good girl and how she finally gave up diets. Laura is living her best old lady life and I’m here for it.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Murder Takes A Vacation by Laura Lippmann as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3246 Charlotte Mendelson – middle-aged women are entitled to want more https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This season is dedicated to helping you pick your summer reads and my guest today is the novelist Charlotte Mendelson whose writing has been compared to “late Shakespeare meets Modern family!” So you know where to turn if you’re looking for a painfully funny, on the nose look at the dynamics of love and marriage. Charlotte worked as a publisher for twenty years before becoming an award winning novelist. She’s written seven bestselling novels, the most recent of which are The Exhibitionist and Wife, both out now in paperback, which are kind of a pair in that they both deal with the reality of being married to monsters! She has also been gardening correspondent for the New Yorker and now writes for The Observer. I met Charlotte at her home in North London to snoop around her houseplants and her bookshelves while we discussed how to go grey without looking like you’re looking after chickens in the wood, the puberty midlife confluence, the disproportionate stress of deciding what to wear, the lifelong impact of growing up nerd, being a pre internet lesbian, internalised homophobia, finding love as a grown up, perimenopausal horniness and so so so much more. It’s chaos but delightful chaos! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Wife by Charlotte Mendelson as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 26 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 18 254 sam baker Plus, Hair! Clothes! ADHD! Finding love as a grown up! And more! This season is dedicated to helping you pick your summer reads and my guest today is the novelist Charlotte Mendelson whose writing has been compared to “late Shakespeare meets Modern family!” So you know where to turn if you’re looking for a painfully funny, on the nose look at the dynamics of love and marriage. Charlotte worked as a publisher for twenty years before becoming an award winning novelist. She’s written seven bestselling novels, the most recent of which are The Exhibitionist and Wife, both out now in paperback, which are kind of a pair in that they both deal with the reality of being married to monsters! She has also been gardening correspondent for the New Yorker and now writes for The Observer. I met Charlotte at her home in North London to snoop around her houseplants and her bookshelves while we discussed how to go grey without looking like you’re looking after chickens in the wood, the puberty midlife confluence, the disproportionate stress of deciding what to wear, the lifelong impact of growing up nerd, being a pre internet lesbian, internalised homophobia, finding love as a grown up, perimenopausal horniness and so so so much more. It’s chaos but delightful chaos! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Wife by Charlotte Mendelson as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This season is dedicated to helping you pick your summer reads and my guest today is the novelist Charlotte Mendelson whose writing has been compared to “late Shakespeare meets Modern family!” So you know where to turn if you’re looking for a painfully funny, on the nose look at the dynamics of love and marriage.

Charlotte worked as a publisher for twenty years before becoming an award winning novelist. She’s written seven bestselling novels, the most recent of which are The Exhibitionist and Wife, both out now in paperback, which are kind of a pair in that they both deal with the reality of being married to monsters!

She has also been gardening correspondent for the New Yorker and now writes for The Observer.

I met Charlotte at her home in North London to snoop around her houseplants and her bookshelves while we discussed how to go grey without looking like you’re looking after chickens in the wood, the puberty midlife confluence, the disproportionate stress of deciding what to wear, the lifelong impact of growing up nerd, being a pre internet lesbian, internalised homophobia, finding love as a grown up, perimenopausal horniness and so so so much more.

It’s chaos but delightful chaos!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Wife by Charlotte Mendelson as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3713 Betsy Lerner is on a mission to destigmatise mental health in her 60s https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest this week is the novelist Betsy Lerner.  Now Betsy is here to talk about her critically acclaimed debut novel, Shred Sisters, which takes us from the 1970s to the 90s and tells us the story of two troubled sisters, Amy and Ollie. No less a legend than Patti Smith described it as “moving like a souped up pick up truck” - and who am I to argue with Patti, it does! I loved it. Betsy only turned to fiction in her early sixties. Before that she had a prolific career in the publishing industry spanning thirty years as an editor and literary agent working on such classics as Prozac Nation, Autobiography of a Face and Just Kids. But she hasn’t stopped there, Betsy has also built a large following on TikTok, where she shares passages from her diaries or the 'chronicles of disappointment, depression and loneliness' as she calls them, that she kept in her 20s when she was cycling through the highs and lows of bipolar disorder. Betsy joined me to talk about sibling rivalry, ageing, heartbreak and the family secret that shaped her. We also discussed escaping the maternal mantle of judgement, her personal mission to destigmatise mental illness, disordered eating, gratitude and why she loves “her twenty somethings” on TikTok. CW: bereavement, mental health, miscarriage. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 19 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 18 253 sam baker The TikTok sensation talks sibling rivalry, ageing, maternal judgement, living with mental illness and writing her first novel at 60 My guest this week is the novelist Betsy Lerner.  Now Betsy is here to talk about her critically acclaimed debut novel, Shred Sisters, which takes us from the 1970s to the 90s and tells us the story of two troubled sisters, Amy and Ollie. No less a legend than Patti Smith described it as “moving like a souped up pick up truck” - and who am I to argue with Patti, it does! I loved it. Betsy only turned to fiction in her early sixties. Before that she had a prolific career in the publishing industry spanning thirty years as an editor and literary agent working on such classics as Prozac Nation, Autobiography of a Face and Just Kids. But she hasn’t stopped there, Betsy has also built a large following on TikTok, where she shares passages from her diaries or the 'chronicles of disappointment, depression and loneliness' as she calls them, that she kept in her 20s when she was cycling through the highs and lows of bipolar disorder. Betsy joined me to talk about sibling rivalry, ageing, heartbreak and the family secret that shaped her. We also discussed escaping the maternal mantle of judgement, her personal mission to destigmatise mental illness, disordered eating, gratitude and why she loves “her twenty somethings” on TikTok. CW: bereavement, mental health, miscarriage. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is the novelist Betsy Lerner. 


Now Betsy is here to talk about her critically acclaimed debut novel, Shred Sisters, which takes us from the 1970s to the 90s and tells us the story of two troubled sisters, Amy and Ollie. No less a legend than Patti Smith described it as “moving like a souped up pick up truck” - and who am I to argue with Patti, it does! I loved it.


Betsy only turned to fiction in her early sixties. Before that she had a prolific career in the publishing industry spanning thirty years as an editor and literary agent working on such classics as Prozac Nation, Autobiography of a Face and Just Kids.


But she hasn’t stopped there, Betsy has also built a large following on TikTok, where she shares passages from her diaries or the 'chronicles of disappointment, depression and loneliness' as she calls them, that she kept in her 20s when she was cycling through the highs and lows of bipolar disorder.


Betsy joined me to talk about sibling rivalry, ageing, heartbreak and the family secret that shaped her. We also discussed escaping the maternal mantle of judgement, her personal mission to destigmatise mental illness, disordered eating, gratitude and why she loves “her twenty somethings” on TikTok.


CW: bereavement, mental health, miscarriage.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3051 Nicola Sturgeon on life after leadership https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This week I’m delighted to welcome back to The Shift one of my most listened-to guests, Nicola Sturgeon. When we last spoke, at the start of 2022, Nicola was First Minister of Scotland - the first woman to hold the role, the first woman in 600 years to be the keeper of the seal. And During her tenure, she was widely acknowledged to be one of the most impactful politicians of her generation. During our last conversation, she spoke for the first time about how it felt to experience menopausal symptoms in the corridors of power. Her candour was one of the things that opened the floodgates of the menopause conversation. But that was then. A year later she shocked the world by resigning from the role she had been working towards since she was 16, in an attempt to build a life outside politics and away from the public glare. Now she’s written a book, Frankly, a personal and political memoir about her life in politics. And, like it’s title suggests, she’s tried not to pull any punches or side step any issues - personal or political. Nicola came to hang out in my living room in Edinburgh to discuss the decision to leave (and why she can't see a man making the same call) and the impact of spending the next two years under a cloud of suspicion. We also discussed class, confidence, turning back the clock, the price of success for women, learning to drive at 53, and finally having the freedom to get a tattoo! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Frankly by Nicola Sturgeon as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 12 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 18 252 sam baker The former First Minister of Scotland talks class, confidence, not having children, being a public introvert and tattoos This week I’m delighted to welcome back to The Shift one of my most listened-to guests, Nicola Sturgeon. When we last spoke, at the start of 2022, Nicola was First Minister of Scotland - the first woman to hold the role, the first woman in 600 years to be the keeper of the seal. And During her tenure, she was widely acknowledged to be one of the most impactful politicians of her generation. During our last conversation, she spoke for the first time about how it felt to experience menopausal symptoms in the corridors of power. Her candour was one of the things that opened the floodgates of the menopause conversation. But that was then. A year later she shocked the world by resigning from the role she had been working towards since she was 16, in an attempt to build a life outside politics and away from the public glare. Now she’s written a book, Frankly, a personal and political memoir about her life in politics. And, like it’s title suggests, she’s tried not to pull any punches or side step any issues - personal or political. Nicola came to hang out in my living room in Edinburgh to discuss the decision to leave (and why she can't see a man making the same call) and the impact of spending the next two years under a cloud of suspicion. We also discussed class, confidence, turning back the clock, the price of success for women, learning to drive at 53, and finally having the freedom to get a tattoo! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Frankly by Nicola Sturgeon as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week I’m delighted to welcome back to The Shift one of my most listened-to guests, Nicola Sturgeon.


When we last spoke, at the start of 2022, Nicola was First Minister of Scotland - the first woman to hold the role, the first woman in 600 years to be the keeper of the seal. And During her tenure, she was widely acknowledged to be one of the most impactful politicians of her generation.

During our last conversation, she spoke for the first time about how it felt to experience menopausal symptoms in the corridors of power. Her candour was one of the things that opened the floodgates of the menopause conversation.


But that was then. A year later she shocked the world by resigning from the role she had been working towards since she was 16, in an attempt to build a life outside politics and away from the public glare.


Now she’s written a book, Frankly, a personal and political memoir about her life in politics. And, like it’s title suggests, she’s tried not to pull any punches or side step any issues - personal or political.


Nicola came to hang out in my living room in Edinburgh to discuss the decision to leave (and why she can't see a man making the same call) and the impact of spending the next two years under a cloud of suspicion. We also discussed class, confidence, turning back the clock, the price of success for women, learning to drive at 53, and finally having the freedom to get a tattoo!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Frankly by Nicola Sturgeon as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3378 Sarah Perry on "becoming a woman who didn't have children" https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the award-winning novelist Sarah Perry. Sarah is the internationally bestselling author of four novels, but the one you will almost definitely heard of (and may well have watched) is The Essex Serpent. Published in 2016, it sold over half a million copies, and won both British Book of the Year and Waterstones book of the year before being made into an apple tv+ series starring Clare Danes and Tom Hiddleston (Sarah was an extra!). Sarah has also been nominated for the booker prize, the women’s prize for fiction and the costa novel award, amongst others. Born and brought up in Essex, Sarah is chancellor of Essex University, where her latest novel Enlightenment is set. Enlightenment - a novel about the presence and absence of faith draws more directly on her own life than usual - because Sarah, as you may or not know grew up in a closed religious community. I met Sarah at her publisher’s office in South London to talk about being brought up in the equivalent of 1860, leaving the church, and coming out of the womb as a 45 year old novelist! We also discussed the success that led to incurable illness, the surprisingly difficult transition from a woman who doesn’t have children to a woman who didn’t have children, premature menopause and why she doesn’t want to look like someone who hasn’t seen death. Btw, I've made that sound really depressing - I promise it isn't! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including I'm Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 05 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 18 251 sam baker plus leaning into your own strangeness, leaving the church and being thrown into premature menopause My guest today is the award-winning novelist Sarah Perry. Sarah is the internationally bestselling author of four novels, but the one you will almost definitely heard of (and may well have watched) is The Essex Serpent. Published in 2016, it sold over half a million copies, and won both British Book of the Year and Waterstones book of the year before being made into an apple tv+ series starring Clare Danes and Tom Hiddleston (Sarah was an extra!). Sarah has also been nominated for the booker prize, the women’s prize for fiction and the costa novel award, amongst others. Born and brought up in Essex, Sarah is chancellor of Essex University, where her latest novel Enlightenment is set. Enlightenment - a novel about the presence and absence of faith draws more directly on her own life than usual - because Sarah, as you may or not know grew up in a closed religious community. I met Sarah at her publisher’s office in South London to talk about being brought up in the equivalent of 1860, leaving the church, and coming out of the womb as a 45 year old novelist! We also discussed the success that led to incurable illness, the surprisingly difficult transition from a woman who doesn’t have children to a woman who didn’t have children, premature menopause and why she doesn’t want to look like someone who hasn’t seen death. Btw, I've made that sound really depressing - I promise it isn't! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including I'm Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the award-winning novelist Sarah Perry.

Sarah is the internationally bestselling author of four novels, but the one you will almost definitely heard of (and may well have watched) is The Essex Serpent. Published in 2016, it sold over half a million copies, and won both British Book of the Year and Waterstones book of the year before being made into an apple tv+ series starring Clare Danes and Tom Hiddleston (Sarah was an extra!). Sarah has also been nominated for the booker prize, the women’s prize for fiction and the costa novel award, amongst others.

Born and brought up in Essex, Sarah is chancellor of Essex University, where her latest novel Enlightenment is set. Enlightenment - a novel about the presence and absence of faith draws more directly on her own life than usual - because Sarah, as you may or not know grew up in a closed religious community.

I met Sarah at her publisher’s office in South London to talk about being brought up in the equivalent of 1860, leaving the church, and coming out of the womb as a 45 year old novelist! We also discussed the success that led to incurable illness, the surprisingly difficult transition from a woman who doesn’t have children to a woman who didn’t have children, premature menopause and why she doesn’t want to look like someone who hasn’t seen death.

Btw, I've made that sound really depressing - I promise it isn't!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including I'm Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3366 Glynnis MacNicol: everything you've been told about being a middle-aged woman is a lie https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ What happens when the life you find yourself leading in midlife doesn’t tick all the supposed boxes? That’s the situation today’s guest found herself in. Glynnis MacNicol was 46 - a woman of a so-called certain age who found herself living life without a roadmap when, in august 2021, after almost 18 months spent alone in lockdown, she picked herself up and packed herself off to Paris for a month of living, loving and, well, pleasure. I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is the story of that month - a month spent in search of friendship, food, community, contact and sex. Plenty of sex. While she was at it Glynnis discovered that far from being, as she puts it, “past cultural appeal and expectation:, everything she’d been told about living life as a middle aged single woman was a lie. Glynnis joined me to talk pleasure, confidence, agency, learning to enjoy your body in midlife, knowing what you want and asking for it, sex, cycling, The joy and freedom of living life without a narrative and why she’d rather have a piece of prime Manhattan real estate than a husband! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including I'm Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 29 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 18 250 sam baker What happens when the life you find yourself leading in midlife doesn’t tick all the supposed boxes? That’s the situation today’s guest found herself in. Glynnis MacNicol was 46 - a woman of a so-called certain age who found herself living life without a roadmap when, in august 2021, after almost 18 months spent alone in lockdown, she picked herself up and packed herself off to Paris for a month of living, loving and, well, pleasure. I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is the story of that month - a month spent in search of friendship, food, community, contact and sex. Plenty of sex. While she was at it Glynnis discovered that far from being, as she puts it, “past cultural appeal and expectation:, everything she’d been told about living life as a middle aged single woman was a lie. Glynnis joined me to talk pleasure, confidence, agency, learning to enjoy your body in midlife, knowing what you want and asking for it, sex, cycling, The joy and freedom of living life without a narrative and why she’d rather have a piece of prime Manhattan real estate than a husband! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including I'm Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices What happens when the life you find yourself leading in midlife doesn’t tick all the supposed boxes?

That’s the situation today’s guest found herself in. Glynnis MacNicol was 46 - a woman of a so-called certain age who found herself living life without a roadmap when, in august 2021, after almost 18 months spent alone in lockdown, she picked herself up and packed herself off to Paris for a month of living, loving and, well, pleasure.

I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is the story of that month - a month spent in search of friendship, food, community, contact and sex. Plenty of sex.

While she was at it Glynnis discovered that far from being, as she puts it, “past cultural appeal and expectation:, everything she’d been told about living life as a middle aged single woman was a lie.

Glynnis joined me to talk pleasure, confidence, agency, learning to enjoy your body in midlife, knowing what you want and asking for it, sex, cycling, The joy and freedom of living life without a narrative and why she’d rather have a piece of prime Manhattan real estate than a husband!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including I'm Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/ review/ follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3735 Steph McGovern on money, menopause & staying out of your lane https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Crime novels might not be the first thing that springs to mind when you hear the name Steph McGovern. Steph is an award-winning broadcaster who is currently co-host of The Rest Is Money podcast with Robert Peston. At the start of her career in journalism, Steph worked for BBC news behind the scenes (despite having been told that “people like you don’t work for the BBC”), before moving in front of the camera as the business reporter on BBC Breakfast.  She went on to present her own show, Steph’s Packed Lunch and can often be seen on Have I Got News, amongst other places. But apart from getting us more clued up about money, Steph has another passion: She is an obsessive crime reader who has now written one of her own Deadline, which takes us behind the scenes of a broadcaster thrown into a hostage situation live on air while a scandal waits to subsume Westminster.  Steph joined me for a full-on free range chat. We talked money, motivation, fame, the power of being underestimated and what she learnt from interviewing Donald Trump. Plus the menopause learning curve, flooding the breakfast telly sofa live on air, being a two mum family and why you should never ever let them make you stay in your lane.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Deadline by Steph McGovern as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 22 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 18 249 sam baker The broadcaster and host of The Rest is Money talks podcast, writing crime fiction and making her two mum family work Crime novels might not be the first thing that springs to mind when you hear the name Steph McGovern. Steph is an award-winning broadcaster who is currently co-host of The Rest Is Money podcast with Robert Peston. At the start of her career in journalism, Steph worked for BBC news behind the scenes (despite having been told that “people like you don’t work for the BBC”), before moving in front of the camera as the business reporter on BBC Breakfast.  She went on to present her own show, Steph’s Packed Lunch and can often be seen on Have I Got News, amongst other places. But apart from getting us more clued up about money, Steph has another passion: She is an obsessive crime reader who has now written one of her own Deadline, which takes us behind the scenes of a broadcaster thrown into a hostage situation live on air while a scandal waits to subsume Westminster.  Steph joined me for a full-on free range chat. We talked money, motivation, fame, the power of being underestimated and what she learnt from interviewing Donald Trump. Plus the menopause learning curve, flooding the breakfast telly sofa live on air, being a two mum family and why you should never ever let them make you stay in your lane.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Deadline by Steph McGovern as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Crime novels might not be the first thing that springs to mind when you hear the name Steph McGovern. Steph is an award-winning broadcaster who is currently co-host of The Rest Is Money podcast with Robert Peston. At the start of her career in journalism, Steph worked for BBC news behind the scenes (despite having been told that “people like you don’t work for the BBC”), before moving in front of the camera as the business reporter on BBC Breakfast. 

She went on to present her own show, Steph’s Packed Lunch and can often be seen on Have I Got News, amongst other places.

But apart from getting us more clued up about money, Steph has another passion: She is an obsessive crime reader who has now written one of her own Deadline, which takes us behind the scenes of a broadcaster thrown into a hostage situation live on air while a scandal waits to subsume Westminster. 

Steph joined me for a full-on free range chat. We talked money, motivation, fame, the power of being underestimated and what she learnt from interviewing Donald Trump. Plus the menopause learning curve, flooding the breakfast telly sofa live on air, being a two mum family and why you should never ever let them make you stay in your lane. 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Deadline by Steph McGovern as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on Bluesky @theothersambaker.bsky.social or instagram @theothersambaker or message me on substack The Shift with Sam Baker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4134 Alison Bechdel on tarot, ageing & why men are scared of women who can do push-ups! - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ The last of our archive episodes this time around is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Spent, Alison's new graphic novel-come-memoir, reminded me of the conversation we had back in 2021. Here it is... ---- My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoir about coming out and her father’s death, became a bestseller and was turned into an award-winning musical. Her new autobiographical graphic novel, The Secret To Superhuman Strength is a funny-not funny exploration of her own search for inner and outer strength through the lens of 60 years of fitness fads. Alison and I go on a “rambling stroll” through the six decades of her life as we chat about everything from tarot to very much not being a team player. Alison talks candidly about escaping self-consciousness, coming to terms with ageing, why men are scared of women who can do push ups and why she’s forever nine years old. And together we come up with a Bechdel test for women over 40. Challenge you to come up with a movie that passes it. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift Bookshop on bookshop.org⁠⁠ including Spent and The Secret To Superhuman Strength and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠ • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker. This episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 15 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 248 sam baker Plus an updated Bechdel test for women over 40! The last of our archive episodes this time around is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Spent, Alison's new graphic novel-come-memoir, reminded me of the conversation we had back in 2021. Here it is... ---- My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoir about coming out and her father’s death, became a bestseller and was turned into an award-winning musical. Her new autobiographical graphic novel, The Secret To Superhuman Strength is a funny-not funny exploration of her own search for inner and outer strength through the lens of 60 years of fitness fads. Alison and I go on a “rambling stroll” through the six decades of her life as we chat about everything from tarot to very much not being a team player. Alison talks candidly about escaping self-consciousness, coming to terms with ageing, why men are scared of women who can do push ups and why she’s forever nine years old. And together we come up with a Bechdel test for women over 40. Challenge you to come up with a movie that passes it. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift Bookshop on bookshop.org⁠⁠ including Spent and The Secret To Superhuman Strength and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠ • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker. This episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The last of our archive episodes this time around is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Spent, Alison's new graphic novel-come-memoir, reminded me of the conversation we had back in 2021. Here it is...

----

My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoir about coming out and her father’s death, became a bestseller and was turned into an award-winning musical.

Her new autobiographical graphic novel, The Secret To Superhuman Strength is a funny-not funny exploration of her own search for inner and outer strength through the lens of 60 years of fitness fads.

Alison and I go on a “rambling stroll” through the six decades of her life as we chat about everything from tarot to very much not being a team player. Alison talks candidly about escaping self-consciousness, coming to terms with ageing, why men are scared of women who can do push ups and why she’s forever nine years old.

And together we come up with a Bechdel test for women over 40. Challenge you to come up with a movie that passes it.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift Bookshop on bookshop.org⁠⁠ including Spent and The Secret To Superhuman Strength and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠.

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker. This episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2445 Esther Freud on upending your life in your 50s - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This week we're going way back in The Shift archives, to one of the earliest episodes I recorded with novelist Esther Freud. This summer Esther will be a guest of The Shift bookclub, to talk about her new novel, My Sister and Other Lovers - her long-awaited sort-of-sequel to her smash hit autofiction, Hideous Kinky, about her childhood with her sister Bella Freud (who was on The Shift podcast last autumn - listen here). Here's the chat Esther and I had back in 2021... ---- How does it feel to come from a family with a legend? If you’re today’s guest, novelist and playwright Esther Freud (daughter of painter Lucian Freud and great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud) you work with that legacy to produce some of the finest novels of the last thirty years. Her first Hideous Kinky, based on her unusual childhood, was made into a film starring Kate Winslet and after the follow-up, Peerless Flats, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young Novelists. Scroll forward a couple of decades and her ninth novel, I Couldn’t Love You More, comes full circle, this time exploring aspects of her family’s history through the lens of three generations of mothers. (Bring tissues!) Over the next 40 minutes Esther talks candidly about motherhood, guilt, shame, the way women are constantly judged, her own entangled family history, how the onset of menopause made her question everything and why now 57 she’s happier than ever.  CONTENT WARNING: There’s some conversation about forced adoption and Ireland’s mother and baby homes that some people may find upsetting. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift Bookshop on bookshop.org⁠ including I Couldn't Love You More and My Sister and Other Lovers and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠ • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker. This episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 247 sam baker the bestselling author of Hideous Kinky on guilt, motherhood and growing up Freud This week we're going way back in The Shift archives, to one of the earliest episodes I recorded with novelist Esther Freud. This summer Esther will be a guest of The Shift bookclub, to talk about her new novel, My Sister and Other Lovers - her long-awaited sort-of-sequel to her smash hit autofiction, Hideous Kinky, about her childhood with her sister Bella Freud (who was on The Shift podcast last autumn - listen here). Here's the chat Esther and I had back in 2021... ---- How does it feel to come from a family with a legend? If you’re today’s guest, novelist and playwright Esther Freud (daughter of painter Lucian Freud and great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud) you work with that legacy to produce some of the finest novels of the last thirty years. Her first Hideous Kinky, based on her unusual childhood, was made into a film starring Kate Winslet and after the follow-up, Peerless Flats, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young Novelists. Scroll forward a couple of decades and her ninth novel, I Couldn’t Love You More, comes full circle, this time exploring aspects of her family’s history through the lens of three generations of mothers. (Bring tissues!) Over the next 40 minutes Esther talks candidly about motherhood, guilt, shame, the way women are constantly judged, her own entangled family history, how the onset of menopause made her question everything and why now 57 she’s happier than ever.  CONTENT WARNING: There’s some conversation about forced adoption and Ireland’s mother and baby homes that some people may find upsetting. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift Bookshop on bookshop.org⁠ including I Couldn't Love You More and My Sister and Other Lovers and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠ • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker. This episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week we're going way back in The Shift archives, to one of the earliest episodes I recorded with novelist Esther Freud. This summer Esther will be a guest of The Shift bookclub, to talk about her new novel, My Sister and Other Lovers - her long-awaited sort-of-sequel to her smash hit autofiction, Hideous Kinky, about her childhood with her sister Bella Freud (who was on The Shift podcast last autumn - listen here). Here's the chat Esther and I had back in 2021...

----

How does it feel to come from a family with a legend? If you’re today’s guest, novelist and playwright Esther Freud (daughter of painter Lucian Freud and great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud) you work with that legacy to produce some of the finest novels of the last thirty years. Her first Hideous Kinky, based on her unusual childhood, was made into a film starring Kate Winslet and after the follow-up, Peerless Flats, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young Novelists. Scroll forward a couple of decades and her ninth novel, I Couldn’t Love You More, comes full circle, this time exploring aspects of her family’s history through the lens of three generations of mothers. (Bring tissues!)

Over the next 40 minutes Esther talks candidly about motherhood, guilt, shame, the way women are constantly judged, her own entangled family history, how the onset of menopause made her question everything and why now 57 she’s happier than ever. 

CONTENT WARNING: There’s some conversation about forced adoption and Ireland’s mother and baby homes that some people may find upsetting.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift Bookshop on bookshop.org⁠ including I Couldn't Love You More and My Sister and Other Lovers and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠.

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker. This episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2566 Helen Garner on divorce, ageing and the erotic gaze - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ We're heading back to the archives for the next few weeks and first up here's one of my favourite episodes. With the desperately overdue publication of her brilliant diaries, How To End A Story, in the US and UK, the Australian novelist Helen Garner is finally, finally getting some of the credit she's due up here in the Northern hemisphere. Here's our chat... ---- My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit vague. Because despite being one of Australia’s greatest living writers she is surprisingly little known here. But not for much longer because, at the age of 81, she is finally about to see almost all her books in print in the UK and US for the first time. Born in 1941 in Geelong, Victoria, the eldest of six, Helen has lived a fascinating life and one that has found its way into her 13 books. Her debut Monkey Grip, published in 1977 when she was a single mother, is still in print today; her second novel, The Children’s Bach (which is where I recommend you start if you’ve never read her), has been compared with Hemingway and Fitzgerald; and, her true crime classic, This House of Grief, has been declared one of the best books of the 21st century. Not bad for a regular kid from, as she puts it, “an ordinary Australian home - not many books and not much talk.” I was lucky enough to get to chat to Helen (and her chooks) from her home near Melbourne. In fact she kept me up long past my bedtime (!) as we discussed the difficult father-daughter relationship, making peace with the older generations and the emotional impact of being a war baby. She also told me why getting married a fourth time would have been the definition of madness, how she couldn’t give a monkeys about the withdrawal of the erotic gaze and why grandmothering has been the greatest pleasure of her life.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift Bookshop on bookshop.org including How To End A Story, Monkey Grip, The Children's Bach and This House of Grief by Helen Garner and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 01 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 246 sam baker A candid conversation with the queen of Australian literature We're heading back to the archives for the next few weeks and first up here's one of my favourite episodes. With the desperately overdue publication of her brilliant diaries, How To End A Story, in the US and UK, the Australian novelist Helen Garner is finally, finally getting some of the credit she's due up here in the Northern hemisphere. Here's our chat... ---- My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit vague. Because despite being one of Australia’s greatest living writers she is surprisingly little known here. But not for much longer because, at the age of 81, she is finally about to see almost all her books in print in the UK and US for the first time. Born in 1941 in Geelong, Victoria, the eldest of six, Helen has lived a fascinating life and one that has found its way into her 13 books. Her debut Monkey Grip, published in 1977 when she was a single mother, is still in print today; her second novel, The Children’s Bach (which is where I recommend you start if you’ve never read her), has been compared with Hemingway and Fitzgerald; and, her true crime classic, This House of Grief, has been declared one of the best books of the 21st century. Not bad for a regular kid from, as she puts it, “an ordinary Australian home - not many books and not much talk.” I was lucky enough to get to chat to Helen (and her chooks) from her home near Melbourne. In fact she kept me up long past my bedtime (!) as we discussed the difficult father-daughter relationship, making peace with the older generations and the emotional impact of being a war baby. She also told me why getting married a fourth time would have been the definition of madness, how she couldn’t give a monkeys about the withdrawal of the erotic gaze and why grandmothering has been the greatest pleasure of her life.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift Bookshop on bookshop.org including How To End A Story, Monkey Grip, The Children's Bach and This House of Grief by Helen Garner and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices We're heading back to the archives for the next few weeks and first up here's one of my favourite episodes. With the desperately overdue publication of her brilliant diaries, How To End A Story, in the US and UK, the Australian novelist Helen Garner is finally, finally getting some of the credit she's due up here in the Northern hemisphere. Here's our chat...

----

My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit vague. Because despite being one of Australia’s greatest living writers she is surprisingly little known here.

But not for much longer because, at the age of 81, she is finally about to see almost all her books in print in the UK and US for the first time.

Born in 1941 in Geelong, Victoria, the eldest of six, Helen has lived a fascinating life and one that has found its way into her 13 books. Her debut Monkey Grip, published in 1977 when she was a single mother, is still in print today; her second novel, The Children’s Bach (which is where I recommend you start if you’ve never read her), has been compared with Hemingway and Fitzgerald; and, her true crime classic, This House of Grief, has been declared one of the best books of the 21st century.

Not bad for a regular kid from, as she puts it, “an ordinary Australian home - not many books and not much talk.”

I was lucky enough to get to chat to Helen (and her chooks) from her home near Melbourne. In fact she kept me up long past my bedtime (!) as we discussed the difficult father-daughter relationship, making peace with the older generations and the emotional impact of being a war baby. She also told me why getting married a fourth time would have been the definition of madness, how she couldn’t give a monkeys about the withdrawal of the erotic gaze and why grandmothering has been the greatest pleasure of her life. 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift Bookshop on bookshop.org including How To End A Story, Monkey Grip, The Children's Bach and This House of Grief by Helen Garner and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com.

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2963 Molly Jong Fast: confessions of a bad daughter https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the journalist Molly Jong Fast. The author of four books, Molly started writing about politics in 2016. She’s now a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, a political analyst for MSNBC News and host of the Fast Politics Podcast. But she is also the daughter of the novelist Erica Jong, who in the 1970s wrote a novel that became synonymous with the sexual revolution. Fear of Flying, featuring Jong’s alter ego Isadora Wing, sold 20 million copies and coined the phrase the zipless fuck. Molly was born into a world of fame and celebrity. As she puts it she grew up with her mother everywhere - on television, the answer to a question in games shows, in the newspaper. But rarely at home. Now Molly has written How To Lose Your Mother, a daughter’s memoir about middle age and losing your mother to dementia when actually you never had her. It’s funny candid, gossipy, entertaining a story of love, frustration and, occasionally, despair. Molly joined me from New York to talk about how she survived when everyone started dying around her, ageing without a guidebook, how algorithms shape misogyny, why you can never escape being a nepo baby, being a bad daughter, why it’s ok to lie to your kids and only learning she could be right about things in her 40s. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including How to lose your mother by Molly Jong Fast as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 24 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 17 245 sam baker on fame, ageing and losing your mother My guest today is the journalist Molly Jong Fast. The author of four books, Molly started writing about politics in 2016. She’s now a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, a political analyst for MSNBC News and host of the Fast Politics Podcast. But she is also the daughter of the novelist Erica Jong, who in the 1970s wrote a novel that became synonymous with the sexual revolution. Fear of Flying, featuring Jong’s alter ego Isadora Wing, sold 20 million copies and coined the phrase the zipless fuck. Molly was born into a world of fame and celebrity. As she puts it she grew up with her mother everywhere - on television, the answer to a question in games shows, in the newspaper. But rarely at home. Now Molly has written How To Lose Your Mother, a daughter’s memoir about middle age and losing your mother to dementia when actually you never had her. It’s funny candid, gossipy, entertaining a story of love, frustration and, occasionally, despair. Molly joined me from New York to talk about how she survived when everyone started dying around her, ageing without a guidebook, how algorithms shape misogyny, why you can never escape being a nepo baby, being a bad daughter, why it’s ok to lie to your kids and only learning she could be right about things in her 40s. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including How to lose your mother by Molly Jong Fast as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the journalist Molly Jong Fast. The author of four books, Molly started writing about politics in 2016. She’s now a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, a political analyst for MSNBC News and host of the Fast Politics Podcast.

But she is also the daughter of the novelist Erica Jong, who in the 1970s wrote a novel that became synonymous with the sexual revolution. Fear of Flying, featuring Jong’s alter ego Isadora Wing, sold 20 million copies and coined the phrase the zipless fuck.

Molly was born into a world of fame and celebrity. As she puts it she grew up with her mother everywhere - on television, the answer to a question in games shows, in the newspaper. But rarely at home. Now Molly has written How To Lose Your Mother, a daughter’s memoir about middle age and losing your mother to dementia when actually you never had her. It’s funny candid, gossipy, entertaining a story of love, frustration and, occasionally, despair.

Molly joined me from New York to talk about how she survived when everyone started dying around her, ageing without a guidebook, how algorithms shape misogyny, why you can never escape being a nepo baby, being a bad daughter, why it’s ok to lie to your kids and only learning she could be right about things in her 40s.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including How to lose your mother by Molly Jong Fast as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2851 Jo Hamilton: The Post Office scandal stole 20 years of my life https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This is a really special episode and one I’m honoured to be trusted with. Because my guest today is Jo Hamilton, one of more than 700 British sub postmasters who was prosecuted between 2000 and 2014 by the Post Office. Falsely accused of stealing £36,000 Jo was ordered to put right a wrong she hadn’t committed, forced to remortgage her house and borrow from anyone she could in order to repay money that she had never taken. But it wasn’t just money. Jo lost so much more. Her confidence, her trust, her reputation, and ultimately, she believes, her parents. Last year, Jo was immortalised by Monica Dolan who played her in the  Groundbreaking TV drama, Mr Bates v The Post Office.  It was a drama that achieved what only the very best TV can - it put the plight of the sub postmasters at the heart of every conversation - on TV, in the papers, on line, at the bus stop, by the coffee machine. Suddenly Everyone was talking about it. Now her conviction overturned and her debts paid off, Jo has written Why Are You Here Mrs Hamilton? It’s an extraordinary first hand account of how she built a local shop and post office which became the heart of her community and how it was stolen from her. Jo joined me to talk candidly about the life upending experience and how the last twenty years have changed her. From an ordinary woman who loved people and horses to a ferocious campaigner who will not stop fighting until every last sub postmaster is paid. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Why Are You Here Mrs Hamilton? as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 17 244 sam baker This is a really special episode and one I’m honoured to be trusted with. Because my guest today is Jo Hamilton, one of more than 700 British sub postmasters who was prosecuted between 2000 and 2014 by the Post Office. Falsely accused of stealing £36,000 Jo was ordered to put right a wrong she hadn’t committed, forced to remortgage her house and borrow from anyone she could in order to repay money that she had never taken. But it wasn’t just money. Jo lost so much more. Her confidence, her trust, her reputation, and ultimately, she believes, her parents. Last year, Jo was immortalised by Monica Dolan who played her in the  Groundbreaking TV drama, Mr Bates v The Post Office.  It was a drama that achieved what only the very best TV can - it put the plight of the sub postmasters at the heart of every conversation - on TV, in the papers, on line, at the bus stop, by the coffee machine. Suddenly Everyone was talking about it. Now her conviction overturned and her debts paid off, Jo has written Why Are You Here Mrs Hamilton? It’s an extraordinary first hand account of how she built a local shop and post office which became the heart of her community and how it was stolen from her. Jo joined me to talk candidly about the life upending experience and how the last twenty years have changed her. From an ordinary woman who loved people and horses to a ferocious campaigner who will not stop fighting until every last sub postmaster is paid. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Why Are You Here Mrs Hamilton? as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a really special episode and one I’m honoured to be trusted with.

Because my guest today is Jo Hamilton, one of more than 700 British sub postmasters who was prosecuted between 2000 and 2014 by the Post Office.

Falsely accused of stealing £36,000 Jo was ordered to put right a wrong she hadn’t committed, forced to remortgage her house and borrow from anyone she could in order to repay money that she had never taken. But it wasn’t just money. Jo lost so much more. Her confidence, her trust, her reputation, and ultimately, she believes, her parents.

Last year, Jo was immortalised by Monica Dolan who played her in the 

Groundbreaking TV drama, Mr Bates v The Post Office. 

It was a drama that achieved what only the very best TV can - it put the plight of the sub postmasters at the heart of every conversation - on TV, in the papers, on line, at the bus stop, by the coffee machine. Suddenly Everyone was talking about it.

Now her conviction overturned and her debts paid off, Jo has written Why Are You Here Mrs Hamilton? It’s an extraordinary first hand account of how she built a local shop and post office which became the heart of her community and how it was stolen from her.

Jo joined me to talk candidly about the life upending experience and how the last twenty years have changed her. From an ordinary woman who loved people and horses to a ferocious campaigner who will not stop fighting until every last sub postmaster is paid.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Why Are You Here Mrs Hamilton? as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3307 Olia Hercules: my periods vanished when the war started https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the Ukrainian chef, food writer and activist Olia Hercules. Olia was born in the South of Ukraine and has lived in the UK since her late teens. After working in journalism she decided to follow her heart, her stomach and arguably her heritage, and become a chef.  She trained at Leith’s School of Food and Wine, worked in kitchens, including as chef de partie for Yotam Ottolenghi and as a recipe developer.  But her mission is to make people rethink their attitude to eastern european - and particularly Ukrainian - food. She has written three cookbooks, including Mamushka, which won the fortnum’s award for best debut.  When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, life changed forever for Olia and her family who lived in the Kherson region. As olia says, ‘They lost their homes and their livelihoods, but they are all still alive.”  Her brother signed up ti fight and Olia turned activist, launching Cook for Ukraine and raising over £1million for supplies for Ukrainians.  I was fortunate enough to visit Olia for lunch at home in East London to talk about her new book, Strong Roots, a moving portrait of the history of Ukraine through generations of her family, being descended from a long line of powerful women, making the decision to retrain as a chef and how it felt to discover she is a carrier of fragile X syndrome which meant that she was unexpectedly plunged into premature menopause (and everything that entails) at just 38. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Strong Roots by Olia Hercules as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 10 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 17 243 sam baker Ukraine, fragile X, premature menopause and the strong women who made her My guest today is the Ukrainian chef, food writer and activist Olia Hercules. Olia was born in the South of Ukraine and has lived in the UK since her late teens. After working in journalism she decided to follow her heart, her stomach and arguably her heritage, and become a chef.  She trained at Leith’s School of Food and Wine, worked in kitchens, including as chef de partie for Yotam Ottolenghi and as a recipe developer.  But her mission is to make people rethink their attitude to eastern european - and particularly Ukrainian - food. She has written three cookbooks, including Mamushka, which won the fortnum’s award for best debut.  When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, life changed forever for Olia and her family who lived in the Kherson region. As olia says, ‘They lost their homes and their livelihoods, but they are all still alive.”  Her brother signed up ti fight and Olia turned activist, launching Cook for Ukraine and raising over £1million for supplies for Ukrainians.  I was fortunate enough to visit Olia for lunch at home in East London to talk about her new book, Strong Roots, a moving portrait of the history of Ukraine through generations of her family, being descended from a long line of powerful women, making the decision to retrain as a chef and how it felt to discover she is a carrier of fragile X syndrome which meant that she was unexpectedly plunged into premature menopause (and everything that entails) at just 38. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Strong Roots by Olia Hercules as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the Ukrainian chef, food writer and activist Olia Hercules.

Olia was born in the South of Ukraine and has lived in the UK since her late teens. After working in journalism she decided to follow her heart, her stomach and arguably her heritage, and become a chef. 

She trained at Leith’s School of Food and Wine, worked in kitchens, including as chef de partie for Yotam Ottolenghi and as a recipe developer. 

But her mission is to make people rethink their attitude to eastern european - and particularly Ukrainian - food. She has written three cookbooks, including Mamushka, which won the fortnum’s award for best debut. 

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, life changed forever for Olia and her family who lived in the Kherson region. As olia says, ‘They lost their homes and their livelihoods, but they are all still alive.” 

Her brother signed up ti fight and Olia turned activist, launching Cook for Ukraine and raising over £1million for supplies for Ukrainians. 

I was fortunate enough to visit Olia for lunch at home in East London to talk about her new book, Strong Roots, a moving portrait of the history of Ukraine through generations of her family, being descended from a long line of powerful women, making the decision to retrain as a chef and how it felt to discover she is a carrier of fragile X syndrome which meant that she was unexpectedly plunged into premature menopause (and everything that entails) at just 38.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Strong Roots by Olia Hercules as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3808 no Melissa Febos on what she learnt from a year of celibacy https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the author and essayist, Melissa Febos. Melissa has written four award winning books - Whip Smart, Abandon Me, Girlhood (which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the states) and Body Work. She’s won too many prizes to mention here and her writing has appeared all over the place! In her mid thirties, after, let’s just say a pretty horrific two year relationship, Melissa decided to step away not just from sex, but love, relationships, intimacy in general. At first for three months, then six, then ultimately for a year.  Three months? Hardly a big deal, You might think. But for someone who’d been in one relationship or another since she was 15, it was the start of a long road to breaking a 20 year serial monogamy habit.  Soon she realised she was not just taking a break, but making a change. One that would affect not just her relationships with friends family and lovers, but with herself, her work and the way she lived her life. The result is her new memoir, The Dry Season. Melissa joined me from Iowa to talk about that year of celibacy and what it taught her about independence, creativity, sexuality and above all herself. We also discussed shaking off the soup of sexual prescription, the happy ever after narrative, women’s celibacy in history, sexual fluidity in midlife and why she’s obsessed with the TV detective Vera! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Dry Season by Melissa Febos as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 03 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 17 242 sam baker The author of Girlhood and Whipsmart on serial monogamy, celibacy, menopause and Vera! My guest today is the author and essayist, Melissa Febos. Melissa has written four award winning books - Whip Smart, Abandon Me, Girlhood (which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the states) and Body Work. She’s won too many prizes to mention here and her writing has appeared all over the place! In her mid thirties, after, let’s just say a pretty horrific two year relationship, Melissa decided to step away not just from sex, but love, relationships, intimacy in general. At first for three months, then six, then ultimately for a year.  Three months? Hardly a big deal, You might think. But for someone who’d been in one relationship or another since she was 15, it was the start of a long road to breaking a 20 year serial monogamy habit.  Soon she realised she was not just taking a break, but making a change. One that would affect not just her relationships with friends family and lovers, but with herself, her work and the way she lived her life. The result is her new memoir, The Dry Season. Melissa joined me from Iowa to talk about that year of celibacy and what it taught her about independence, creativity, sexuality and above all herself. We also discussed shaking off the soup of sexual prescription, the happy ever after narrative, women’s celibacy in history, sexual fluidity in midlife and why she’s obsessed with the TV detective Vera! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Dry Season by Melissa Febos as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the author and essayist, Melissa Febos.

Melissa has written four award winning books - Whip Smart, Abandon Me, Girlhood (which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the states) and Body Work. She’s won too many prizes to mention here and her writing has appeared all over the place!

In her mid thirties, after, let’s just say a pretty horrific two year relationship, Melissa decided to step away not just from sex, but love, relationships, intimacy in general. At first for three months, then six, then ultimately for a year. 

Three months? Hardly a big deal, You might think. But for someone who’d been in one relationship or another since she was 15, it was the start of a long road to breaking a 20 year serial monogamy habit. 

Soon she realised she was not just taking a break, but making a change. One that would affect not just her relationships with friends family and lovers, but with herself, her work and the way she lived her life. The result is her new memoir, The Dry Season.

Melissa joined me from Iowa to talk about that year of celibacy and what it taught her about independence, creativity, sexuality and above all herself. We also discussed shaking off the soup of sexual prescription, the happy ever after narrative, women’s celibacy in history, sexual fluidity in midlife and why she’s obsessed with the TV detective Vera!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Dry Season by Melissa Febos as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3247 Reeta Chakrabarti on growing older & bolder https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest this week is the journalist and broadcaster Reeta Chakrabarti. After two decades producing and reporting for the BBC, Reeta became a news presenter at the age of 49. She was the main BBC presenter in Lviv in Western Ukraine and is now one of the chief presenters of BBC news at 6 and BBC news at 10. Brought up in Birmingham, as a teenager Reeta went to school in Calcutta before returning to the UK to go to university.  She joined the BBC in 1992 where she started on Radio One Newsbeat and presented news bulletins for the legendary Radio 2 DJ Steve Wright in the Afternoon. (Just talk amongst yourself kids!) Heading into 50 she took an a whole new role and at 60 she’s done it again, only this time she’s written a book, a novel, Finding Belle, that takes us from Mombassa to Milton Keynes to Calcutta. Reeta (and the builders next door!) joined me to talk about family, belonging, growing up the only brown girl in the class and being a lifelong good girl. We also discussed the importance of failure, learning to become a yes person, in the best possible way, getting bolder as she gets older and why she has no plans to be in the newsroom at 70. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠, including Finding Belle by Reeta Chakrabarti as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 27 May 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 17 241 sam baker My guest this week is the journalist and broadcaster Reeta Chakrabarti. After two decades producing and reporting for the BBC, Reeta became a news presenter at the age of 49. She was the main BBC presenter in Lviv in Western Ukraine and is now one of the chief presenters of BBC news at 6 and BBC news at 10. Brought up in Birmingham, as a teenager Reeta went to school in Calcutta before returning to the UK to go to university.  She joined the BBC in 1992 where she started on Radio One Newsbeat and presented news bulletins for the legendary Radio 2 DJ Steve Wright in the Afternoon. (Just talk amongst yourself kids!) Heading into 50 she took an a whole new role and at 60 she’s done it again, only this time she’s written a book, a novel, Finding Belle, that takes us from Mombassa to Milton Keynes to Calcutta. Reeta (and the builders next door!) joined me to talk about family, belonging, growing up the only brown girl in the class and being a lifelong good girl. We also discussed the importance of failure, learning to become a yes person, in the best possible way, getting bolder as she gets older and why she has no plans to be in the newsroom at 70. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠, including Finding Belle by Reeta Chakrabarti as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is the journalist and broadcaster Reeta Chakrabarti.

After two decades producing and reporting for the BBC, Reeta became a news presenter at the age of 49. She was the main BBC presenter in Lviv in Western Ukraine and is now one of the chief presenters of BBC news at 6 and BBC news at 10.

Brought up in Birmingham, as a teenager Reeta went to school in Calcutta before returning to the UK to go to university. 

She joined the BBC in 1992 where she started on Radio One Newsbeat and presented news bulletins for the legendary Radio 2 DJ Steve Wright in the Afternoon. (Just talk amongst yourself kids!)

Heading into 50 she took an a whole new role and at 60 she’s done it again, only this time she’s written a book, a novel, Finding Belle, that takes us from Mombassa to Milton Keynes to Calcutta.

Reeta (and the builders next door!) joined me to talk about family, belonging, growing up the only brown girl in the class and being a lifelong good girl. We also discussed the importance of failure, learning to become a yes person, in the best possible way, getting bolder as she gets older and why she has no plans to be in the newsroom at 70.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠, including Finding Belle by Reeta Chakrabarti as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3274 no Jeanine Cummins on confidence, identity and surviving the American Dirt controversy https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the bestselling novelist Jeanine Cummins. You might think you haven’t heard of her, but I’ll be pretty surprised if you haven’t heard of the book that catapulted her into the public eye, American Dirt. A story about a Mexican mother and son escaping to America after their entire family is massacred by a drug cartel, which Oprah said, “humanised the migration process in a way nothing else I’d ever felt or seen had,” Jeanine was in her mid-40s, with two novels and a memoir under her belt, when American Dirt caught light. After a massive bidding war, the book was sold for millions of dollars in 38 countries. But when it was published, Jeanine found herself at the heart of a furore that questioned her right to have written it at all.  Despite topping the bestseller lists  on both sides of the atlantic and selling almost 4 million copies, for a long time Jeanine questioned whether she’d be able to write another word. Now she has.  Speak to Me of Home is the story of three generations of women who are, like jeanine, of Puerto Rican descent. It’s an engrossing cross-generational family saga and a heartfelt look at identity and what it means to belong. Jeanine joined me from her home on the east coast to talk candidly about living through the eye of the storm, the meaning of home, developing empathy for our grandmothers, the life changing power of female friends, turning 50 and finally learning the holiness of No. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including Speak to me of Home by Jeanine Cummins as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 20 May 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 17 240 sam baker My guest today is the bestselling novelist Jeanine Cummins. You might think you haven’t heard of her, but I’ll be pretty surprised if you haven’t heard of the book that catapulted her into the public eye, American Dirt. A story about a Mexican mother and son escaping to America after their entire family is massacred by a drug cartel, which Oprah said, “humanised the migration process in a way nothing else I’d ever felt or seen had,” Jeanine was in her mid-40s, with two novels and a memoir under her belt, when American Dirt caught light. After a massive bidding war, the book was sold for millions of dollars in 38 countries. But when it was published, Jeanine found herself at the heart of a furore that questioned her right to have written it at all.  Despite topping the bestseller lists  on both sides of the atlantic and selling almost 4 million copies, for a long time Jeanine questioned whether she’d be able to write another word. Now she has.  Speak to Me of Home is the story of three generations of women who are, like jeanine, of Puerto Rican descent. It’s an engrossing cross-generational family saga and a heartfelt look at identity and what it means to belong. Jeanine joined me from her home on the east coast to talk candidly about living through the eye of the storm, the meaning of home, developing empathy for our grandmothers, the life changing power of female friends, turning 50 and finally learning the holiness of No. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including Speak to me of Home by Jeanine Cummins as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the bestselling novelist Jeanine Cummins.

You might think you haven’t heard of her, but I’ll be pretty surprised if you haven’t heard of the book that catapulted her into the public eye, American Dirt. A story about a Mexican mother and son escaping to America after their entire family is massacred by a drug cartel, which Oprah said, “humanised the migration process in a way nothing else I’d ever felt or seen had,”

Jeanine was in her mid-40s, with two novels and a memoir under her belt, when American Dirt caught light. After a massive bidding war, the book was sold for millions of dollars in 38 countries. But when it was published, Jeanine found herself at the heart of a furore that questioned her right to have written it at all. 

Despite topping the bestseller lists  on both sides of the atlantic and selling almost 4 million copies, for a long time Jeanine questioned whether she’d be able to write another word.

Now she has. 

Speak to Me of Home is the story of three generations of women who are, like jeanine, of Puerto Rican descent. It’s an engrossing cross-generational family saga and a heartfelt look at identity and what it means to belong.

Jeanine joined me from her home on the east coast to talk candidly about living through the eye of the storm, the meaning of home, developing empathy for our grandmothers, the life changing power of female friends, turning 50 and finally learning the holiness of No.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including Speak to me of Home by Jeanine Cummins as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3456 no Jennifer Weiner on Ozempic, ageing and growing some boundaries! https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the bestselling American novelist Jennifer Weiner. I first encountered Jen When her debut novel, Good In Bed, was thrust into my hands by someone I worked with on Company magazine. It was the first time I’d ever read a mainstream novel whose lead character was a fat woman who didn’t need fixing. Good In Bed was a smash hit on both sides of the atlantic but for some reason it has taken until now to make its way to the big screen. It’s being adapted for HBO and starring Mindy Kaling. Jen followed that up with In Her Shoes which was also made into a movie, starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley Maclaine. And since then she’s written 15 more novels, and an essay collection, as a well as writing a column for the New York Times. Like Jojo Moyes and Marian Keyes Jen has an unerring talent for being able to make you laugh and cry and nod in recognition all on the very same page. Her latest, The Griffin Sister’s Greatest Hits, is another surefire hit, tackling sisterhood, our relationships with our bodies, how we’re endlessly judged on our looks and the way the world - and the music industry - treats women. Jen joined me from home in Philadelphia to talk so much good stuff. We discussed Trump, Nora Ephron, body image, ageing, her mum coming out, wishing she had her daughter’s boundaries, why she loves writing middle aged women and so much more. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including The Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 13 May 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 17 239 sam baker The best-selling author of Good In Bed says middle-aged women are going to change the world! My guest today is the bestselling American novelist Jennifer Weiner. I first encountered Jen When her debut novel, Good In Bed, was thrust into my hands by someone I worked with on Company magazine. It was the first time I’d ever read a mainstream novel whose lead character was a fat woman who didn’t need fixing. Good In Bed was a smash hit on both sides of the atlantic but for some reason it has taken until now to make its way to the big screen. It’s being adapted for HBO and starring Mindy Kaling. Jen followed that up with In Her Shoes which was also made into a movie, starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley Maclaine. And since then she’s written 15 more novels, and an essay collection, as a well as writing a column for the New York Times. Like Jojo Moyes and Marian Keyes Jen has an unerring talent for being able to make you laugh and cry and nod in recognition all on the very same page. Her latest, The Griffin Sister’s Greatest Hits, is another surefire hit, tackling sisterhood, our relationships with our bodies, how we’re endlessly judged on our looks and the way the world - and the music industry - treats women. Jen joined me from home in Philadelphia to talk so much good stuff. We discussed Trump, Nora Ephron, body image, ageing, her mum coming out, wishing she had her daughter’s boundaries, why she loves writing middle aged women and so much more. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including The Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the bestselling American novelist Jennifer Weiner.

I first encountered Jen When her debut novel, Good In Bed, was thrust into my hands by someone I worked with on Company magazine. It was the first time I’d ever read a mainstream novel whose lead character was a fat woman who didn’t need fixing. Good In Bed was a smash hit on both sides of the atlantic but for some reason it has taken until now to make its way to the big screen. It’s being adapted for HBO and starring Mindy Kaling.

Jen followed that up with In Her Shoes which was also made into a movie, starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley Maclaine. And since then she’s written 15 more novels, and an essay collection, as a well as writing a column for the New York Times.

Like Jojo Moyes and Marian Keyes Jen has an unerring talent for being able to make you laugh and cry and nod in recognition all on the very same page.

Her latest, The Griffin Sister’s Greatest Hits, is another surefire hit, tackling sisterhood, our relationships with our bodies, how we’re endlessly judged on our looks and the way the world - and the music industry - treats women.

Jen joined me from home in Philadelphia to talk so much good stuff. We discussed Trump, Nora Ephron, body image, ageing, her mum coming out, wishing she had her daughter’s boundaries, why she loves writing middle aged women and so much more.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including The Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3371 no Naga munchetty on her 30 year battle to get her painful periods taken seriously  https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ To launch season 17 (season 17! I know!) I have a very special guest. Back in 2023, British journalist and BBC breakfast and radio 5 live presenter Naga Munchetty hit the headlines when she spoke out about having been diagnosed with a gynaecological condition called adenomyosis. When I heard the clip I did a double-take because I too have adenomyosis, and, like Naga, it took me well over two decades to get diagnosed. But also I hadn’t heard of it before I was diagnosed and had never heard of anyone else who had it. (I wrote about it at the time – you can read it here.) I was far from the only one. Naga was overwhelmed by the avalanche, literally thousands of women sharing their stories of lifelong pain, bleeding and having their concerns dismissed, ignored and belittled. Of being told the way they were having to live their lives was just “normal”. Naga was shocked. She was furious. She was determined to do something about it. To help women advocate for themselves. And the result is her new book, It’s Probably Nothing - which let’s face it is a phrase most of us have heard over and over again. Naga and I talked all things gynaecological - from painful periods to bleeding buckets - choosing to be child-free and why women’s sexual wellbeing is so often overlooked. Women’s health still isn’t taken seriously and Naga Munchetty has plans to do something about that!  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠, including It's Probably Nothing by Naga Munchetty as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 06 May 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 17 238 sam baker The renowned broadcaster on choosing to be child-free and why it's way past time women's health was taken seriously To launch season 17 (season 17! I know!) I have a very special guest. Back in 2023, British journalist and BBC breakfast and radio 5 live presenter Naga Munchetty hit the headlines when she spoke out about having been diagnosed with a gynaecological condition called adenomyosis. When I heard the clip I did a double-take because I too have adenomyosis, and, like Naga, it took me well over two decades to get diagnosed. But also I hadn’t heard of it before I was diagnosed and had never heard of anyone else who had it. (I wrote about it at the time – you can read it here.) I was far from the only one. Naga was overwhelmed by the avalanche, literally thousands of women sharing their stories of lifelong pain, bleeding and having their concerns dismissed, ignored and belittled. Of being told the way they were having to live their lives was just “normal”. Naga was shocked. She was furious. She was determined to do something about it. To help women advocate for themselves. And the result is her new book, It’s Probably Nothing - which let’s face it is a phrase most of us have heard over and over again. Naga and I talked all things gynaecological - from painful periods to bleeding buckets - choosing to be child-free and why women’s sexual wellbeing is so often overlooked. Women’s health still isn’t taken seriously and Naga Munchetty has plans to do something about that!  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠, including It's Probably Nothing by Naga Munchetty as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To launch season 17 (season 17! I know!) I have a very special guest.

Back in 2023, British journalist and BBC breakfast and radio 5 live presenter Naga Munchetty hit the headlines when she spoke out about having been diagnosed with a gynaecological condition called adenomyosis.

When I heard the clip I did a double-take because I too have adenomyosis, and, like Naga, it took me well over two decades to get diagnosed. But also I hadn’t heard of it before I was diagnosed and had never heard of anyone else who had it. (I wrote about it at the time – you can read it here.)

I was far from the only one. Naga was overwhelmed by the avalanche, literally thousands of women sharing their stories of lifelong pain, bleeding and having their concerns dismissed, ignored and belittled. Of being told the way they were having to live their lives was just “normal”.

Naga was shocked. She was furious. She was determined to do something about it. To help women advocate for themselves. And the result is her new book, It’s Probably Nothing - which let’s face it is a phrase most of us have heard over and over again.

Naga and I talked all things gynaecological - from painful periods to bleeding buckets - choosing to be child-free and why women’s sexual wellbeing is so often overlooked. Women’s health still isn’t taken seriously and Naga Munchetty has plans to do something about that! 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠, including It's Probably Nothing by Naga Munchetty as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3781 Clover Stroud on grief, love, sex & sisterhood - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Last of my trips back into The Shift archives is this conversation with Clover Stroud. Since this conversation, Clover has written another memoir, The Giant on the Skyline about our relationship with home (borne in part out of moving her family from her home in Oxfordshire to Washington DC where her partner's job is based). Since then A LOT has changed. She has also launched an excellent substack, On The Way Life Feels. The original show notes: It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last. But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46.  The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief. Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Giant on the Skyline and The Red of My Blood by Clover Stroud as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 232 sam baker Last of my trips back into The Shift archives is this conversation with Clover Stroud. Since this conversation, Clover has written another memoir, The Giant on the Skyline about our relationship with home (borne in part out of moving her family from her home in Oxfordshire to Washington DC where her partner's job is based). Since then A LOT has changed. She has also launched an excellent substack, On The Way Life Feels. The original show notes: It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last. But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46.  The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief. Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Giant on the Skyline and The Red of My Blood by Clover Stroud as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Last of my trips back into The Shift archives is this conversation with Clover Stroud. Since this conversation, Clover has written another memoir, The Giant on the Skyline about our relationship with home (borne in part out of moving her family from her home in Oxfordshire to Washington DC where her partner's job is based). Since then A LOT has changed. She has also launched an excellent substack, On The Way Life Feels.


The original show notes:


It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last.


But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46. 


The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief.


Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Giant on the Skyline and The Red of My Blood by Clover Stroud as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3392 Tracey Thorn on being a woman in a bloke's world, hormones and going "statement grey" - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This conversation with legendary musician Tracey Thorn from one of The Shift's very early seasons is one of my very favourites. Back then covid was still a thing and these chats on zoom with incredible women were my life rafts. Anyway, we're revisiting Tracey because by the time you listen to this episode, Everything But The Girl will have very tentatively put their toe back on the stage at a couple of very small gigs in London. I'm not getting my hopes up too much (as I know Tracey doesn't loooove live performing, however, Tracey if you happen to read this, I know there are thousands and thousands of fans hungry for a tour...) The orginal show notes: Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children.  Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is my favourite yet. Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!). * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including My Rock'n'roll Friend by Tracey Thorn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 236 sam baker This conversation with legendary musician Tracey Thorn from one of The Shift's very early seasons is one of my very favourites. Back then covid was still a thing and these chats on zoom with incredible women were my life rafts. Anyway, we're revisiting Tracey because by the time you listen to this episode, Everything But The Girl will have very tentatively put their toe back on the stage at a couple of very small gigs in London. I'm not getting my hopes up too much (as I know Tracey doesn't loooove live performing, however, Tracey if you happen to read this, I know there are thousands and thousands of fans hungry for a tour...) The orginal show notes: Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children.  Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is my favourite yet. Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!). * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including My Rock'n'roll Friend by Tracey Thorn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This conversation with legendary musician Tracey Thorn from one of The Shift's very early seasons is one of my very favourites. Back then covid was still a thing and these chats on zoom with incredible women were my life rafts. Anyway, we're revisiting Tracey because by the time you listen to this episode, Everything But The Girl will have very tentatively put their toe back on the stage at a couple of very small gigs in London. I'm not getting my hopes up too much (as I know Tracey doesn't loooove live performing, however, Tracey if you happen to read this, I know there are thousands and thousands of fans hungry for a tour...)


The orginal show notes:


Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children. 


Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is my favourite yet.


Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!).


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including My Rock'n'roll Friend by Tracey Thorn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2657 no Maggie O'Farrell on Hamnet, imposter syndrome and why she didn't think she's the marrying kind: THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Back in the mists of time, Maggie O'Farrell was one of my very first guests on The Shift. So, as she celebrates the 25th anniversary of the publication of her very first novel, After You'd Gone and we wait with bated breath for the movie of her smash hit bestseller Hamnet (starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, directed by Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, Chloe Zhao, and co-written by Maggie and Chloe), I thought now was a good time to revisit our conversation from back in 2020. Since then Maggie has of course written the bestselling The Marriage Portrait and gone on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of Hamnet. Here are the original show notes: This week’s guest is the award-winning novelist, Maggie O’Farrell. The author of eight novels, most recently the stunning Women’s Prize winner, Hamnet, and one of my favourite memoirs of all time, I Am, I Am, I am. And now she’s written a children’s book, the absolutely gorgeous Where Snow Angels Go, which is a banker for a Christmas Day teatime animation a la The Snowman if ever I saw one.  While Maggie noses through my bookcase and plays with Sausage the (tail-less) cat, we talk being a social media refusenik, giving voice to women’s stories, saying good riddance to the male gaze, why she never thought she was the marrying kind. Oh, and why she still secretly fears someone might take her Women’s Prize away! Frankly, if Maggie O’Farrell has imposter syndrome, what hope is there for the rest of us? * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 15 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 235 sam baker Back in the mists of time, Maggie O'Farrell was one of my very first guests on The Shift. So, as she celebrates the 25th anniversary of the publication of her very first novel, After You'd Gone and we wait with bated breath for the movie of her smash hit bestseller Hamnet (starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, directed by Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, Chloe Zhao, and co-written by Maggie and Chloe), I thought now was a good time to revisit our conversation from back in 2020. Since then Maggie has of course written the bestselling The Marriage Portrait and gone on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of Hamnet. Here are the original show notes: This week’s guest is the award-winning novelist, Maggie O’Farrell. The author of eight novels, most recently the stunning Women’s Prize winner, Hamnet, and one of my favourite memoirs of all time, I Am, I Am, I am. And now she’s written a children’s book, the absolutely gorgeous Where Snow Angels Go, which is a banker for a Christmas Day teatime animation a la The Snowman if ever I saw one.  While Maggie noses through my bookcase and plays with Sausage the (tail-less) cat, we talk being a social media refusenik, giving voice to women’s stories, saying good riddance to the male gaze, why she never thought she was the marrying kind. Oh, and why she still secretly fears someone might take her Women’s Prize away! Frankly, if Maggie O’Farrell has imposter syndrome, what hope is there for the rest of us? * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Back in the mists of time, Maggie O'Farrell was one of my very first guests on The Shift. So, as she celebrates the 25th anniversary of the publication of her very first novel, After You'd Gone and we wait with bated breath for the movie of her smash hit bestseller Hamnet (starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, directed by Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, Chloe Zhao, and co-written by Maggie and Chloe), I thought now was a good time to revisit our conversation from back in 2020. Since then Maggie has of course written the bestselling The Marriage Portrait and gone on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of Hamnet.


Here are the original show notes:


This week’s guest is the award-winning novelist, Maggie O’Farrell. The author of eight novels, most recently the stunning Women’s Prize winner, Hamnet, and one of my favourite memoirs of all time, I Am, I Am, I am. And now she’s written a children’s book, the absolutely gorgeous Where Snow Angels Go, which is a banker for a Christmas Day teatime animation a la The Snowman if ever I saw one. 


While Maggie noses through my bookcase and plays with Sausage the (tail-less) cat, we talk being a social media refusenik, giving voice to women’s stories, saying good riddance to the male gaze, why she never thought she was the marrying kind. Oh, and why she still secretly fears someone might take her Women’s Prize away! Frankly, if Maggie O’Farrell has imposter syndrome, what hope is there for the rest of us?


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2619 no The "other" Maggie Smith on her midlife reappearing act - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ As we put the finishing touches to the Spring season of The Shift, I thought we'd raid the archives for a few of my favourite episodes. First up, "the other" Maggie Smith (as she says she will always be), who I first spoke to when her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful was just creeping into the world. Little did we know back then that it would be the leading wave in a tsunami of divorce memoirs written by midlife women. Also look out for Maggie's new book, Dear Writer, a collection of "pep talks and practical advice for the creative life". Here are the original show notes: Like most of the rest of the world, I first discovered today’s guest Maggie Smith (no, not the legendary British actress, the American poet) when her poem, Good Bones went viral on social media thrusting her into the news on both sides of the Atlantic, featured on primetime TV and was read at an event by Meryl Streep.  It’s the kind of exposure people dream of, but in Maggie’s own words “my marriage was never the same after that”. And I know that sentiment is something that will resonate with so many of you. Maggie’s new book, her debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful is about the collapse of that marriage, but it’s also about the start of something new, how in losing their shared history and knowledge of the future, she began to build a new story - her own.  Maggie joined me from Ohio to talk about putting herself back together after sudden success destroyed her marriage, being a service provider in your own home, how she got herself back after years of bargaining herself away and why we keep having the same conversation about women and ambition. We also compared our Strong First Daughter Energy and she introduced me to the concept of an emotional alchemist. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Can Make This Place Beautiful and Dear Writer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 234 sam baker As we put the finishing touches to the Spring season of The Shift, I thought we'd raid the archives for a few of my favourite episodes. First up, "the other" Maggie Smith (as she says she will always be), who I first spoke to when her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful was just creeping into the world. Little did we know back then that it would be the leading wave in a tsunami of divorce memoirs written by midlife women. Also look out for Maggie's new book, Dear Writer, a collection of "pep talks and practical advice for the creative life". Here are the original show notes: Like most of the rest of the world, I first discovered today’s guest Maggie Smith (no, not the legendary British actress, the American poet) when her poem, Good Bones went viral on social media thrusting her into the news on both sides of the Atlantic, featured on primetime TV and was read at an event by Meryl Streep.  It’s the kind of exposure people dream of, but in Maggie’s own words “my marriage was never the same after that”. And I know that sentiment is something that will resonate with so many of you. Maggie’s new book, her debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful is about the collapse of that marriage, but it’s also about the start of something new, how in losing their shared history and knowledge of the future, she began to build a new story - her own.  Maggie joined me from Ohio to talk about putting herself back together after sudden success destroyed her marriage, being a service provider in your own home, how she got herself back after years of bargaining herself away and why we keep having the same conversation about women and ambition. We also compared our Strong First Daughter Energy and she introduced me to the concept of an emotional alchemist. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Can Make This Place Beautiful and Dear Writer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices As we put the finishing touches to the Spring season of The Shift, I thought we'd raid the archives for a few of my favourite episodes. First up, "the other" Maggie Smith (as she says she will always be), who I first spoke to when her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful was just creeping into the world. Little did we know back then that it would be the leading wave in a tsunami of divorce memoirs written by midlife women. Also look out for Maggie's new book, Dear Writer, a collection of "pep talks and practical advice for the creative life".


Here are the original show notes:


Like most of the rest of the world, I first discovered today’s guest Maggie Smith (no, not the legendary British actress, the American poet) when her poem, Good Bones went viral on social media thrusting her into the news on both sides of the Atlantic, featured on primetime TV and was read at an event by Meryl Streep. 


It’s the kind of exposure people dream of, but in Maggie’s own words “my marriage was never the same after that”. And I know that sentiment is something that will resonate with so many of you.


Maggie’s new book, her debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful is about the collapse of that marriage, but it’s also about the start of something new, how in losing their shared history and knowledge of the future, she began to build a new story - her own. 

Maggie joined me from Ohio to talk about putting herself back together after sudden success destroyed her marriage, being a service provider in your own home, how she got herself back after years of bargaining herself away and why we keep having the same conversation about women and ambition. We also compared our Strong First Daughter Energy and she introduced me to the concept of an emotional alchemist.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Can Make This Place Beautiful and Dear Writer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3240 no Lorraine Kelly on menopause, misogyny, toxic men in telly, being a granny, Botox, you name it! https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My final guest of this season is the British TV legend, Lorraine Kelly. You know, Lorraine off the telly!  Her show, Lorraine, which airs every weekday morning, revolutionised Daytime Telly, she’s now been doing it for an astonishing 40 years. She took so called soft telly and turned it into a must take notice of for politicians and people who thought they were too good to watch telly during the day. She has won a Royal Television Society Award, a scottish BAFTA, and last year she was awarded a Lifetime achievement by BAFTA.  Now 65 the bloody over-achiever has only gone and written a bestseller, The Island Swimmer, set on Orkney - a place close to her heart - it’s a family mystery about a woman, Evie, who reluctantly returns home after a long time away. It’s as reassuring, captivating and satisfying as its author. I went to Lorraine’s old Dundee stomping ground to share a cuppa and talk about life the universe and absolutely blimmin everything. We chatted mums who keep you in your place, toxic people in telly, getting the sack on maternity leave, why she had to be interviewed about menopause on her show because no-one else would, the sheer joy of being a granny and why she’s way too chicken to have Botox. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Island Swimmer by Lorraine Kelly and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0000 full 16 233 sam baker My final guest of this season is the British TV legend, Lorraine Kelly. You know, Lorraine off the telly!  Her show, Lorraine, which airs every weekday morning, revolutionised Daytime Telly, she’s now been doing it for an astonishing 40 years. She took so called soft telly and turned it into a must take notice of for politicians and people who thought they were too good to watch telly during the day. She has won a Royal Television Society Award, a scottish BAFTA, and last year she was awarded a Lifetime achievement by BAFTA.  Now 65 the bloody over-achiever has only gone and written a bestseller, The Island Swimmer, set on Orkney - a place close to her heart - it’s a family mystery about a woman, Evie, who reluctantly returns home after a long time away. It’s as reassuring, captivating and satisfying as its author. I went to Lorraine’s old Dundee stomping ground to share a cuppa and talk about life the universe and absolutely blimmin everything. We chatted mums who keep you in your place, toxic people in telly, getting the sack on maternity leave, why she had to be interviewed about menopause on her show because no-one else would, the sheer joy of being a granny and why she’s way too chicken to have Botox. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Island Swimmer by Lorraine Kelly and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My final guest of this season is the British TV legend, Lorraine Kelly. You know, Lorraine off the telly! 


Her show, Lorraine, which airs every weekday morning, revolutionised Daytime Telly, she’s now been doing it for an astonishing 40 years. She took so called soft telly and turned it into a must take notice of for politicians and people who thought they were too good to watch telly during the day.


She has won a Royal Television Society Award, a scottish BAFTA, and last year she was awarded a Lifetime achievement by BAFTA. 


Now 65 the bloody over-achiever has only gone and written a bestseller, The Island Swimmer, set on Orkney - a place close to her heart - it’s a family mystery about a woman, Evie, who reluctantly returns home after a long time away. It’s as reassuring, captivating and satisfying as its author.


I went to Lorraine’s old Dundee stomping ground to share a cuppa and talk about life the universe and absolutely blimmin everything. We chatted mums who keep you in your place, toxic people in telly, getting the sack on maternity leave, why she had to be interviewed about menopause on her show because no-one else would, the sheer joy of being a granny and why she’s way too chicken to have Botox.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Island Swimmer by Lorraine Kelly and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4050 no Jenni Fagan: I'm 46, nobody thought I'd make it past 16 https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the award winning author, screenwriter and poet Jenni Fagan. Jenni has written four novels, several poetry collections and been named Scottish novelist of the year.  18 months ago Jenni and I met in a suitably spooky basement in Edinburgh’s old town to discuss her incredible, harrowing memoir about growing up in care, Ootlin. An ootlin, according to Jenni, is ‘someone who creates their story without first seeking permission to do so’. And you’ll soon see why that couldn’t be more apt. Then, life happened - publication of the book was delayed and the interview never ran. Scroll forward to a couple of weeks ago when Ootlin was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, and then won the Gordon Burn Prize. I decided to raid the archives and listen again. What I heard was a moving conversation about building a life when society dumped you on the scrapheap before birth. And then some.  As you’ll hear Jenni and I spoke candidly about her childhood growing up in 29 different homes, how she somehow preserved the shining girl inside when life was only interested in snuffing her out, becoming Jenni with an i, the importance of cultural mothers, surfing her way through her 50s and her obsession with property renovation. CONTENT WARNING: there is some tough stuff in here including reference to sexual abuse and suicidal ideation. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Ootlin by Jenni Fagan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 25 Mar 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 16 232 sam baker On poverty, growing up in care, cultural mothers & why she plans to surf her way through her 50s My guest today is the award winning author, screenwriter and poet Jenni Fagan. Jenni has written four novels, several poetry collections and been named Scottish novelist of the year.  18 months ago Jenni and I met in a suitably spooky basement in Edinburgh’s old town to discuss her incredible, harrowing memoir about growing up in care, Ootlin. An ootlin, according to Jenni, is ‘someone who creates their story without first seeking permission to do so’. And you’ll soon see why that couldn’t be more apt. Then, life happened - publication of the book was delayed and the interview never ran. Scroll forward to a couple of weeks ago when Ootlin was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, and then won the Gordon Burn Prize. I decided to raid the archives and listen again. What I heard was a moving conversation about building a life when society dumped you on the scrapheap before birth. And then some.  As you’ll hear Jenni and I spoke candidly about her childhood growing up in 29 different homes, how she somehow preserved the shining girl inside when life was only interested in snuffing her out, becoming Jenni with an i, the importance of cultural mothers, surfing her way through her 50s and her obsession with property renovation. CONTENT WARNING: there is some tough stuff in here including reference to sexual abuse and suicidal ideation. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Ootlin by Jenni Fagan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the award winning author, screenwriter and poet Jenni Fagan. Jenni has written four novels, several poetry collections and been named Scottish novelist of the year. 


18 months ago Jenni and I met in a suitably spooky basement in Edinburgh’s old town to discuss her incredible, harrowing memoir about growing up in care, Ootlin.


An ootlin, according to Jenni, is ‘someone who creates their story without first seeking permission to do so’. And you’ll soon see why that couldn’t be more apt.


Then, life happened - publication of the book was delayed and the interview never ran. Scroll forward to a couple of weeks ago when Ootlin was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, and then won the Gordon Burn Prize. I decided to raid the archives and listen again. What I heard was a moving conversation about building a life when society dumped you on the scrapheap before birth. And then some. 


As you’ll hear Jenni and I spoke candidly about her childhood growing up in 29 different homes, how she somehow preserved the shining girl inside when life was only interested in snuffing her out, becoming Jenni with an i, the importance of cultural mothers, surfing her way through her 50s and her obsession with property renovation.


CONTENT WARNING: there is some tough stuff in here including reference to sexual abuse and suicidal ideation.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Ootlin by Jenni Fagan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3619 Ione Skye: I'm still working on being seen in the world – and I'm 50 https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is a Gen X legend and someone I’ve been a little bit obsessed with ever since I saw her star in the definitive (late) 80s movie, Say Anything. Ione Skye. There was a time when It seemed like if there was a hot young actor - John Cusack, River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves - she got to snog them on screen. (I know, shallow, much.) Ione has spent her life in the centre of the Venn diagram of film, music and celebrity. The daughter of 60s superstar Donovan, she famously dated Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Anthony Keidis finding herself both babysitter and breadwinner at just 16. She followed that with an ill-fated marriage to Beastie Boy Ad-Rock (Adam Horowitz). But there is so much more to Ione than all those male name drops. She has starred in some of the most significant movies of their generation. She has worked with the likes of Sofia Coppola, Chloe Sevigny, Lena Dunham and Madonna. She’s written children’s books, directed short films and is an accomplished painter. Not to mention podcaster. (She hosts the podcast Weirder Together with her partner, Ben Lee.) Oh, and I do just have to say that as a child she only lived next door to the iconic writer Eve Babitz! Anyway It all adds up to one fascinating tumultuous story. One she’s addressed extremely candidly in her new memoir, Say Everything. See what she did there? Ione joined me from LA to talk about growing up in the 80s and 90s, being a nepo baby before nepo babies were a thing, having it all, losing it all and getting some of it back, what she’s learnt from her Gen Z daughters and finally coming into herself in her 50s. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Say Everything by Ione Skye and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 18 Mar 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 16 231 sam baker The Gen X legend on why there's so much more to her than the rockstar girlfriend My guest today is a Gen X legend and someone I’ve been a little bit obsessed with ever since I saw her star in the definitive (late) 80s movie, Say Anything. Ione Skye. There was a time when It seemed like if there was a hot young actor - John Cusack, River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves - she got to snog them on screen. (I know, shallow, much.) Ione has spent her life in the centre of the Venn diagram of film, music and celebrity. The daughter of 60s superstar Donovan, she famously dated Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Anthony Keidis finding herself both babysitter and breadwinner at just 16. She followed that with an ill-fated marriage to Beastie Boy Ad-Rock (Adam Horowitz). But there is so much more to Ione than all those male name drops. She has starred in some of the most significant movies of their generation. She has worked with the likes of Sofia Coppola, Chloe Sevigny, Lena Dunham and Madonna. She’s written children’s books, directed short films and is an accomplished painter. Not to mention podcaster. (She hosts the podcast Weirder Together with her partner, Ben Lee.) Oh, and I do just have to say that as a child she only lived next door to the iconic writer Eve Babitz! Anyway It all adds up to one fascinating tumultuous story. One she’s addressed extremely candidly in her new memoir, Say Everything. See what she did there? Ione joined me from LA to talk about growing up in the 80s and 90s, being a nepo baby before nepo babies were a thing, having it all, losing it all and getting some of it back, what she’s learnt from her Gen Z daughters and finally coming into herself in her 50s. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Say Everything by Ione Skye and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a Gen X legend and someone I’ve been a little bit obsessed with ever since I saw her star in the definitive (late) 80s movie, Say Anything. Ione Skye. There was a time when It seemed like if there was a hot young actor - John Cusack, River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves - she got to snog them on screen. (I know, shallow, much.)


Ione has spent her life in the centre of the Venn diagram of film, music and celebrity. The daughter of 60s superstar Donovan, she famously dated Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Anthony Keidis finding herself both babysitter and breadwinner at just 16. She followed that with an ill-fated marriage to Beastie Boy Ad-Rock (Adam Horowitz).


But there is so much more to Ione than all those male name drops.


She has starred in some of the most significant movies of their generation. She has worked with the likes of Sofia Coppola, Chloe Sevigny, Lena Dunham and Madonna. She’s written children’s books, directed short films and is an accomplished painter. Not to mention podcaster. (She hosts the podcast Weirder Together with her partner, Ben Lee.)


Oh, and I do just have to say that as a child she only lived next door to the iconic writer Eve Babitz!


Anyway It all adds up to one fascinating tumultuous story. One she’s addressed extremely candidly in her new memoir, Say Everything. See what she did there?


Ione joined me from LA to talk about growing up in the 80s and 90s, being a nepo baby before nepo babies were a thing, having it all, losing it all and getting some of it back, what she’s learnt from her Gen Z daughters and finally coming into herself in her 50s.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Say Everything by Ione Skye and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3376 Denise Lewis shares her secrets for adapting to a big life shift https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is a woman who knows better than most what it takes to adapt to life’s big shifts. Dame Denise Lewis is one of the UK’s best known athletes. She won gold in the heptathlon in Sydney Olympics in 2000 and bronze in Atlanta in 1996. She has won medals at the Commonwealth games, the European championships and World Championships. After retiring from athletics in her early 30s she built a successful career as a BBC sports commentator. Oh, And had four kids.  In 2023 she was made a Dame for her services to sport. Now 52, she is President of UK athletics and has written a book sharing everything she’s learnt, aptly named Adaptability, a guide to surviving and thriving in a world of competing demands.  I met up with Denise to talk about self-reliance, independence and how growing up the only child of a single mum shaped her. The challenge of building a whole new identity in her 30s - and again in her 50s. Her secrets to adapting after a big life shift and How she learnt the vital skill of mansplaining. Plus menopause, ageing And why she loves being on the fifth floor of life. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Cancer Roadmap by Dr Liz O'Riordan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 11 Mar 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 16 230 sam baker The Olympic champion talks self-reliance, building a new identity, ageing & why she loves being on the fifth floor of life My guest today is a woman who knows better than most what it takes to adapt to life’s big shifts. Dame Denise Lewis is one of the UK’s best known athletes. She won gold in the heptathlon in Sydney Olympics in 2000 and bronze in Atlanta in 1996. She has won medals at the Commonwealth games, the European championships and World Championships. After retiring from athletics in her early 30s she built a successful career as a BBC sports commentator. Oh, And had four kids.  In 2023 she was made a Dame for her services to sport. Now 52, she is President of UK athletics and has written a book sharing everything she’s learnt, aptly named Adaptability, a guide to surviving and thriving in a world of competing demands.  I met up with Denise to talk about self-reliance, independence and how growing up the only child of a single mum shaped her. The challenge of building a whole new identity in her 30s - and again in her 50s. Her secrets to adapting after a big life shift and How she learnt the vital skill of mansplaining. Plus menopause, ageing And why she loves being on the fifth floor of life. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Cancer Roadmap by Dr Liz O'Riordan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a woman who knows better than most what it takes to adapt to life’s big shifts. Dame Denise Lewis is one of the UK’s best known athletes. She won gold in the heptathlon in Sydney Olympics in 2000 and bronze in Atlanta in 1996. She has won medals at the Commonwealth games, the European championships and World Championships.


After retiring from athletics in her early 30s she built a successful career as a BBC sports commentator. Oh, And had four kids. 


In 2023 she was made a Dame for her services to sport. Now 52, she is President of UK athletics and has written a book sharing everything she’s learnt, aptly named Adaptability, a guide to surviving and thriving in a world of competing demands. 


I met up with Denise to talk about self-reliance, independence and how growing up the only child of a single mum shaped her. The challenge of building a whole new identity in her 30s - and again in her 50s. Her secrets to adapting after a big life shift and How she learnt the vital skill of mansplaining. Plus menopause, ageing And why she loves being on the fifth floor of life.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Cancer Roadmap by Dr Liz O'Riordan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3613 no Liz O'Riordan: When breast cancer surgeon becomes breast cancer patient https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is Dr Liz O’Riordan. Liz is what’s apparently known in the trade as a double doctor; a breast cancer surgeon with a PhD in molecular oncology.  But more than that Liz is also both expert and patient.  She received her first breast cancer diagnosis aged 40. Her second aged 43 and her third, just two years ago, at the age of 48. Her experience of life on both sides of the cancer patient-doctor fence makes her uniquely qualified to talk about it. She now campaigns to inform and educate the breast cancer community and was recently presented with the ‘Future Dreams Humanitarian Award’ for services to the breast cancer community. The co-author of The Complete Guide to Breast Cancer, Liz has now followed that up with A Cancer Roadmap. Not exactly bedtime reading, you might think, but I - who have been lucky enough to have only had a scare, but do have family and friends experiencing it - inhaled it. Not only is it fascinating but it’s incredibly easy to digest and sure to become a staple for anyone who’s remotely impacted. Liz joined me for a full and frank conversation about the impact of getting diagnosed with breast cancer at 40, crossing the doctor-patient divide, infertility, menopause, losing her hair and her identity and how she’s adjusted to living life with cancer. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Cancer Roadmap by Dr Liz O'Riordan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 04 Mar 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 16 229 sam baker A candid conversation about living with cancer plus menopause, infertility, hair loss, identity and more My guest today is Dr Liz O’Riordan. Liz is what’s apparently known in the trade as a double doctor; a breast cancer surgeon with a PhD in molecular oncology.  But more than that Liz is also both expert and patient.  She received her first breast cancer diagnosis aged 40. Her second aged 43 and her third, just two years ago, at the age of 48. Her experience of life on both sides of the cancer patient-doctor fence makes her uniquely qualified to talk about it. She now campaigns to inform and educate the breast cancer community and was recently presented with the ‘Future Dreams Humanitarian Award’ for services to the breast cancer community. The co-author of The Complete Guide to Breast Cancer, Liz has now followed that up with A Cancer Roadmap. Not exactly bedtime reading, you might think, but I - who have been lucky enough to have only had a scare, but do have family and friends experiencing it - inhaled it. Not only is it fascinating but it’s incredibly easy to digest and sure to become a staple for anyone who’s remotely impacted. Liz joined me for a full and frank conversation about the impact of getting diagnosed with breast cancer at 40, crossing the doctor-patient divide, infertility, menopause, losing her hair and her identity and how she’s adjusted to living life with cancer. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Cancer Roadmap by Dr Liz O'Riordan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is Dr Liz O’Riordan. Liz is what’s apparently known in the trade as a double doctor; a breast cancer surgeon with a PhD in molecular oncology. 


But more than that Liz is also both expert and patient. 


She received her first breast cancer diagnosis aged 40. Her second aged 43 and her third, just two years ago, at the age of 48.


Her experience of life on both sides of the cancer patient-doctor fence makes her uniquely qualified to talk about it. She now campaigns to inform and educate the breast cancer community and was recently presented with the ‘Future Dreams Humanitarian Award’ for services to the breast cancer community.


The co-author of The Complete Guide to Breast Cancer, Liz has now followed that up with A Cancer Roadmap. Not exactly bedtime reading, you might think, but I - who have been lucky enough to have only had a scare, but do have family and friends experiencing it - inhaled it. Not only is it fascinating but it’s incredibly easy to digest and sure to become a staple for anyone who’s remotely impacted.


Liz joined me for a full and frank conversation about the impact of getting diagnosed with breast cancer at 40, crossing the doctor-patient divide, infertility, menopause, losing her hair and her identity and how she’s adjusted to living life with cancer.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Cancer Roadmap by Dr Liz O'Riordan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3254 Martha Beck on creativity, anxiety & finding your life's purpose https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ I first encountered today’s guest back when I was editor of Red magazine and - for some crazy reason - went to an Oprah convention in Atlanta. I know right? I can literally hear everyone who knows me in real life laughing. So, Yes! I went to Atlanta to see Oprah but really I went to see someone else - a woman who Oprah described as “one of the smartest women I know”. Martha Beck. Martha is a Harvard trained sociologist and life coach who was Oprah’s no-nonsense agony aunt on O magazine for almost two decades. she has not one not two but three degrees, as you do. And is the author of ten bestselling non-fiction books, including Steering by Starlight which you might have heard Lindsay Nicholson raving about on a recent episode of The Shift. (And it’s not just me, Lindsay and oprah, Martha is beloved by such self help luminaries as Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle.)  Her new book Beyond Anxiety could not be better timed! Martha joined me from her home in Pennsylvania to give us all a mahoosive pep talk on how to manage our anxiety. We also discussed surviving the 3am panic spiral, why she only got a handle on her own anxiety at 60, being a late blooming lesbian and what she’s learnt from parenting at 20 and 60 - and frankly a whole lot more. Listen to Martha's podcast with Rowan Morgan Bewildered and her solo podcast The Gathering Room.   * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Beyond Anxiety by Martha Beck and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 25 Feb 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 16 228 sam baker A perspective shifting conversation about anxiety, creativity and community with Oprah's life coach I first encountered today’s guest back when I was editor of Red magazine and - for some crazy reason - went to an Oprah convention in Atlanta. I know right? I can literally hear everyone who knows me in real life laughing. So, Yes! I went to Atlanta to see Oprah but really I went to see someone else - a woman who Oprah described as “one of the smartest women I know”. Martha Beck. Martha is a Harvard trained sociologist and life coach who was Oprah’s no-nonsense agony aunt on O magazine for almost two decades. she has not one not two but three degrees, as you do. And is the author of ten bestselling non-fiction books, including Steering by Starlight which you might have heard Lindsay Nicholson raving about on a recent episode of The Shift. (And it’s not just me, Lindsay and oprah, Martha is beloved by such self help luminaries as Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle.)  Her new book Beyond Anxiety could not be better timed! Martha joined me from her home in Pennsylvania to give us all a mahoosive pep talk on how to manage our anxiety. We also discussed surviving the 3am panic spiral, why she only got a handle on her own anxiety at 60, being a late blooming lesbian and what she’s learnt from parenting at 20 and 60 - and frankly a whole lot more. Listen to Martha's podcast with Rowan Morgan Bewildered and her solo podcast The Gathering Room.   * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Beyond Anxiety by Martha Beck and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I first encountered today’s guest back when I was editor of Red magazine and - for some crazy reason - went to an Oprah convention in Atlanta.


I know right? I can literally hear everyone who knows me in real life laughing.


So, Yes! I went to Atlanta to see Oprah but really I went to see someone else - a woman who Oprah described as “one of the smartest women I know”. Martha Beck.


Martha is a Harvard trained sociologist and life coach who was Oprah’s no-nonsense agony aunt on O magazine for almost two decades. she has not one not two but three degrees, as you do. And is the author of ten bestselling non-fiction books, including Steering by Starlight which you might have heard Lindsay Nicholson raving about on a recent episode of The Shift.


(And it’s not just me, Lindsay and oprah, Martha is beloved by such self help luminaries as Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle.) 


Her new book Beyond Anxiety could not be better timed!


Martha joined me from her home in Pennsylvania to give us all a mahoosive pep talk on how to manage our anxiety. We also discussed surviving the 3am panic spiral, why she only got a handle on her own anxiety at 60, being a late blooming lesbian and what she’s learnt from parenting at 20 and 60 - and frankly a whole lot more.


Listen to Martha's podcast with Rowan Morgan Bewildered and her solo podcast The Gathering Room.

 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Beyond Anxiety by Martha Beck and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4061 Diana Evans on expectation, ageing & turning 50 without her twin https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the novelist, journalist and critic Diana Evans. Diana is the award-winning author of four novels 26a, The Wonder, Ordinary People and A House for Alice. She has been shortlisted for countless awards including the Women’s Prize and won the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature for Ordinary People. She has, as she puts it, been writing against invisibility her entire life.  Before all that she was a dancer, with the Brighton-based African and Caribbean troupe Mashango, and then a journalist (she was arts and music editor of Pride magazine). Some of her best work is now published as I Want To Talk To You, a collection of essays in which she examines the personal and the political, interviews icons and looks at the realities of ageing and thwarted expectation. Like many of you listening, Diana is also a woman caught in the middle aged sandwich of children and parents. She joined me from her home in south London to talk ageing, experience and expectation. We covered compulsive worrying, growing up in a house of seven women, the hazards of being a “doer”, the pain of turning 50 without her twin, how caring for a parent can be “bigger than childbirth” and why we no longer need an aesthetic licence in middle age.   * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including I Want To Talk To You by Diana Evans and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 18 Feb 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 16 227 sam baker The Ordinary People author talks representation, invisibility and how caring for a parent can be "bigger than childbirth" My guest today is the novelist, journalist and critic Diana Evans. Diana is the award-winning author of four novels 26a, The Wonder, Ordinary People and A House for Alice. She has been shortlisted for countless awards including the Women’s Prize and won the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature for Ordinary People. She has, as she puts it, been writing against invisibility her entire life.  Before all that she was a dancer, with the Brighton-based African and Caribbean troupe Mashango, and then a journalist (she was arts and music editor of Pride magazine). Some of her best work is now published as I Want To Talk To You, a collection of essays in which she examines the personal and the political, interviews icons and looks at the realities of ageing and thwarted expectation. Like many of you listening, Diana is also a woman caught in the middle aged sandwich of children and parents. She joined me from her home in south London to talk ageing, experience and expectation. We covered compulsive worrying, growing up in a house of seven women, the hazards of being a “doer”, the pain of turning 50 without her twin, how caring for a parent can be “bigger than childbirth” and why we no longer need an aesthetic licence in middle age.   * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including I Want To Talk To You by Diana Evans and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the novelist, journalist and critic Diana Evans.


Diana is the award-winning author of four novels 26a, The Wonder, Ordinary People and A House for Alice. She has been shortlisted for countless awards including the Women’s Prize and won the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature for Ordinary People. She has, as she puts it, been writing against invisibility her entire life. 


Before all that she was a dancer, with the Brighton-based African and Caribbean troupe Mashango, and then a journalist (she was arts and music editor of Pride magazine). Some of her best work is now published as I Want To Talk To You, a collection of essays in which she examines the personal and the political, interviews icons and looks at the realities of ageing and thwarted expectation.


Like many of you listening, Diana is also a woman caught in the middle aged sandwich of children and parents. She joined me from her home in south London to talk ageing, experience and expectation. We covered compulsive worrying, growing up in a house of seven women, the hazards of being a “doer”, the pain of turning 50 without her twin, how caring for a parent can be “bigger than childbirth” and why we no longer need an aesthetic licence in middle age.  


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including I Want To Talk To You by Diana Evans and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3094 Kate Fagan on success, ambition and ageing alongside the L-word! https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ This week's guest is the Emmy award-winning American journalist Kate Fagan. Kate started out playing college basketball before making the move into sports journalism. She worked for the American cable channel ESPN (for brits, that’s THE sports channel in the US) and wrote the number 1 NYT bestseller, What Made Maddy Run.  Then, just before she turned 40 and at the top of her professional game, Kate took a hard left. She stepped away from the career that made her famous, moved to Charleston and married her wife Kathryn Budig. Now she’s written a novel The Three Lives of Cate Kay that pushes all the buttons. A dissection of success and ambition, and the true cost of living a lie, it was Reese Witherspoon’s first bookclub pick of the year.  While Kate was on the Edinburgh leg of her book tour, she came to hang out in my flat and ply Sausage the cat with Dreamies (no cash has changed hands but he’s always open to a conversation!)  While she was here we discussed the moment she was bitten by the ambition bug (and how she’s still struggling to shake it off), the lack of female sporting role models when she was a young athlete, coming out at 30 and The stories we tell ourself about what it means to be a successful human. We also chatted age dysmorphia, crossing the 40 threshold and the conversation she wishes she’d had with her mum. She also introduced me to the concept of TODs. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 11 Feb 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 16 226 sam baker The former basketball player and ESPN star on walking away from her big job and why it’s so hard to opt out This week's guest is the Emmy award-winning American journalist Kate Fagan. Kate started out playing college basketball before making the move into sports journalism. She worked for the American cable channel ESPN (for brits, that’s THE sports channel in the US) and wrote the number 1 NYT bestseller, What Made Maddy Run.  Then, just before she turned 40 and at the top of her professional game, Kate took a hard left. She stepped away from the career that made her famous, moved to Charleston and married her wife Kathryn Budig. Now she’s written a novel The Three Lives of Cate Kay that pushes all the buttons. A dissection of success and ambition, and the true cost of living a lie, it was Reese Witherspoon’s first bookclub pick of the year.  While Kate was on the Edinburgh leg of her book tour, she came to hang out in my flat and ply Sausage the cat with Dreamies (no cash has changed hands but he’s always open to a conversation!)  While she was here we discussed the moment she was bitten by the ambition bug (and how she’s still struggling to shake it off), the lack of female sporting role models when she was a young athlete, coming out at 30 and The stories we tell ourself about what it means to be a successful human. We also chatted age dysmorphia, crossing the 40 threshold and the conversation she wishes she’d had with her mum. She also introduced me to the concept of TODs. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week's guest is the Emmy award-winning American journalist Kate Fagan.


Kate started out playing college basketball before making the move into sports journalism. She worked for the American cable channel ESPN (for brits, that’s THE sports channel in the US) and wrote the number 1 NYT bestseller, What Made Maddy Run. 


Then, just before she turned 40 and at the top of her professional game, Kate took a hard left. She stepped away from the career that made her famous, moved to Charleston and married her wife Kathryn Budig.


Now she’s written a novel The Three Lives of Cate Kay that pushes all the buttons. A dissection of success and ambition, and the true cost of living a lie, it was Reese Witherspoon’s first bookclub pick of the year. 


While Kate was on the Edinburgh leg of her book tour, she came to hang out in my flat and ply Sausage the cat with Dreamies (no cash has changed hands but he’s always open to a conversation!) 


While she was here we discussed the moment she was bitten by the ambition bug (and how she’s still struggling to shake it off), the lack of female sporting role models when she was a young athlete, coming out at 30 and The stories we tell ourself about what it means to be a successful human. We also chatted age dysmorphia, crossing the 40 threshold and the conversation she wishes she’d had with her mum. She also introduced me to the concept of TODs.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3774 Miranda July on the unexpected wildness of ageing - THE SHIFT REVISITED I was the very first person to interview Miranda July about All Fours this time last year. To say she was nervous about how it would be received was an understatement. "Will you have my back?" she asked me (and the rest of the female world) towards the end of our conversation. Yes, I said, yes we will. And how! Since then All Fours has taken the world by storm - women over 40 have a sex life, who knew?! So I've decided to replay this episode for everyone who's new to The Shift and new to midlife. ------ Every so often you get the chance to interview someone whose work has fascinated you for, well, forever. And today is one of those days.  Miranda July is an artist, performer, film maker and writer who has been doing it her own way since she was in her teens. She has made three films - The Future, Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, held countless exhibitions, written several books and won a bunch of awards. You get the picture. Now 50, Miranda has turned her attention to midlife with her first novel in a decade. All Fours is a painful, poignant, hilarious and extremely hot exploration of what happens when “a curious, creative, sexually active woman reaches the midpoint of her life, goes off the oestrogen cliff and starts to question her direction?” It is wholly unlike anything else I’ve read about this life stage. And is sure to change a few games. Miranda joined me to talk about her own trip off the oestrogen cliff, reimagining relationships as we get older, conscious co-parenting and moving into the house in the backyard. We also discussed the menopause whisper network, outing herself as “no longer young”, getting out of the anxiety cul de sac and why ageing is “unexpectedly wild”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including All Fours by Miranda July and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 04 Feb 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 225 sam baker What happens when a curious, creative, sexually active woman dives off the oestrogen cliff? Prepare to find out! I was the very first person to interview Miranda July about All Fours this time last year. To say she was nervous about how it would be received was an understatement. "Will you have my back?" she asked me (and the rest of the female world) towards the end of our conversation. Yes, I said, yes we will. And how! Since then All Fours has taken the world by storm - women over 40 have a sex life, who knew?! So I've decided to replay this episode for everyone who's new to The Shift and new to midlife. ------ Every so often you get the chance to interview someone whose work has fascinated you for, well, forever. And today is one of those days.  Miranda July is an artist, performer, film maker and writer who has been doing it her own way since she was in her teens. She has made three films - The Future, Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, held countless exhibitions, written several books and won a bunch of awards. You get the picture. Now 50, Miranda has turned her attention to midlife with her first novel in a decade. All Fours is a painful, poignant, hilarious and extremely hot exploration of what happens when “a curious, creative, sexually active woman reaches the midpoint of her life, goes off the oestrogen cliff and starts to question her direction?” It is wholly unlike anything else I’ve read about this life stage. And is sure to change a few games. Miranda joined me to talk about her own trip off the oestrogen cliff, reimagining relationships as we get older, conscious co-parenting and moving into the house in the backyard. We also discussed the menopause whisper network, outing herself as “no longer young”, getting out of the anxiety cul de sac and why ageing is “unexpectedly wild”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including All Fours by Miranda July and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I was the very first person to interview Miranda July about All Fours this time last year. To say she was nervous about how it would be received was an understatement. "Will you have my back?" she asked me (and the rest of the female world) towards the end of our conversation. Yes, I said, yes we will. And how! Since then All Fours has taken the world by storm - women over 40 have a sex life, who knew?! So I've decided to replay this episode for everyone who's new to The Shift and new to midlife.


------


Every so often you get the chance to interview someone whose work has fascinated you for, well, forever. And today is one of those days. 


Miranda July is an artist, performer, film maker and writer who has been doing it her own way since she was in her teens. She has made three films - The Future, Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, held countless exhibitions, written several books and won a bunch of awards. You get the picture.


Now 50, Miranda has turned her attention to midlife with her first novel in a decade. All Fours is a painful, poignant, hilarious and extremely hot exploration of what happens when “a curious, creative, sexually active woman reaches the midpoint of her life, goes off the oestrogen cliff and starts to question her direction?”


It is wholly unlike anything else I’ve read about this life stage. And is sure to change a few games.


Miranda joined me to talk about her own trip off the oestrogen cliff, reimagining relationships as we get older, conscious co-parenting and moving into the house in the backyard. We also discussed the menopause whisper network, outing herself as “no longer young”, getting out of the anxiety cul de sac and why ageing is “unexpectedly wild”.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including All Fours by Miranda July and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2999 Ruby Wax on building an emotional toolkit for the second half of your life - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Today’s guest is someone I’ve wanted to get on The Shift for the longest time. You might know Ruby Wax as a successful comedian and presenter, one of the funniest women of her generation. Or you might know her as a mental health campaigner and best-selling author. One thing’s for sure, she has been using humour to make the rest of us feel better for decades. Having suffered depression her whole life, Ruby had a breakdown after losing her job on the BBC in her 50s (hold that thought!). Determined not to “go down with the career ship” she took herself off to Oxford university where she got a masters degree in mindfulness based cognitive therapy, was subsequently awarded an OBE for services to mental health and has written several bestselling books about our brains - and hers.  Then, last year, 12 years after her last bout of depression, she discovered she wasn’t actually as well as she thought she was… Cue the inspiration for a new book, and tour. Ruby and I met in an office overlooking the Thames the day after a big birthday (which we will not be talking about!!) to discuss why depression is the wrong word for mental illness and the journeys to find meaning that saw her end up on a journey to a 6 week stay in a mental clinic. We also talked about building a new emotional toolkit for the second half of your life, the secret to her 35 year marriage and why we need to stop talking ageing and start talking evolving. There’s also hair dye, mindfulness, a Carrie Fisher love-in, jewellery and toe nails. It’s all going on in this episode! Falling Upward by Richard Rohr, the book Ruby talks about in this episode, is available here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was by Ruby Wax and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 28 Jan 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 224 sam baker The mental health campaigner and comedian on reinvention, evolution – and why depression is the wrong word for mental illness Today’s guest is someone I’ve wanted to get on The Shift for the longest time. You might know Ruby Wax as a successful comedian and presenter, one of the funniest women of her generation. Or you might know her as a mental health campaigner and best-selling author. One thing’s for sure, she has been using humour to make the rest of us feel better for decades. Having suffered depression her whole life, Ruby had a breakdown after losing her job on the BBC in her 50s (hold that thought!). Determined not to “go down with the career ship” she took herself off to Oxford university where she got a masters degree in mindfulness based cognitive therapy, was subsequently awarded an OBE for services to mental health and has written several bestselling books about our brains - and hers.  Then, last year, 12 years after her last bout of depression, she discovered she wasn’t actually as well as she thought she was… Cue the inspiration for a new book, and tour. Ruby and I met in an office overlooking the Thames the day after a big birthday (which we will not be talking about!!) to discuss why depression is the wrong word for mental illness and the journeys to find meaning that saw her end up on a journey to a 6 week stay in a mental clinic. We also talked about building a new emotional toolkit for the second half of your life, the secret to her 35 year marriage and why we need to stop talking ageing and start talking evolving. There’s also hair dye, mindfulness, a Carrie Fisher love-in, jewellery and toe nails. It’s all going on in this episode! Falling Upward by Richard Rohr, the book Ruby talks about in this episode, is available here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was by Ruby Wax and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is someone I’ve wanted to get on The Shift for the longest time. You might know Ruby Wax as a successful comedian and presenter, one of the funniest women of her generation. Or you might know her as a mental health campaigner and best-selling author. One thing’s for sure, she has been using humour to make the rest of us feel better for decades.


Having suffered depression her whole life, Ruby had a breakdown after losing her job on the BBC in her 50s (hold that thought!). Determined not to “go down with the career ship” she took herself off to Oxford university where she got a masters degree in mindfulness based cognitive therapy, was subsequently awarded an OBE for services to mental health and has written several bestselling books about our brains - and hers. 


Then, last year, 12 years after her last bout of depression, she discovered she wasn’t actually as well as she thought she was… Cue the inspiration for a new book, and tour.


Ruby and I met in an office overlooking the Thames the day after a big birthday (which we will not be talking about!!) to discuss why depression is the wrong word for mental illness and the journeys to find meaning that saw her end up on a journey to a 6 week stay in a mental clinic.


We also talked about building a new emotional toolkit for the second half of your life, the secret to her 35 year marriage and why we need to stop talking ageing and start talking evolving. There’s also hair dye, mindfulness, a Carrie Fisher love-in, jewellery and toe nails. It’s all going on in this episode!


Falling Upward by Richard Rohr, the book Ruby talks about in this episode, is available here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was by Ruby Wax and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3147 no Dani Shapiro on family secrets and coming into your full potential at 60 - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the bestselling writer Dani Shapiro. Dani is best known for the memoirs that made her name. Startlingly honest works of self-investigation like Slow Motion, in which she examines the questionable decisions her younger self made (let’s face it, whose younger self didn’t?). And the book that catapulted her to the top of the bestseller lists, Inheritance.  In Inheritance, Dani explored the impact of taking a DNA test - just for fun! - in her mid 50s only to discover that her beloved dad was not actually her biological father. That book led to the top 10 podcast, Family Secrets featuring guests who have uncovered life altering secrets. It was unlocking those family secrets that enabled Dani to write her first novel in 15 years, Signal Fires, a bestseller since the day it was published in the states last year and praised by, my fave Jamie Lee Curtis, amongst others. It looks at what happens when one tragic mistake changes a whole family’s lives. Dani joined me from the East coast of America to discuss how it feels to discover that you are your family’s secret, her allergy to Empty Nest Syndrome and why there should be a handbook for middle age. We talked about coming into your full potential at 60, "losing your looks" when you’ve been told they’re your currency and learning to count ordinary blessings. Listen to Family Secrets here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 21 Jan 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 223 sam baker The podcaster and bestselling author tells us about being your own family's secret and learning to count your ordinary blessings My guest today is the bestselling writer Dani Shapiro. Dani is best known for the memoirs that made her name. Startlingly honest works of self-investigation like Slow Motion, in which she examines the questionable decisions her younger self made (let’s face it, whose younger self didn’t?). And the book that catapulted her to the top of the bestseller lists, Inheritance.  In Inheritance, Dani explored the impact of taking a DNA test - just for fun! - in her mid 50s only to discover that her beloved dad was not actually her biological father. That book led to the top 10 podcast, Family Secrets featuring guests who have uncovered life altering secrets. It was unlocking those family secrets that enabled Dani to write her first novel in 15 years, Signal Fires, a bestseller since the day it was published in the states last year and praised by, my fave Jamie Lee Curtis, amongst others. It looks at what happens when one tragic mistake changes a whole family’s lives. Dani joined me from the East coast of America to discuss how it feels to discover that you are your family’s secret, her allergy to Empty Nest Syndrome and why there should be a handbook for middle age. We talked about coming into your full potential at 60, "losing your looks" when you’ve been told they’re your currency and learning to count ordinary blessings. Listen to Family Secrets here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the bestselling writer Dani Shapiro. Dani is best known for the memoirs that made her name. Startlingly honest works of self-investigation like Slow Motion, in which she examines the questionable decisions her younger self made (let’s face it, whose younger self didn’t?). And the book that catapulted her to the top of the bestseller lists, Inheritance. 


In Inheritance, Dani explored the impact of taking a DNA test - just for fun! - in her mid 50s only to discover that her beloved dad was not actually her biological father. That book led to the top 10 podcast, Family Secrets featuring guests who have uncovered life altering secrets.


It was unlocking those family secrets that enabled Dani to write her first novel in 15 years, Signal Fires, a bestseller since the day it was published in the states last year and praised by, my fave Jamie Lee Curtis, amongst others. It looks at what happens when one tragic mistake changes a whole family’s lives.


Dani joined me from the East coast of America to discuss how it feels to discover that you are your family’s secret, her allergy to Empty Nest Syndrome and why there should be a handbook for middle age. We talked about coming into your full potential at 60, "losing your looks" when you’ve been told they’re your currency and learning to count ordinary blessings.


Listen to Family Secrets here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3246 no Bryony Gordon on burnout, binge eating and perimenopause - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Today I’m delighted to welcome back one of The Shift’s very first guests, journalist and mental health campaigner Bryony Gordon. Bryony has been a columnist on the Telegraph for over 20 years and for ten of those she has been writing candidly about her own experiences of addiction and mental illness. She is the best selling author of Mad Girl and The Wrong Knickers and in 2016 she founded Mental Health Mates a global peer support network that encourages people with mental health issues to connect, for which she has won several awards. She also, FWIW, ran the London marathon in her knickers.  Three years after her first visit to The Shift, Bryony is back - older, wiser (yes really) - and with a new book, the pertinently titled, Mad Woman, which discusses her struggles with burnout, binge eating and, yep, you guessed it, fluctuating hormones. Bryony joined me from bed in south London to talk about maintaining a public facade when you’re privately falling apart, finally learning to feed herself properly at 43, discovering all the women in her family went into menopause in their early 40s, why she’s done with feeling like she’s the problem and how Davina McCall saved her life! If you'd like to sponsor Bryony's Big Challenge, you can find out more here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Mad Woman by Bryony Gordon and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 14 Jan 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 222 sam baker The mental health and body neutrality campaigner on being a Mad Woman and finally kicking perfectionism to the curb Today I’m delighted to welcome back one of The Shift’s very first guests, journalist and mental health campaigner Bryony Gordon. Bryony has been a columnist on the Telegraph for over 20 years and for ten of those she has been writing candidly about her own experiences of addiction and mental illness. She is the best selling author of Mad Girl and The Wrong Knickers and in 2016 she founded Mental Health Mates a global peer support network that encourages people with mental health issues to connect, for which she has won several awards. She also, FWIW, ran the London marathon in her knickers.  Three years after her first visit to The Shift, Bryony is back - older, wiser (yes really) - and with a new book, the pertinently titled, Mad Woman, which discusses her struggles with burnout, binge eating and, yep, you guessed it, fluctuating hormones. Bryony joined me from bed in south London to talk about maintaining a public facade when you’re privately falling apart, finally learning to feed herself properly at 43, discovering all the women in her family went into menopause in their early 40s, why she’s done with feeling like she’s the problem and how Davina McCall saved her life! If you'd like to sponsor Bryony's Big Challenge, you can find out more here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Mad Woman by Bryony Gordon and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today I’m delighted to welcome back one of The Shift’s very first guests, journalist and mental health campaigner Bryony Gordon.


Bryony has been a columnist on the Telegraph for over 20 years and for ten of those she has been writing candidly about her own experiences of addiction and mental illness. She is the best selling author of Mad Girl and The Wrong Knickers and in 2016 she founded Mental Health Mates a global peer support network that encourages people with mental health issues to connect, for which she has won several awards. She also, FWIW, ran the London marathon in her knickers. 


Three years after her first visit to The Shift, Bryony is back - older, wiser (yes really) - and with a new book, the pertinently titled, Mad Woman, which discusses her struggles with burnout, binge eating and, yep, you guessed it, fluctuating hormones.


Bryony joined me from bed in south London to talk about maintaining a public facade when you’re privately falling apart, finally learning to feed herself properly at 43, discovering all the women in her family went into menopause in their early 40s, why she’s done with feeling like she’s the problem and how Davina McCall saved her life!


If you'd like to sponsor Bryony's Big Challenge, you can find out more here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Mad Woman by Bryony Gordon and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2943 Sarah Knight: why selfish isn't a four letter word - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Today’s guest is the anti-guru behind the massive No F*cks Given franchise, Sarah Knight. What started life with the Marie Kondo pastiche, The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving A F*ck, now comprises 7 guides and three journals which have sold three million copies and a TED talk that’s notched up ten million views.  But Sarah wasn’t always the queen of giving zero f*cks. Scroll back to her mid-30s and you’d have found her having a panic attack in the Manhattan office where she worked. So started ten years of anxiety and depression, a massive leap into the freelance unknown (which let’s face it, worked out pretty well!) and a 1500 mile geographical from Brooklyn to the Caribbean, where she now lives. Sarah joined me from her home in the Dominican Republic (grrrr) to talk about her new book, Grow The F*ck Up, how sometimes it takes getting what you want to realise you don’t want it, Why we often need permission to make a change and having the courage to recognise you really don’t have enough left in the tank. Sarah also told me how she learnt to give fewer but better fucks, what to do if you’re married to a “big f*cking baby”, why selfish shouldn’t be a four letter word and she gives us a masterclass in learning to say no. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Grow The F*ck Up by Sarah Knight and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 07 Jan 2025 01:00:00 -0000 full 221 sam baker The anti-guru behind the zero-f*cks franchise reveals the f*cks she DOES give Today’s guest is the anti-guru behind the massive No F*cks Given franchise, Sarah Knight. What started life with the Marie Kondo pastiche, The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving A F*ck, now comprises 7 guides and three journals which have sold three million copies and a TED talk that’s notched up ten million views.  But Sarah wasn’t always the queen of giving zero f*cks. Scroll back to her mid-30s and you’d have found her having a panic attack in the Manhattan office where she worked. So started ten years of anxiety and depression, a massive leap into the freelance unknown (which let’s face it, worked out pretty well!) and a 1500 mile geographical from Brooklyn to the Caribbean, where she now lives. Sarah joined me from her home in the Dominican Republic (grrrr) to talk about her new book, Grow The F*ck Up, how sometimes it takes getting what you want to realise you don’t want it, Why we often need permission to make a change and having the courage to recognise you really don’t have enough left in the tank. Sarah also told me how she learnt to give fewer but better fucks, what to do if you’re married to a “big f*cking baby”, why selfish shouldn’t be a four letter word and she gives us a masterclass in learning to say no. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Grow The F*ck Up by Sarah Knight and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is the anti-guru behind the massive No F*cks Given franchise, Sarah Knight. What started life with the Marie Kondo pastiche, The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving A F*ck, now comprises 7 guides and three journals which have sold three million copies and a TED talk that’s notched up ten million views. 


But Sarah wasn’t always the queen of giving zero f*cks. Scroll back to her mid-30s and you’d have found her having a panic attack in the Manhattan office where she worked. So started ten years of anxiety and depression, a massive leap into the freelance unknown (which let’s face it, worked out pretty well!) and a 1500 mile geographical from Brooklyn to the Caribbean, where she now lives.


Sarah joined me from her home in the Dominican Republic (grrrr) to talk about her new book, Grow The F*ck Up, how sometimes it takes getting what you want to realise you don’t want it, Why we often need permission to make a change and having the courage to recognise you really don’t have enough left in the tank. Sarah also told me how she learnt to give fewer but better fucks, what to do if you’re married to a “big f*cking baby”, why selfish shouldn’t be a four letter word and she gives us a masterclass in learning to say no.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Grow The F*ck Up by Sarah Knight and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3255 yes Dr Gladys McGarey: a 102-year-old shares her life lessons - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Dr Gladys McGarey died, aged 103, in September of this year, so I wanted to honour her by making her episode the last to go out on the last day of the year. Rest In Power Gladys. ---- A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote candidly about losing her partner in life and work after 46 years. Not because he passed away, but because he handed her divorce papers! That would have floored most of us, but despite being sideswiped, Dr Gladys McGarey, picked herself up, started a new medical practice with her daughter before becoming a speaker, author and all-round inspiration. All this at the age of 70. Since then Dr Gladys, who is known as the mother of holistic medicine, has received countless awards including the Humanities Award for Outstanding Service to Mankind.  At 85 she travelled to Afghanistan to teach rural women safer birthing practices. At her 90th birthday party she jumped out of her birthday cake. At 102 she became the proud owner of an adult tricycle. Who is this woman? And how does she do it? I HAD to know. Now on the cusp of 103, Dr Gladys joined me from her home in Arizona to tell me her secrets to health and happiness. We discussed ageing into health, femifesting (as opposed to manifesting), how divorce was the remaking of her, finding her voice at 93 and why we should all spend our energy wildly! I know this isn’t the first time I’ve said I found my old bird role model, but seriously. Dr Gladys is IT. If you loved this episode you might also like my conversations with Hilma Wolitzer and Isabel Allende * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Well-Lived Life by Dr Gladys McGarey and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 31 Dec 2024 01:00:00 -0000 full 220 sam baker From remaking herself after divorce at 69 to finding your voice at 93, you won't want to miss this one Dr Gladys McGarey died, aged 103, in September of this year, so I wanted to honour her by making her episode the last to go out on the last day of the year. Rest In Power Gladys. ---- A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote candidly about losing her partner in life and work after 46 years. Not because he passed away, but because he handed her divorce papers! That would have floored most of us, but despite being sideswiped, Dr Gladys McGarey, picked herself up, started a new medical practice with her daughter before becoming a speaker, author and all-round inspiration. All this at the age of 70. Since then Dr Gladys, who is known as the mother of holistic medicine, has received countless awards including the Humanities Award for Outstanding Service to Mankind.  At 85 she travelled to Afghanistan to teach rural women safer birthing practices. At her 90th birthday party she jumped out of her birthday cake. At 102 she became the proud owner of an adult tricycle. Who is this woman? And how does she do it? I HAD to know. Now on the cusp of 103, Dr Gladys joined me from her home in Arizona to tell me her secrets to health and happiness. We discussed ageing into health, femifesting (as opposed to manifesting), how divorce was the remaking of her, finding her voice at 93 and why we should all spend our energy wildly! I know this isn’t the first time I’ve said I found my old bird role model, but seriously. Dr Gladys is IT. If you loved this episode you might also like my conversations with Hilma Wolitzer and Isabel Allende * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Well-Lived Life by Dr Gladys McGarey and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Dr Gladys McGarey died, aged 103, in September of this year, so I wanted to honour her by making her episode the last to go out on the last day of the year. Rest In Power Gladys.

----

A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote candidly about losing her partner in life and work after 46 years. Not because he passed away, but because he handed her divorce papers!


That would have floored most of us, but despite being sideswiped, Dr Gladys McGarey, picked herself up, started a new medical practice with her daughter before becoming a speaker, author and all-round inspiration. All this at the age of 70.


Since then Dr Gladys, who is known as the mother of holistic medicine, has received countless awards including the Humanities Award for Outstanding Service to Mankind. 


At 85 she travelled to Afghanistan to teach rural women safer birthing practices. At her 90th birthday party she jumped out of her birthday cake. At 102 she became the proud owner of an adult tricycle.


Who is this woman? And how does she do it? I HAD to know.


Now on the cusp of 103, Dr Gladys joined me from her home in Arizona to tell me her secrets to health and happiness. We discussed ageing into health, femifesting (as opposed to manifesting), how divorce was the remaking of her, finding her voice at 93 and why we should all spend our energy wildly!


I know this isn’t the first time I’ve said I found my old bird role model, but seriously. Dr Gladys is IT.


If you loved this episode you might also like my conversations with Hilma Wolitzer and Isabel Allende


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Well-Lived Life by Dr Gladys McGarey and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2730 Barbara Kingsolver on why life gets better with every passing decade - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ For this bonus episode of The Shift, I’m delighted to welcome a very special guest: the award-winning author of ten bestselling novels, Barbara Kingsolver.  Every so often, a book comes along that you want to press into the hands of everyone you meet. For me, Demon Copperhead, is one of those books. A reimagining of the Dickens classic, David Copperfield, translated to the Appalachian mountains in the midst of the opioid crisis that has gripped the area. It’s funny, it’s furious and its hero Demon is a character you will never ever forget.  I’m not the only one who thinks so. Earlier this year Barbara was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and now she’s become the first person ever to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice (she won over a decade ago for her novel, The Lacuna). A couple of weeks ago, Barbara foolishly let me and my little mic into her Edinburgh hotel room to tell me how growing up weird, bookish and poor shaped her and how she discovered she was a so-called hillbilly. We also discussed being an introvert in an extrovert world, finding love second time around, not winning the jackpot in the mothering department and why life gets better with every decade – and at 68 and the top of her game, she's living proof. She also shares her killer packing tips and, I have to say, if you ever wanted to do a three week holiday with just a carry-on, Barbara is your woman! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:00:00 -0000 full 219 sam baker The Pulitzer Prize winner talks poverty, mothering, ageing & finding your identity For this bonus episode of The Shift, I’m delighted to welcome a very special guest: the award-winning author of ten bestselling novels, Barbara Kingsolver.  Every so often, a book comes along that you want to press into the hands of everyone you meet. For me, Demon Copperhead, is one of those books. A reimagining of the Dickens classic, David Copperfield, translated to the Appalachian mountains in the midst of the opioid crisis that has gripped the area. It’s funny, it’s furious and its hero Demon is a character you will never ever forget.  I’m not the only one who thinks so. Earlier this year Barbara was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and now she’s become the first person ever to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice (she won over a decade ago for her novel, The Lacuna). A couple of weeks ago, Barbara foolishly let me and my little mic into her Edinburgh hotel room to tell me how growing up weird, bookish and poor shaped her and how she discovered she was a so-called hillbilly. We also discussed being an introvert in an extrovert world, finding love second time around, not winning the jackpot in the mothering department and why life gets better with every decade – and at 68 and the top of her game, she's living proof. She also shares her killer packing tips and, I have to say, if you ever wanted to do a three week holiday with just a carry-on, Barbara is your woman! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices For this bonus episode of The Shift, I’m delighted to welcome a very special guest: the award-winning author of ten bestselling novels, Barbara Kingsolver. 


Every so often, a book comes along that you want to press into the hands of everyone you meet. For me, Demon Copperhead, is one of those books. A reimagining of the Dickens classic, David Copperfield, translated to the Appalachian mountains in the midst of the opioid crisis that has gripped the area. It’s funny, it’s furious and its hero Demon is a character you will never ever forget. 


I’m not the only one who thinks so. Earlier this year Barbara was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and now she’s become the first person ever to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice (she won over a decade ago for her novel, The Lacuna).


A couple of weeks ago, Barbara foolishly let me and my little mic into her Edinburgh hotel room to tell me how growing up weird, bookish and poor shaped her and how she discovered she was a so-called hillbilly. We also discussed being an introvert in an extrovert world, finding love second time around, not winning the jackpot in the mothering department and why life gets better with every decade – and at 68 and the top of her game, she's living proof.


She also shares her killer packing tips and, I have to say, if you ever wanted to do a three week holiday with just a carry-on, Barbara is your woman!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3255 no Katherine May: why we all need a little more wonder in our lives - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ We’ve all had those moments in our lives when everything feels… darker, colder, a little (or a lot) less hopeful. Those emotional winters were perfectly encapsulated by today’s guest, Katherine May in her transatlantic bestseller, Wintering, the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. Her new book is another soothing antidote for the way we live now, Enchantment, Reawakening wonder in an exhausted age. I don’t know if it’s the aftermath of the pandemic, our always on culture, or just… life, but this spoke to me in exactly the way Wintering did. So, that’s a thumbs up from me. Katherine joined me from her home by her beloved seaside (hence the seagulls!) to talk about her midlife autism diagnosis, why she believes we’re living through the burnout decade and how to wrest back control of our lives from our work. She told me about entering perimenopause at 29 but still being absolutely livid in her mid-40s, how she’s fully over “white male gurus” and why she wants to open up the conversation about meaning. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Enchantment by Katherine May and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 17 Dec 2024 01:00:00 -0000 full 218 sam baker The bestselling author of Wintering talks meaning making, midlife autism diagnosis and entering perimenopause at 29 We’ve all had those moments in our lives when everything feels… darker, colder, a little (or a lot) less hopeful. Those emotional winters were perfectly encapsulated by today’s guest, Katherine May in her transatlantic bestseller, Wintering, the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. Her new book is another soothing antidote for the way we live now, Enchantment, Reawakening wonder in an exhausted age. I don’t know if it’s the aftermath of the pandemic, our always on culture, or just… life, but this spoke to me in exactly the way Wintering did. So, that’s a thumbs up from me. Katherine joined me from her home by her beloved seaside (hence the seagulls!) to talk about her midlife autism diagnosis, why she believes we’re living through the burnout decade and how to wrest back control of our lives from our work. She told me about entering perimenopause at 29 but still being absolutely livid in her mid-40s, how she’s fully over “white male gurus” and why she wants to open up the conversation about meaning. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Enchantment by Katherine May and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices We’ve all had those moments in our lives when everything feels… darker, colder, a little (or a lot) less hopeful. Those emotional winters were perfectly encapsulated by today’s guest, Katherine May in her transatlantic bestseller, Wintering, the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. Her new book is another soothing antidote for the way we live now, Enchantment, Reawakening wonder in an exhausted age.


I don’t know if it’s the aftermath of the pandemic, our always on culture, or just… life, but this spoke to me in exactly the way Wintering did. So, that’s a thumbs up from me.


Katherine joined me from her home by her beloved seaside (hence the seagulls!) to talk about her midlife autism diagnosis, why she believes we’re living through the burnout decade and how to wrest back control of our lives from our work. She told me about entering perimenopause at 29 but still being absolutely livid in her mid-40s, how she’s fully over “white male gurus” and why she wants to open up the conversation about meaning.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Enchantment by Katherine May and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2827 BONUS EPISODE: Neneh Cherry on love, loss & legacy https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ If you were a teenager in the late 80s you only have to hear the name Neneh Cherry to conjure the image of Neneh, seven months pregnant, on the Top of the Pops stage performing her hit Buffalo Stance. She was the epitome of cool. She made teenage girls everywhere believe that anything was possible. Now, almost 40 years later, the award-winning singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, mother of three, stepmother of one, grandmother of four, has lived - and continues to live - the most incredible life. She has released six critically acclaimed albums, won two Brits and been nominated for a Grammy.  And now she has written a memoir that takes us from her peripatetic childhood moving between Sweden and New York with her mother Swedish artist Moki Karlsson and her step-dad jazz trumpeter Don Cherry to the present day. It quite honestly blew me away. A Thousand Threads takes those strands and weaves them into a story of creativity and collaboration, love and loss, motherhood and daughterhood, and above all what it means to be a woman. I inhaled it. (And if you're in the market I highly recommend having Neneh read it to you on audible.) Neneh and I got on zoom to talk about home, family, losing her mother Moki at just 66 and losing herself to grief and menopause, finding pleasure in the little things, being a gran, staying creative forever and so so much more. TBH teenage Sam is beside herself right now. I hope you love this as much as I loved making it. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A THOUSAND THREADS BY NENEH CHERRY and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 10 Dec 2024 01:00:00 -0000 full 15 217 sam baker The legendary singer, songwriter and producer talks grief, menopause, family, home & turning 60 If you were a teenager in the late 80s you only have to hear the name Neneh Cherry to conjure the image of Neneh, seven months pregnant, on the Top of the Pops stage performing her hit Buffalo Stance. She was the epitome of cool. She made teenage girls everywhere believe that anything was possible. Now, almost 40 years later, the award-winning singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, mother of three, stepmother of one, grandmother of four, has lived - and continues to live - the most incredible life. She has released six critically acclaimed albums, won two Brits and been nominated for a Grammy.  And now she has written a memoir that takes us from her peripatetic childhood moving between Sweden and New York with her mother Swedish artist Moki Karlsson and her step-dad jazz trumpeter Don Cherry to the present day. It quite honestly blew me away. A Thousand Threads takes those strands and weaves them into a story of creativity and collaboration, love and loss, motherhood and daughterhood, and above all what it means to be a woman. I inhaled it. (And if you're in the market I highly recommend having Neneh read it to you on audible.) Neneh and I got on zoom to talk about home, family, losing her mother Moki at just 66 and losing herself to grief and menopause, finding pleasure in the little things, being a gran, staying creative forever and so so much more. TBH teenage Sam is beside herself right now. I hope you love this as much as I loved making it. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A THOUSAND THREADS BY NENEH CHERRY and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices If you were a teenager in the late 80s you only have to hear the name Neneh Cherry to conjure the image of Neneh, seven months pregnant, on the Top of the Pops stage performing her hit Buffalo Stance. She was the epitome of cool. She made teenage girls everywhere believe that anything was possible.


Now, almost 40 years later, the award-winning singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, mother of three, stepmother of one, grandmother of four, has lived - and continues to live - the most incredible life. She has released six critically acclaimed albums, won two Brits and been nominated for a Grammy. 


And now she has written a memoir that takes us from her peripatetic childhood moving between Sweden and New York with her mother Swedish artist Moki Karlsson and her step-dad jazz trumpeter Don Cherry to the present day. It quite honestly blew me away.


A Thousand Threads takes those strands and weaves them into a story of creativity and collaboration, love and loss, motherhood and daughterhood, and above all what it means to be a woman. I inhaled it. (And if you're in the market I highly recommend having Neneh read it to you on audible.)


Neneh and I got on zoom to talk about home, family, losing her mother Moki at just 66 and losing herself to grief and menopause, finding pleasure in the little things, being a gran, staying creative forever and so so much more. TBH teenage Sam is beside herself right now. I hope you love this as much as I loved making it.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A THOUSAND THREADS BY NENEH CHERRY and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3314 Bella Freud: "I've definitely got more daring with age" https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the fashion designer Bella Freud. Bella launched her eponymous label in 1990. Over thirty years later it remains resolutely independent, one of the very few that hasn’t been subsumed by a fashion conglomerate.  Bella’s clothes are for wearing and have become a byword for women who want to be glamorous but not girly with a bit of added wit. Her iconic word jumpers are one of the most covetable individual fashion items bar none. (As her instant-sell out collaboration with M&S proved.) Bella has always played with her heritage (her father, the artist Lucian Freud designed her famous dog logo and great-grandfather was Sigmund Freud, widely credited as the inventor of psycho analysis) and now she’s launched a podcast - Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud - where she literally puts celebrities on the couch to analyse their relationship with style. Eric Cantona, Zadie Smith and even Kate Moss have succumbed and, I have to say, it’s an eye-opener. I met Bella at home in North West London to talk about growing up outside convention and how she finally shook off her childhood coping mechanisms. We discussed the “wonderful feeling of progress” that’s come with ageing, what we can gain from unravelling life’s knots and the impact of losing both of her parents in one week. Bella also told me how her body image shaped her designs and how she’s learnt to appreciate her body as she’s aged. Fashion is a magic carpet, she says, and she’s the living proof. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 03 Dec 2024 01:00:00 -0000 full 15 216 sam baker The designer talks ageing, letting go of chaos, body image and fashion neurosis My guest today is the fashion designer Bella Freud. Bella launched her eponymous label in 1990. Over thirty years later it remains resolutely independent, one of the very few that hasn’t been subsumed by a fashion conglomerate.  Bella’s clothes are for wearing and have become a byword for women who want to be glamorous but not girly with a bit of added wit. Her iconic word jumpers are one of the most covetable individual fashion items bar none. (As her instant-sell out collaboration with M&S proved.) Bella has always played with her heritage (her father, the artist Lucian Freud designed her famous dog logo and great-grandfather was Sigmund Freud, widely credited as the inventor of psycho analysis) and now she’s launched a podcast - Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud - where she literally puts celebrities on the couch to analyse their relationship with style. Eric Cantona, Zadie Smith and even Kate Moss have succumbed and, I have to say, it’s an eye-opener. I met Bella at home in North West London to talk about growing up outside convention and how she finally shook off her childhood coping mechanisms. We discussed the “wonderful feeling of progress” that’s come with ageing, what we can gain from unravelling life’s knots and the impact of losing both of her parents in one week. Bella also told me how her body image shaped her designs and how she’s learnt to appreciate her body as she’s aged. Fashion is a magic carpet, she says, and she’s the living proof. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the fashion designer Bella Freud. Bella launched her eponymous label in 1990. Over thirty years later it remains resolutely independent, one of the very few that hasn’t been subsumed by a fashion conglomerate. 

Bella’s clothes are for wearing and have become a byword for women who want to be glamorous but not girly with a bit of added wit. Her iconic word jumpers are one of the most covetable individual fashion items bar none. (As her instant-sell out collaboration with M&S proved.)

Bella has always played with her heritage (her father, the artist Lucian Freud designed her famous dog logo and great-grandfather was Sigmund Freud, widely credited as the inventor of psycho analysis) and now she’s launched a podcast - Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud - where she literally puts celebrities on the couch to analyse their relationship with style. Eric Cantona, Zadie Smith and even Kate Moss have succumbed and, I have to say, it’s an eye-opener.

I met Bella at home in North West London to talk about growing up outside convention and how she finally shook off her childhood coping mechanisms. We discussed the “wonderful feeling of progress” that’s come with ageing, what we can gain from unravelling life’s knots and the impact of losing both of her parents in one week. Bella also told me how her body image shaped her designs and how she’s learnt to appreciate her body as she’s aged. Fashion is a magic carpet, she says, and she’s the living proof.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3648 no Donna Ashworth on finding her calling in midlife https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is a woman who is credited with putting poetry back on the map, Donna Ashworth…. Donna came to prominence in 2020, when a poem she wrote about lockdown was read in a viral video to raise money for the NHS. She subsequently self-published her first volume of poetry, To The Women, which sold over 100,000 copies. Unsurprisingly the publishing industry came a-calling. Now The UK’s best selling poet, Donna has written eight books, including the bestsellers Wild Hope and I Wish I Knew and you’ll find them on the bedside tables of millions of women. Her latest, Growing Brave, a collection of words to soothe fear and let more life in, feels once again, perfectly pitched for the times we’re living through.  Donna joined me for what is probably the most emotionally intelligent conversation I’ve ever had here on The Shift. We talked about being dubbed “the difficult one” and how we grow into the labels we’re given, how to win the self-worth battle, the secret to being well-boundaried, why she doesn’t care for a “man-made” timeline and finding her calling in midlife. Also, I should warn you that Donna is incredibly generous and candid when it comes to talking about her experience of anorexia and how it feels to age with an eating disorder. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Growing Brave by Donna Ashworth and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 26 Nov 2024 01:00:00 -0000 full 15 215 sam baker The UK’s bestselling poet on eating disorders, self worth and beating the shame-blame game My guest today is a woman who is credited with putting poetry back on the map, Donna Ashworth…. Donna came to prominence in 2020, when a poem she wrote about lockdown was read in a viral video to raise money for the NHS. She subsequently self-published her first volume of poetry, To The Women, which sold over 100,000 copies. Unsurprisingly the publishing industry came a-calling. Now The UK’s best selling poet, Donna has written eight books, including the bestsellers Wild Hope and I Wish I Knew and you’ll find them on the bedside tables of millions of women. Her latest, Growing Brave, a collection of words to soothe fear and let more life in, feels once again, perfectly pitched for the times we’re living through.  Donna joined me for what is probably the most emotionally intelligent conversation I’ve ever had here on The Shift. We talked about being dubbed “the difficult one” and how we grow into the labels we’re given, how to win the self-worth battle, the secret to being well-boundaried, why she doesn’t care for a “man-made” timeline and finding her calling in midlife. Also, I should warn you that Donna is incredibly generous and candid when it comes to talking about her experience of anorexia and how it feels to age with an eating disorder. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Growing Brave by Donna Ashworth and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a woman who is credited with putting poetry back on the map, Donna Ashworth…. Donna came to prominence in 2020, when a poem she wrote about lockdown was read in a viral video to raise money for the NHS. She subsequently self-published her first volume of poetry, To The Women, which sold over 100,000 copies. Unsurprisingly the publishing industry came a-calling.

Now The UK’s best selling poet, Donna has written eight books, including the bestsellers Wild Hope and I Wish I Knew and you’ll find them on the bedside tables of millions of women.

Her latest, Growing Brave, a collection of words to soothe fear and let more life in, feels once again, perfectly pitched for the times we’re living through. 

Donna joined me for what is probably the most emotionally intelligent conversation I’ve ever had here on The Shift. We talked about being dubbed “the difficult one” and how we grow into the labels we’re given, how to win the self-worth battle, the secret to being well-boundaried, why she doesn’t care for a “man-made” timeline and finding her calling in midlife. Also, I should warn you that Donna is incredibly generous and candid when it comes to talking about her experience of anorexia and how it feels to age with an eating disorder.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Growing Brave by Donna Ashworth and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3494 Baroness Lola Young: "you can't be what you can't see, but somebody has to go first" https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is one incredible woman. Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey is an actress, academic, campaigner for social justice and a cross bench peer in the House of Lords. By anyone’s standards she has achieved.  She studied at the New College of Speech and Drama and started her career as an actress in the 1970s and 80s, before becoming professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University. In 2001 she received an OBE and became an independent peer in the house of lords in 2004, where she has actively campaigned against modern slavery and unethical fashion, amongst other things.  But before all that, from the age of just 8 weeks old, Lola moved between foster care placements and children’s homes. Then, at the age of 18, she was pushed off what she calls “the care cliff”. Now that childhood is the subject of Eight Weeks, her stunning memoir of a childhood in care and her journey to discovering her own story.  As she says herself, when people say “this is my friend Lola, she grew up in care, now she’s in the house of lords” it misses out rather a lot of steps on the way. Lola joined me to tell me how it felt to start trying to weave together the scattered parts of herself in her 50s and how growing up in care turned her into an activist. We also discussed everyday racism, what it’s really like being a Black woman in the House of Lords, her conflicted relationship with visibility and why somebody has to go first so it might as well be you.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Eight Weeks by Baroness Lola Young and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 19 Nov 2024 01:00:00 -0000 full 15 214 sam baker The people's peer on everyday racism, what it’s really like being a Black woman in the House of Lords & why not having wrinkles isn't an achievement My guest today is one incredible woman. Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey is an actress, academic, campaigner for social justice and a cross bench peer in the House of Lords. By anyone’s standards she has achieved.  She studied at the New College of Speech and Drama and started her career as an actress in the 1970s and 80s, before becoming professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University. In 2001 she received an OBE and became an independent peer in the house of lords in 2004, where she has actively campaigned against modern slavery and unethical fashion, amongst other things.  But before all that, from the age of just 8 weeks old, Lola moved between foster care placements and children’s homes. Then, at the age of 18, she was pushed off what she calls “the care cliff”. Now that childhood is the subject of Eight Weeks, her stunning memoir of a childhood in care and her journey to discovering her own story.  As she says herself, when people say “this is my friend Lola, she grew up in care, now she’s in the house of lords” it misses out rather a lot of steps on the way. Lola joined me to tell me how it felt to start trying to weave together the scattered parts of herself in her 50s and how growing up in care turned her into an activist. We also discussed everyday racism, what it’s really like being a Black woman in the House of Lords, her conflicted relationship with visibility and why somebody has to go first so it might as well be you.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Eight Weeks by Baroness Lola Young and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is one incredible woman.

Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey is an actress, academic, campaigner for social justice and a cross bench peer in the House of Lords.

By anyone’s standards she has achieved. 

She studied at the New College of Speech and Drama and started her career as an actress in the 1970s and 80s, before becoming professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University. In 2001 she received an OBE and became an independent peer in the house of lords in 2004, where she has actively campaigned against modern slavery and unethical fashion, amongst other things. 

But before all that, from the age of just 8 weeks old, Lola moved between foster care placements and children’s homes. Then, at the age of 18, she was pushed off what she calls “the care cliff”.

Now that childhood is the subject of Eight Weeks, her stunning memoir of a childhood in care and her journey to discovering her own story. 

As she says herself, when people say “this is my friend Lola, she grew up in care, now she’s in the house of lords” it misses out rather a lot of steps on the way.

Lola joined me to tell me how it felt to start trying to weave together the scattered parts of herself in her 50s and how growing up in care turned her into an activist. We also discussed everyday racism, what it’s really like being a Black woman in the House of Lords, her conflicted relationship with visibility and why somebody has to go first so it might as well be you. 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Eight Weeks by Baroness Lola Young and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3732 no Jennifer Cox: why women are furious (and getting angrier) https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the forensic psychotherapist Dr Jennifer Cox. She trained at the Tavistock and now has an extensive practice specialising in treating women with undiagnosed anger. As part of this work she developed the Women are Mad approach to help women who can’t afford therapy to “think below the surface” about where their rage might be coming from. Sounds like it might be useful? I thought so, too. Jen is also the co host of the Women Are Mad podcast and has written a book called Women Are Angry which is very much what it says on the tin.  Her mission? To help us identify our rage and let it the hell out. Productively. Of course. Jen joined me for a fascinating conversation about the nature of female rage and why she thinks we’re seeing such a groundswell of fury now. We also discussed the impact of being a young carer, when and why we learn to “bitch”, why it’s easier to be a worried person than an angry one and the moment the anger penny dropped for her. CW: I should warn you that there’s passing discussion of suicidal ideation, eating disorders and depression Note: This was recorded before the November 5 election in the US. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Women are Angry by Jennifer Cox and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 12 Nov 2024 01:00:00 -0000 full 15 213 sam baker The creator of Women Are Mad on how to uncover your rage and handle it My guest today is the forensic psychotherapist Dr Jennifer Cox. She trained at the Tavistock and now has an extensive practice specialising in treating women with undiagnosed anger. As part of this work she developed the Women are Mad approach to help women who can’t afford therapy to “think below the surface” about where their rage might be coming from. Sounds like it might be useful? I thought so, too. Jen is also the co host of the Women Are Mad podcast and has written a book called Women Are Angry which is very much what it says on the tin.  Her mission? To help us identify our rage and let it the hell out. Productively. Of course. Jen joined me for a fascinating conversation about the nature of female rage and why she thinks we’re seeing such a groundswell of fury now. We also discussed the impact of being a young carer, when and why we learn to “bitch”, why it’s easier to be a worried person than an angry one and the moment the anger penny dropped for her. CW: I should warn you that there’s passing discussion of suicidal ideation, eating disorders and depression Note: This was recorded before the November 5 election in the US. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Women are Angry by Jennifer Cox and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the forensic psychotherapist Dr Jennifer Cox. She trained at the Tavistock and now has an extensive practice specialising in treating women with undiagnosed anger. As part of this work she developed the Women are Mad approach to help women who can’t afford therapy to “think below the surface” about where their rage might be coming from.

Sounds like it might be useful? I thought so, too.

Jen is also the co host of the Women Are Mad podcast and has written a book called Women Are Angry which is very much what it says on the tin. 

Her mission? To help us identify our rage and let it the hell out. Productively. Of course.

Jen joined me for a fascinating conversation about the nature of female rage and why she thinks we’re seeing such a groundswell of fury now. We also discussed the impact of being a young carer, when and why we learn to “bitch”, why it’s easier to be a worried person than an angry one and the moment the anger penny dropped for her.

CW: I should warn you that there’s passing discussion of suicidal ideation, eating disorders and depression

Note: This was recorded before the November 5 election in the US.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Women are Angry by Jennifer Cox and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3244 no Louise Doughty on the unrealised potential of older women https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is Louise Doughty, the woman behind some of the knottiest thrillers to grace our bookshelves and TV screens in recent years. Her bestseller, Apple Tree Yard about a sensible middle aged woman who makes a very unsensible decision (involving sex in the house of commons!) sold over half a million copies and was turned into a smash hit BBC series starring Emily Watson. She was also the brains behind the breathtaking BBC drama Crossfire that starred Keeley Hawes.  Of course What you don’t hear, is that Apple Tree Yard was Louise’s 7th novel, catapulting her to “the big time” at the age of 50. Her latest book, A Bird In Winter, looks set to continue that trajectory. Think The 39 steps if the lead was an extremely resourceful 50something woman on the run. Louise joined me to talk about how her “overnight” success at 50” transformed her life (mainly she finally started a pension!) And why it’s still considered controversial when middle aged women have sex! We also discussed surviving the menopause-puberty collision, the unrealised fury - and potential - of the middle aged woman and the power and importance of realising you’re not for everyone. And that’s fine. Note: apologies for the occasionally disrupted sound quality at the start of this episode. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 05 Nov 2024 01:00:00 -0000 full 15 212 sam baker and why it's still considered controversial when middle-aged women have sex! My guest today is Louise Doughty, the woman behind some of the knottiest thrillers to grace our bookshelves and TV screens in recent years. Her bestseller, Apple Tree Yard about a sensible middle aged woman who makes a very unsensible decision (involving sex in the house of commons!) sold over half a million copies and was turned into a smash hit BBC series starring Emily Watson. She was also the brains behind the breathtaking BBC drama Crossfire that starred Keeley Hawes.  Of course What you don’t hear, is that Apple Tree Yard was Louise’s 7th novel, catapulting her to “the big time” at the age of 50. Her latest book, A Bird In Winter, looks set to continue that trajectory. Think The 39 steps if the lead was an extremely resourceful 50something woman on the run. Louise joined me to talk about how her “overnight” success at 50” transformed her life (mainly she finally started a pension!) And why it’s still considered controversial when middle aged women have sex! We also discussed surviving the menopause-puberty collision, the unrealised fury - and potential - of the middle aged woman and the power and importance of realising you’re not for everyone. And that’s fine. Note: apologies for the occasionally disrupted sound quality at the start of this episode. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is Louise Doughty, the woman behind some of the knottiest thrillers to grace our bookshelves and TV screens in recent years. Her bestseller, Apple Tree Yard about a sensible middle aged woman who makes a very unsensible decision (involving sex in the house of commons!) sold over half a million copies and was turned into a smash hit BBC series starring Emily Watson. She was also the brains behind the breathtaking BBC drama Crossfire that starred Keeley Hawes. 

Of course What you don’t hear, is that Apple Tree Yard was Louise’s 7th novel, catapulting her to “the big time” at the age of 50.

Her latest book, A Bird In Winter, looks set to continue that trajectory. Think The 39 steps if the lead was an extremely resourceful 50something woman on the run.

Louise joined me to talk about how her “overnight” success at 50” transformed her life (mainly she finally started a pension!) And why it’s still considered controversial when middle aged women have sex! We also discussed surviving the menopause-puberty collision, the unrealised fury - and potential - of the middle aged woman and the power and importance of realising you’re not for everyone. And that’s fine.

Note: apologies for the occasionally disrupted sound quality at the start of this episode.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3541 Kate Weinberg on the kindness of women & living with a mother-shaped hole https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Today’s guest is a personal favourite. I first met Kate Weinberg (the bestselling author of The Truants) when I was stricken with long covid and a mutual friend put us in touch. “You need to talk to Kate,” she urged. “She’ll be able to help. Kate was able to help - and did. Thanks in large part to her I went from feeling like my old, functioning life had gone forever, to regaining more than a semblance of normal. Whatever that is. Because Kate is not only one of the first people to experience and long covid, she is also an immensely kind and generous woman.  That experience - of living an illness that doctors dismissed as “all in her head” - led to her new novel, There’s Nothing Wrong With Her - a comi-tragic story about mental health, the way women’s illness is dismissed, living up to early midlife expectation and surviving modern life. It also stars a goldfish called Whitney Houston! I went to Kate’s envy-inducing north London house to talk about running away fantasies, the impact of losing her mum at 3 and how she’s spent her life assembling a patchwork of mothers, her career finally waking up in her 40s, going on HRT in her 30s, embracing crone energy and, yes, the impact of living with an illness you’re told is “all in your head”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including There's Nothing Wrong With her by Kate Weinberg and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 29 Oct 2024 01:00:00 -0000 full 15 211 sam baker The bestselling author of Truants on living with long covid, an illness she's endlessly told is "all in her head" Today’s guest is a personal favourite. I first met Kate Weinberg (the bestselling author of The Truants) when I was stricken with long covid and a mutual friend put us in touch. “You need to talk to Kate,” she urged. “She’ll be able to help. Kate was able to help - and did. Thanks in large part to her I went from feeling like my old, functioning life had gone forever, to regaining more than a semblance of normal. Whatever that is. Because Kate is not only one of the first people to experience and long covid, she is also an immensely kind and generous woman.  That experience - of living an illness that doctors dismissed as “all in her head” - led to her new novel, There’s Nothing Wrong With Her - a comi-tragic story about mental health, the way women’s illness is dismissed, living up to early midlife expectation and surviving modern life. It also stars a goldfish called Whitney Houston! I went to Kate’s envy-inducing north London house to talk about running away fantasies, the impact of losing her mum at 3 and how she’s spent her life assembling a patchwork of mothers, her career finally waking up in her 40s, going on HRT in her 30s, embracing crone energy and, yes, the impact of living with an illness you’re told is “all in your head”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including There's Nothing Wrong With her by Kate Weinberg and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is a personal favourite. I first met Kate Weinberg (the bestselling author of The Truants) when I was stricken with long covid and a mutual friend put us in touch. “You need to talk to Kate,” she urged. “She’ll be able to help. Kate was able to help - and did. Thanks in large part to her I went from feeling like my old, functioning life had gone forever, to regaining more than a semblance of normal. Whatever that is. Because Kate is not only one of the first people to experience and long covid, she is also an immensely kind and generous woman. 

That experience - of living an illness that doctors dismissed as “all in her head” - led to her new novel, There’s Nothing Wrong With Her - a comi-tragic story about mental health, the way women’s illness is dismissed, living up to early midlife expectation and surviving modern life. It also stars a goldfish called Whitney Houston!

I went to Kate’s envy-inducing north London house to talk about running away fantasies, the impact of losing her mum at 3 and how she’s spent her life assembling a patchwork of mothers, her career finally waking up in her 40s, going on HRT in her 30s, embracing crone energy and, yes, the impact of living with an illness you’re told is “all in your head”.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including There's Nothing Wrong With her by Kate Weinberg and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3820 no Vanessa Feltz on divorce, dating and finally shaking off her inhibitions at 62 https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the broadcaster Vanessa Feltz. Ever since the mid-90s, Vanessa has been a fixture on British TV and radio - and also, for better or worse, our front pages. She became known as the “British Oprah” and that applied not just to her consummate skills as a broadcaster and talent for saying the unsayable, but also what she describes as her “pernicious public cycle of yoyo dieting.” She cut her teeth on This Morning, interviewed stars on the Big Breakfast Bed and hosted her own hit show Vanessa, the first British US-style talk show. She’s also presented BBC Radio 2’s Early Breakfast Show and BBC London’s Breakfast show and now hosts a Saturday show on LBC.  But like many women in the public eye, her professional achievements have often played second fiddle to media scrutiny of her private life. Vanessa joined me to talk about finally baring it all in the frank, funny, fearless autobiography she said she’d never write, Vanessa Bares All. We also discussed growing up with a chorus of critics and dealing with the toxic media attention paid to her weight. Plus divorce, being back in the dating game at 62, why she wishes she’d been able to take Ozempic, finally losing her inhibitions and why she’d really like a great big love. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Vanessa Bares All by Vanessa Feltz and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 210 sam baker Why growing up with a chorus of critics helped the award-winning broadcaster cope with toxic media attention My guest today is the broadcaster Vanessa Feltz. Ever since the mid-90s, Vanessa has been a fixture on British TV and radio - and also, for better or worse, our front pages. She became known as the “British Oprah” and that applied not just to her consummate skills as a broadcaster and talent for saying the unsayable, but also what she describes as her “pernicious public cycle of yoyo dieting.” She cut her teeth on This Morning, interviewed stars on the Big Breakfast Bed and hosted her own hit show Vanessa, the first British US-style talk show. She’s also presented BBC Radio 2’s Early Breakfast Show and BBC London’s Breakfast show and now hosts a Saturday show on LBC.  But like many women in the public eye, her professional achievements have often played second fiddle to media scrutiny of her private life. Vanessa joined me to talk about finally baring it all in the frank, funny, fearless autobiography she said she’d never write, Vanessa Bares All. We also discussed growing up with a chorus of critics and dealing with the toxic media attention paid to her weight. Plus divorce, being back in the dating game at 62, why she wishes she’d been able to take Ozempic, finally losing her inhibitions and why she’d really like a great big love. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Vanessa Bares All by Vanessa Feltz and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the broadcaster Vanessa Feltz. Ever since the mid-90s, Vanessa has been a fixture on British TV and radio - and also, for better or worse, our front pages.

She became known as the “British Oprah” and that applied not just to her consummate skills as a broadcaster and talent for saying the unsayable, but also what she describes as her “pernicious public cycle of yoyo dieting.”

She cut her teeth on This Morning, interviewed stars on the Big Breakfast Bed and hosted her own hit show Vanessa, the first British US-style talk show. She’s also presented BBC Radio 2’s Early Breakfast Show and BBC London’s Breakfast show and now hosts a Saturday show on LBC. 

But like many women in the public eye, her professional achievements have often played second fiddle to media scrutiny of her private life.

Vanessa joined me to talk about finally baring it all in the frank, funny, fearless autobiography she said she’d never write, Vanessa Bares All. We also discussed growing up with a chorus of critics and dealing with the toxic media attention paid to her weight. Plus divorce, being back in the dating game at 62, why she wishes she’d been able to take Ozempic, finally losing her inhibitions and why she’d really like a great big love.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Vanessa Bares All by Vanessa Feltz and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3398 no Jane Campbell on reinventing herself at 40 – and again at 80! https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ If you sometimes worry you’ve left it too late to follow your heart, today’s guest should give you hope. At 40, Jane Campbell got a divorce and took herself off to university where she trained as a group analyst. 40 years later, at the age of 80, she had her first short story was published, after she sent Cat Brushing to the London Review of Books on a whim. As a rule they don’t publish fiction, but less than three weeks later, they did just that.  Cat Brushing became the title of her debut short story collection - a short, sharp collection about the inner life of older women that I’ve read over and over again. The New York Times compared her to Edna Obrien and Muriel Spark. No biggie. Now Jane’s written a novel, Interpretations of Love which is, ultimately, about the things left unsaid and their lifelong implications. From her home in Oxfordshire, Jane told me why it’s so important to her to put the loves, lusts and losses of old women centre stage. We also discussed the impact of being a war baby and growing up with the belief that men were surplus to requirements, finding herself, a new life and a job she loved at 40 - and doing it again at 80. The lure of the solitary life and how she learnt to stop asking permission in midlife - and has never looked back. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Cat Brushing and Interpretations of Love by Jane Campbell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 15 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 17 209 sam baker Following your heart and refusing to ask for permission in midlife and beyond If you sometimes worry you’ve left it too late to follow your heart, today’s guest should give you hope. At 40, Jane Campbell got a divorce and took herself off to university where she trained as a group analyst. 40 years later, at the age of 80, she had her first short story was published, after she sent Cat Brushing to the London Review of Books on a whim. As a rule they don’t publish fiction, but less than three weeks later, they did just that.  Cat Brushing became the title of her debut short story collection - a short, sharp collection about the inner life of older women that I’ve read over and over again. The New York Times compared her to Edna Obrien and Muriel Spark. No biggie. Now Jane’s written a novel, Interpretations of Love which is, ultimately, about the things left unsaid and their lifelong implications. From her home in Oxfordshire, Jane told me why it’s so important to her to put the loves, lusts and losses of old women centre stage. We also discussed the impact of being a war baby and growing up with the belief that men were surplus to requirements, finding herself, a new life and a job she loved at 40 - and doing it again at 80. The lure of the solitary life and how she learnt to stop asking permission in midlife - and has never looked back. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Cat Brushing and Interpretations of Love by Jane Campbell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices If you sometimes worry you’ve left it too late to follow your heart, today’s guest should give you hope. At 40, Jane Campbell got a divorce and took herself off to university where she trained as a group analyst. 40 years later, at the age of 80, she had her first short story was published, after she sent Cat Brushing to the London Review of Books on a whim. As a rule they don’t publish fiction, but less than three weeks later, they did just that. 

Cat Brushing became the title of her debut short story collection - a short, sharp collection about the inner life of older women that I’ve read over and over again. The New York Times compared her to Edna Obrien and Muriel Spark. No biggie.

Now Jane’s written a novel, Interpretations of Love which is, ultimately, about the things left unsaid and their lifelong implications.

From her home in Oxfordshire, Jane told me why it’s so important to her to put the loves, lusts and losses of old women centre stage. We also discussed the impact of being a war baby and growing up with the belief that men were surplus to requirements, finding herself, a new life and a job she loved at 40 - and doing it again at 80. The lure of the solitary life and how she learnt to stop asking permission in midlife - and has never looked back.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Cat Brushing and Interpretations of Love by Jane Campbell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2973 Marianne Power: how to build a happy single life https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today knows a thing or two about being single, and she’s hear to tell you that there’s more than one way to live an emotionally fulfilling life.  Marianne Power is a journalist who made a perfectly decent living testing things so you didn’t have to - mascara, spa retreats, you get the gist - until the decision to spend a year testing self help books changed her life in ways she’d never expected. The resulting book, Help me! Has since sold hundreds of thousands of copies, been translated into 25 languages and been optioned for TV. Clearly something about her funny, candid, vulnerable approach struck a chord. But as she turned 40, Marianne still had questions. Namely, why were all her friends merrily ticking boxes on the life to-do list and she wasn’t… love eluded her, so she decided to try the same approach. In Love me! She looks at society’s obsession with marriage, kids and domesticity and whether you can love and be loved without them. I met Marianne in London to talk about rewriting the stories we tell ourselves about love and sex and why there’s more than one soulmate for everyone (and, no,) they don’t have to be sexual. We also talked anxiety, growing up ginger, being childfree by choice, tantra and, the kicker, why sex is not a reward for being young and hot.  Find out more about Jan Day's tantra workshops at https://www.janday.com/ * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Love Me! by Marianne Power and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 08 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 208 sam baker Society’s obsession with marriage, kids and domesticity and whether you can love and be loved without them. And why Tantra isn't all about Sting! My guest today knows a thing or two about being single, and she’s hear to tell you that there’s more than one way to live an emotionally fulfilling life.  Marianne Power is a journalist who made a perfectly decent living testing things so you didn’t have to - mascara, spa retreats, you get the gist - until the decision to spend a year testing self help books changed her life in ways she’d never expected. The resulting book, Help me! Has since sold hundreds of thousands of copies, been translated into 25 languages and been optioned for TV. Clearly something about her funny, candid, vulnerable approach struck a chord. But as she turned 40, Marianne still had questions. Namely, why were all her friends merrily ticking boxes on the life to-do list and she wasn’t… love eluded her, so she decided to try the same approach. In Love me! She looks at society’s obsession with marriage, kids and domesticity and whether you can love and be loved without them. I met Marianne in London to talk about rewriting the stories we tell ourselves about love and sex and why there’s more than one soulmate for everyone (and, no,) they don’t have to be sexual. We also talked anxiety, growing up ginger, being childfree by choice, tantra and, the kicker, why sex is not a reward for being young and hot.  Find out more about Jan Day's tantra workshops at https://www.janday.com/ * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Love Me! by Marianne Power and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today knows a thing or two about being single, and she’s hear to tell you that there’s more than one way to live an emotionally fulfilling life. 

Marianne Power is a journalist who made a perfectly decent living testing things so you didn’t have to - mascara, spa retreats, you get the gist - until the decision to spend a year testing self help books changed her life in ways she’d never expected.

The resulting book, Help me! Has since sold hundreds of thousands of copies, been translated into 25 languages and been optioned for TV. Clearly something about her funny, candid, vulnerable approach struck a chord.

But as she turned 40, Marianne still had questions. Namely, why were all her friends merrily ticking boxes on the life to-do list and she wasn’t… love eluded her, so she decided to try the same approach.

In Love me! She looks at society’s obsession with marriage, kids and domesticity and whether you can love and be loved without them.

I met Marianne in London to talk about rewriting the stories we tell ourselves about love and sex and why there’s more than one soulmate for everyone (and, no,) they don’t have to be sexual. We also talked anxiety, growing up ginger, being childfree by choice, tantra and, the kicker, why sex is not a reward for being young and hot. 

Find out more about Jan Day's tantra workshops at https://www.janday.com/

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Love Me! by Marianne Power and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3886 no Louise Minchin: why midlife is the time to take more risks https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is author, endurance athlete and ex BBC breakfast presenter Louise Minchin. Louise is, of course, best known for her twenty year stint on BBC Breakfast’s sofa but she has also been main news anchor on the BBC News, presented The One Show and participated in a host of reality TV shows including I’m a Celebrity get me out of here. Since leaving the sofa, she has chaired the Women’s Prize for Fiction, honed her skills as an endurance athlete (she qualified for the Great Britain Age-Group Triathlon Team in 2015 for the World Triathlon Championships in Chicago, and completed the Norseman triathlon - she doesn’t do things by halves!) and turned her hand to writing. Louise’s latest book is a heartstopping thriller called Isolation Island, which takes ten celebrities and dumps them in a derelict monastery on a remote scottish island. Think I’m A Celebrity meets Traitors with a splash of Big Brother and you’re halfway there! Louise joined me to talk about the importance of putting women of all ages centre stage and how she built a new career off the breakfast TV sofa. We also discussed how perimenopause robbed her of herself, the power of adventure, how she learnt to love her body for what it can do not how it looks and why she wants to encourage more women to take a risk in midlife. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Isolation Island by Louise Minchin and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 01 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 207 sam baker The former BBC breakfast presenter on perimenopause, the power of adventure and why the representation of older women on TV sucks My guest today is author, endurance athlete and ex BBC breakfast presenter Louise Minchin. Louise is, of course, best known for her twenty year stint on BBC Breakfast’s sofa but she has also been main news anchor on the BBC News, presented The One Show and participated in a host of reality TV shows including I’m a Celebrity get me out of here. Since leaving the sofa, she has chaired the Women’s Prize for Fiction, honed her skills as an endurance athlete (she qualified for the Great Britain Age-Group Triathlon Team in 2015 for the World Triathlon Championships in Chicago, and completed the Norseman triathlon - she doesn’t do things by halves!) and turned her hand to writing. Louise’s latest book is a heartstopping thriller called Isolation Island, which takes ten celebrities and dumps them in a derelict monastery on a remote scottish island. Think I’m A Celebrity meets Traitors with a splash of Big Brother and you’re halfway there! Louise joined me to talk about the importance of putting women of all ages centre stage and how she built a new career off the breakfast TV sofa. We also discussed how perimenopause robbed her of herself, the power of adventure, how she learnt to love her body for what it can do not how it looks and why she wants to encourage more women to take a risk in midlife. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Isolation Island by Louise Minchin and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is author, endurance athlete and ex BBC breakfast presenter Louise Minchin.

Louise is, of course, best known for her twenty year stint on BBC Breakfast’s sofa but she has also been main news anchor on the BBC News, presented The One Show and participated in a host of reality TV shows including I’m a Celebrity get me out of here.

Since leaving the sofa, she has chaired the Women’s Prize for Fiction, honed her skills as an endurance athlete (she qualified for the Great Britain Age-Group Triathlon Team in 2015 for the World Triathlon Championships in Chicago, and completed the Norseman triathlon - she doesn’t do things by halves!) and turned her hand to writing. Louise’s latest book is a heartstopping thriller called Isolation Island, which takes ten celebrities and dumps them in a derelict monastery on a remote scottish island. Think I’m A Celebrity meets Traitors with a splash of Big Brother and you’re halfway there!

Louise joined me to talk about the importance of putting women of all ages centre stage and how she built a new career off the breakfast TV sofa. We also discussed how perimenopause robbed her of herself, the power of adventure, how she learnt to love her body for what it can do not how it looks and why she wants to encourage more women to take a risk in midlife.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Isolation Island by Louise Minchin and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3539 no Moon Unit Zappa: "We're all just growing each other up" Today’s guest is the American actress, writer and singer Moon Unit Zappa. Moon shot to fame in her early teens when her vocals featured on her father Frank Zappa’s unlikely hit Valley Girl. Subsequently she has been an actor, singer, presenter and artist. I’m about a year older than her and I know I’ve pretty much been aware of her ever since But she was never quite able to step out of the shadow of her “music genius” father Frank and mother Gail. The eldest of four siblings, Moon says, she was basically an adult by the time she was 5. Now aged 57, Moon has written Earth to Moon, a funny, self-deprecating and candid memoir that attempts to bring perspective to a life lived in the glare of celebrity, creativity, genius and narcissism. It’s just begging to be turned into a TV series. If you, like me, grew up with a reassuringly boring small town childhood, you might look at Moon’s life with a pang envy. Moon is here to set you right! Moon joined me from her home in LA to talk about the lifelong impact of growing up in a household that revolves around a “genius” and with a mother who’s the ultimate unreliable narrator. We also discussed eldest daughter syndrome, the nepo baby dilemma, how she learnt to make herself central to her own life, the curse of dating both versions of your parents and why she thinks hot flashes are hilarious.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Earth to Moon by Moon Unit Zappa and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 24 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 206 sam baker Celebrity, creativity, narcissism & why hot flashes are hilarious Today’s guest is the American actress, writer and singer Moon Unit Zappa. Moon shot to fame in her early teens when her vocals featured on her father Frank Zappa’s unlikely hit Valley Girl. Subsequently she has been an actor, singer, presenter and artist. I’m about a year older than her and I know I’ve pretty much been aware of her ever since But she was never quite able to step out of the shadow of her “music genius” father Frank and mother Gail. The eldest of four siblings, Moon says, she was basically an adult by the time she was 5. Now aged 57, Moon has written Earth to Moon, a funny, self-deprecating and candid memoir that attempts to bring perspective to a life lived in the glare of celebrity, creativity, genius and narcissism. It’s just begging to be turned into a TV series. If you, like me, grew up with a reassuringly boring small town childhood, you might look at Moon’s life with a pang envy. Moon is here to set you right! Moon joined me from her home in LA to talk about the lifelong impact of growing up in a household that revolves around a “genius” and with a mother who’s the ultimate unreliable narrator. We also discussed eldest daughter syndrome, the nepo baby dilemma, how she learnt to make herself central to her own life, the curse of dating both versions of your parents and why she thinks hot flashes are hilarious.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Earth to Moon by Moon Unit Zappa and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is the American actress, writer and singer Moon Unit Zappa.

Moon shot to fame in her early teens when her vocals featured on her father Frank Zappa’s unlikely hit Valley Girl. Subsequently she has been an actor, singer, presenter and artist. I’m about a year older than her and I know I’ve pretty much been aware of her ever since But she was never quite able to step out of the shadow of her “music genius” father Frank and mother Gail. The eldest of four siblings, Moon says, she was basically an adult by the time she was 5.

Now aged 57, Moon has written Earth to Moon, a funny, self-deprecating and candid memoir that attempts to bring perspective to a life lived in the glare of celebrity, creativity, genius and narcissism. It’s just begging to be turned into a TV series.

If you, like me, grew up with a reassuringly boring small town childhood, you might look at Moon’s life with a pang envy. Moon is here to set you right!

Moon joined me from her home in LA to talk about the lifelong impact of growing up in a household that revolves around a “genius” and with a mother who’s the ultimate unreliable narrator. We also discussed eldest daughter syndrome, the nepo baby dilemma, how she learnt to make herself central to her own life, the curse of dating both versions of your parents and why she thinks hot flashes are hilarious. 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Earth to Moon by Moon Unit Zappa and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3708 Carol Vorderman on finding her voice (and how!) at 60 https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is a woman who has truly come into her own in middle-age. A broadcaster, engineer, statistician and entrepreneur, at the age of 63 Carol Vorderman is now best known for fearlessly calling power to account.  Sick of the sleaze and corruption she saw emanating from our politicians she decided it was time to speak up.  And her million twitter followers and listeners to her LBC show listened. Why? Because she’s one of us. An ordinary kid from a working class background, brought up by a single mum in North Wales. Carol is also a patron of Menopause Mandate, has been named one of the 25 most influential women by Vogue, and she’s got an MBE. You get the picture.  Now she’s written a book, Now What? A book about politics for people who think politics isn’t for them. Carol joined me to talk candidly about menopause and gaining her voice at 60, The lifelong impact of being a free school meals kid, The importance of financial independence and Why she won’t be cowed by bullies and trolls. She also gives us a useful lesson in how to spot a narcissist. Carol vorderman is living life without apology. And I’m here for it. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Now What? by Carol Vorderman and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 17 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 205 sam baker The broadcaster and campaigner is here to tell you: "beware the post-menopausal woman who doesn't give a damn!" My guest today is a woman who has truly come into her own in middle-age. A broadcaster, engineer, statistician and entrepreneur, at the age of 63 Carol Vorderman is now best known for fearlessly calling power to account.  Sick of the sleaze and corruption she saw emanating from our politicians she decided it was time to speak up.  And her million twitter followers and listeners to her LBC show listened. Why? Because she’s one of us. An ordinary kid from a working class background, brought up by a single mum in North Wales. Carol is also a patron of Menopause Mandate, has been named one of the 25 most influential women by Vogue, and she’s got an MBE. You get the picture.  Now she’s written a book, Now What? A book about politics for people who think politics isn’t for them. Carol joined me to talk candidly about menopause and gaining her voice at 60, The lifelong impact of being a free school meals kid, The importance of financial independence and Why she won’t be cowed by bullies and trolls. She also gives us a useful lesson in how to spot a narcissist. Carol vorderman is living life without apology. And I’m here for it. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Now What? by Carol Vorderman and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a woman who has truly come into her own in middle-age. A broadcaster, engineer, statistician and entrepreneur, at the age of 63 Carol Vorderman is now best known for fearlessly calling power to account. 

Sick of the sleaze and corruption she saw emanating from our politicians she decided it was time to speak up. 

And her million twitter followers and listeners to her LBC show listened. Why? Because she’s one of us. An ordinary kid from a working class background, brought up by a single mum in North Wales.

Carol is also a patron of Menopause Mandate, has been named one of the 25 most influential women by Vogue, and she’s got an MBE. You get the picture. 

Now she’s written a book, Now What? A book about politics for people who think politics isn’t for them.

Carol joined me to talk candidly about menopause and gaining her voice at 60, The lifelong impact of being a free school meals kid, The importance of financial independence and Why she won’t be cowed by bullies and trolls. She also gives us a useful lesson in how to spot a narcissist.

Carol vorderman is living life without apology. And I’m here for it.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Now What? by Carol Vorderman and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3289 Bella Mackie: "Nobody tells you motherhood is a choice" My guest today is Bella Mackie. Until her mid-30s Bella was a journalist, then she wrote a book called Jog On and her trajectory changed - dramatically. Ostensibly a book about running, Jog On was actually a soul-baring account of Bella’s battle with anxiety, OCD and depression and how, ultimately, running saved her. It was one of a wave of books that blended memoir with motivation and was a big and unexpected hit. Then, a couple of years ago she wrote the brilliantly titled How To Kill Your Family. TikTok fell on it. Cue 47 weeks in the top 10 and a Netflix series. Not jealous at all.  Now she’s back with the equally twisted What A Way To Go. In which more highly unlikeable people get their comeuppance. Well, some of them. Truly Bella can come up with ways to kill a loved one you hadn’t even dreamed of! Bella joined me to talk about being child-free and building your own roadmap to ageing without kids in the equation. We also discussed her childhood obsession with true crime, how there’s not a top trumps of mental health and why she still has a long way to go to fight her way out of the good girl box. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including What A Way To Go by Bella Mackie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 10 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 204 sam baker The bestselling author of How To Kill Your Family gets real about murder & motherhood, mental health, ageing and RAGE My guest today is Bella Mackie. Until her mid-30s Bella was a journalist, then she wrote a book called Jog On and her trajectory changed - dramatically. Ostensibly a book about running, Jog On was actually a soul-baring account of Bella’s battle with anxiety, OCD and depression and how, ultimately, running saved her. It was one of a wave of books that blended memoir with motivation and was a big and unexpected hit. Then, a couple of years ago she wrote the brilliantly titled How To Kill Your Family. TikTok fell on it. Cue 47 weeks in the top 10 and a Netflix series. Not jealous at all.  Now she’s back with the equally twisted What A Way To Go. In which more highly unlikeable people get their comeuppance. Well, some of them. Truly Bella can come up with ways to kill a loved one you hadn’t even dreamed of! Bella joined me to talk about being child-free and building your own roadmap to ageing without kids in the equation. We also discussed her childhood obsession with true crime, how there’s not a top trumps of mental health and why she still has a long way to go to fight her way out of the good girl box. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including What A Way To Go by Bella Mackie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is Bella Mackie. Until her mid-30s Bella was a journalist, then she wrote a book called Jog On and her trajectory changed - dramatically. Ostensibly a book about running, Jog On was actually a soul-baring account of Bella’s battle with anxiety, OCD and depression and how, ultimately, running saved her. It was one of a wave of books that blended memoir with motivation and was a big and unexpected hit.

Then, a couple of years ago she wrote the brilliantly titled How To Kill Your Family. TikTok fell on it. Cue 47 weeks in the top 10 and a Netflix series. Not jealous at all. 

Now she’s back with the equally twisted What A Way To Go. In which more highly unlikeable people get their comeuppance. Well, some of them. Truly Bella can come up with ways to kill a loved one you hadn’t even dreamed of!

Bella joined me to talk about being child-free and building your own roadmap to ageing without kids in the equation. We also discussed her childhood obsession with true crime, how there’s not a top trumps of mental health and why she still has a long way to go to fight her way out of the good girl box.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including What A Way To Go by Bella Mackie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3424 Ruth Crilly: "This is my face, I don't want to tweak it" https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the award-winning… well what is she? Writer? Content creator? Blogger? Influencer? Ruth Crilly is all of the above. She started her blog A Model Recommends in 2010 - before it was really a thing - and became one of the UK’s first social media stars. She’s got 500k followers on YouTube and instagram and unbelievably she’s - gulp - over 40! I know. Ancient! And before all that, Ruth was a successful model and it’s that experience that forms the basis of her first book How Not To Be A Supermodel. This isn’t a grim story of abuse at the hands of a brutal industry, although it’s no walk in the park. Instead, Ruth somehow manages to find humour in the endless humiliations and inhumanities models are subjected to - being not tall enough, not cool enough, not thin enough to make it to supermodel stardom. Ruth joined me to talk to about being reduced to your looks when looks were never your currency, why there are two Ruths in her life (and one of them has to go!), why she wishes she’d known how perfect she was when she was 20, the trouble with social media and why she’s too lazy, too tight and too chicken to tweak! And while she’s at it she flogs me a beauty gadget to lift my face! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including How Not To Be A Supermodel by Ruth Crilly and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 03 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 203 sam baker A Model Recommends on brains, body image and being a social media influencer when you don't love social media My guest today is the award-winning… well what is she? Writer? Content creator? Blogger? Influencer? Ruth Crilly is all of the above. She started her blog A Model Recommends in 2010 - before it was really a thing - and became one of the UK’s first social media stars. She’s got 500k followers on YouTube and instagram and unbelievably she’s - gulp - over 40! I know. Ancient! And before all that, Ruth was a successful model and it’s that experience that forms the basis of her first book How Not To Be A Supermodel. This isn’t a grim story of abuse at the hands of a brutal industry, although it’s no walk in the park. Instead, Ruth somehow manages to find humour in the endless humiliations and inhumanities models are subjected to - being not tall enough, not cool enough, not thin enough to make it to supermodel stardom. Ruth joined me to talk to about being reduced to your looks when looks were never your currency, why there are two Ruths in her life (and one of them has to go!), why she wishes she’d known how perfect she was when she was 20, the trouble with social media and why she’s too lazy, too tight and too chicken to tweak! And while she’s at it she flogs me a beauty gadget to lift my face! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including How Not To Be A Supermodel by Ruth Crilly and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the award-winning… well what is she? Writer? Content creator? Blogger? Influencer? Ruth Crilly is all of the above. She started her blog A Model Recommends in 2010 - before it was really a thing - and became one of the UK’s first social media stars. She’s got 500k followers on YouTube and instagram and unbelievably she’s - gulp - over 40!

I know. Ancient!

And before all that, Ruth was a successful model and it’s that experience that forms the basis of her first book How Not To Be A Supermodel. This isn’t a grim story of abuse at the hands of a brutal industry, although it’s no walk in the park. Instead, Ruth somehow manages to find humour in the endless humiliations and inhumanities models are subjected to - being not tall enough, not cool enough, not thin enough to make it to supermodel stardom.

Ruth joined me to talk to about being reduced to your looks when looks were never your currency, why there are two Ruths in her life (and one of them has to go!), why she wishes she’d known how perfect she was when she was 20, the trouble with social media and why she’s too lazy, too tight and too chicken to tweak! And while she’s at it she flogs me a beauty gadget to lift my face!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including How Not To Be A Supermodel by Ruth Crilly and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3375 Deborah Harkness on witches, wising & the cancer diagnosis that upended her life https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the creator of the global bestseller and smash hit TV adaptation, The Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness. Now, I’m not sure if you know this about me, but I’m a bit obsessed with all things witchy, and I’ve been a devotee ever since the proof of the first book landed on my desk and I tumbled headlong into the world of Diana Bishop. Can you say, ob-sessed? But before all this Deborah was a scholar. A historian who teaches the history of science at the University of Southern California, she is an authority on alchemical manuscripts and for her doctorate researched the history of magic and science in Europe between 1500 and 1700. Sound familiar?  There’s more, just a couple of years ago Deborah discovered she was descended from not one, but two of the Salem women. Deborah joined me to talk about the latest book in the All Souls series - The Black Bird Oracle - which takes us to Salem and the descendants of the witch trials. We discussed also her life changing cancer diagnosis, why women’s pain is endlessly ignored, why she won’t be blunting her sharp pointy edges for anyone and why she loves being the crone of dark academia.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Blackbird Oracle by Deborah Harkness and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 27 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 202 sam baker The Discovery of Witches creator won't be blunting her sharp pointy edges for anyone and loves being the crone of dark academia! My guest today is the creator of the global bestseller and smash hit TV adaptation, The Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness. Now, I’m not sure if you know this about me, but I’m a bit obsessed with all things witchy, and I’ve been a devotee ever since the proof of the first book landed on my desk and I tumbled headlong into the world of Diana Bishop. Can you say, ob-sessed? But before all this Deborah was a scholar. A historian who teaches the history of science at the University of Southern California, she is an authority on alchemical manuscripts and for her doctorate researched the history of magic and science in Europe between 1500 and 1700. Sound familiar?  There’s more, just a couple of years ago Deborah discovered she was descended from not one, but two of the Salem women. Deborah joined me to talk about the latest book in the All Souls series - The Black Bird Oracle - which takes us to Salem and the descendants of the witch trials. We discussed also her life changing cancer diagnosis, why women’s pain is endlessly ignored, why she won’t be blunting her sharp pointy edges for anyone and why she loves being the crone of dark academia.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Blackbird Oracle by Deborah Harkness and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the creator of the global bestseller and smash hit TV adaptation, The Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness. Now, I’m not sure if you know this about me, but I’m a bit obsessed with all things witchy, and I’ve been a devotee ever since the proof of the first book landed on my desk and I tumbled headlong into the world of Diana Bishop. Can you say, ob-sessed?

But before all this Deborah was a scholar. A historian who teaches the history of science at the University of Southern California, she is an authority on alchemical manuscripts and for her doctorate researched the history of magic and science in Europe between 1500 and 1700. Sound familiar? 

There’s more, just a couple of years ago Deborah discovered she was descended from not one, but two of the Salem women.

Deborah joined me to talk about the latest book in the All Souls series - The Black Bird Oracle - which takes us to Salem and the descendants of the witch trials. We discussed also her life changing cancer diagnosis, why women’s pain is endlessly ignored, why she won’t be blunting her sharp pointy edges for anyone and why she loves being the crone of dark academia. 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Blackbird Oracle by Deborah Harkness and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3417 Fearne Cotton on the joy of embracing her second chapter https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Today’s guest is the queen of embracing the second chapter. Fearne Cotton started young. She became a children’s TV presenter at 15, presented Top of The Pops at 19 and took over Jo Whiley’s mid morning show on Radio One at just 27. But it’s what she’s achieved since turning her back on live radio and TV that’s really remarkable. In 2018 she launched Happy Place podcast, which has since amassed over 50 million downloads and expanded into a festival, bookclub, app and publishing imprint. As an author herself Fearne has written several books including the Sunday Times bestsellers Happy and Bigger Than Us.  But when people talk about Fearne they still describe her first and foremost as a broadcaster - instead of what she is: a highly successful and intuitive businesswoman who has curated an entire career, business and brand around her personal passions. Now she’s turned her hand to fiction, with Scripted, in which a chronic people pleaser learns how to say no. Frankly I can think of a few people (including yours truly) who could take a lesson or two… Fearne joined me to talk about how she finally found her balance in mid-life. We also discussed why being a step parent needs a rebrand, learning not to be a little bitch to yourself, respecting your energy levels as much as your bank balance. And why she love love love love loves being in her 40s. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Scripted by Fearne Cotton and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 20 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 201 sam baker The Happy Place creator on boundaries, body image, step-parenting and finding her balance in midlife Today’s guest is the queen of embracing the second chapter. Fearne Cotton started young. She became a children’s TV presenter at 15, presented Top of The Pops at 19 and took over Jo Whiley’s mid morning show on Radio One at just 27. But it’s what she’s achieved since turning her back on live radio and TV that’s really remarkable. In 2018 she launched Happy Place podcast, which has since amassed over 50 million downloads and expanded into a festival, bookclub, app and publishing imprint. As an author herself Fearne has written several books including the Sunday Times bestsellers Happy and Bigger Than Us.  But when people talk about Fearne they still describe her first and foremost as a broadcaster - instead of what she is: a highly successful and intuitive businesswoman who has curated an entire career, business and brand around her personal passions. Now she’s turned her hand to fiction, with Scripted, in which a chronic people pleaser learns how to say no. Frankly I can think of a few people (including yours truly) who could take a lesson or two… Fearne joined me to talk about how she finally found her balance in mid-life. We also discussed why being a step parent needs a rebrand, learning not to be a little bitch to yourself, respecting your energy levels as much as your bank balance. And why she love love love love loves being in her 40s. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Scripted by Fearne Cotton and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is the queen of embracing the second chapter. Fearne Cotton started young. She became a children’s TV presenter at 15, presented Top of The Pops at 19 and took over Jo Whiley’s mid morning show on Radio One at just 27.

But it’s what she’s achieved since turning her back on live radio and TV that’s really remarkable. In 2018 she launched Happy Place podcast, which has since amassed over 50 million downloads and expanded into a festival, bookclub, app and publishing imprint. As an author herself Fearne has written several books including the Sunday Times bestsellers Happy and Bigger Than Us. 

But when people talk about Fearne they still describe her first and foremost as a broadcaster - instead of what she is: a highly successful and intuitive businesswoman who has curated an entire career, business and brand around her personal passions.

Now she’s turned her hand to fiction, with Scripted, in which a chronic people pleaser learns how to say no. Frankly I can think of a few people (including yours truly) who could take a lesson or two…

Fearne joined me to talk about how she finally found her balance in mid-life. We also discussed why being a step parent needs a rebrand, learning not to be a little bitch to yourself, respecting your energy levels as much as your bank balance. And why she love love love love loves being in her 40s.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Scripted by Fearne Cotton and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3665 Lindsay Nicholson on resilience, recovery and the pursuit of perfection https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ I have known today’s guest for quite some time. Decades in fact. To begin with she didn’t really know me, because she was close friends with my first ever boss. During the time I sat on the sidelines of Lindsay Nicholson’s life, the unimaginable happened and her husband and then daughter both died of a rare form of leukaemia. Then she picked herself and her younger daughter, Hope, up from the ashes and rebuilt their lives. Already a successful editor she became editor of Good Housekeeping where she stayed for 18 years, winning countless awards. As if she hadn’t had more than her fair share of shit already, Lindsay then was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has now been in remission for 17 years. Then I left magazines and our ways parted. But a couple of years later I started to hear rumours - her second marriage (to a man who, from the outside, looked like some kind of knight in shining Armani) had fallen apart, magazines were in trouble and the company we had both worked for dispensed with their experienced talented (for which read expensive) editors. Including her, their most senior and decorated. That would be more than enough. But that wasn’t even the half of it. Now Lindsay has written a heart rending memoir, Perfect Bound about the car crash that triggered a crisis and losing it all for a second time. Her obsessive pursuit of perfection. And how she found it in herself to recover. Again.  CONTENT WARNING: Before we leap in, I have to be honest, this episode is A LOT; a lot of everything. And I do mean everything. A lot of joy, a lot of pain, (including suicidal ideation.) you name it Lindsay has been through it, so if you’re feeling fragile proceed with caution and tissues. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Perfect Bound by Lindsay Nicholson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 13 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 200 sam baker The former Good Housekeeping editor talks surgical menopause, grief, trauma and spending a night in the cells I have known today’s guest for quite some time. Decades in fact. To begin with she didn’t really know me, because she was close friends with my first ever boss. During the time I sat on the sidelines of Lindsay Nicholson’s life, the unimaginable happened and her husband and then daughter both died of a rare form of leukaemia. Then she picked herself and her younger daughter, Hope, up from the ashes and rebuilt their lives. Already a successful editor she became editor of Good Housekeeping where she stayed for 18 years, winning countless awards. As if she hadn’t had more than her fair share of shit already, Lindsay then was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has now been in remission for 17 years. Then I left magazines and our ways parted. But a couple of years later I started to hear rumours - her second marriage (to a man who, from the outside, looked like some kind of knight in shining Armani) had fallen apart, magazines were in trouble and the company we had both worked for dispensed with their experienced talented (for which read expensive) editors. Including her, their most senior and decorated. That would be more than enough. But that wasn’t even the half of it. Now Lindsay has written a heart rending memoir, Perfect Bound about the car crash that triggered a crisis and losing it all for a second time. Her obsessive pursuit of perfection. And how she found it in herself to recover. Again.  CONTENT WARNING: Before we leap in, I have to be honest, this episode is A LOT; a lot of everything. And I do mean everything. A lot of joy, a lot of pain, (including suicidal ideation.) you name it Lindsay has been through it, so if you’re feeling fragile proceed with caution and tissues. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Perfect Bound by Lindsay Nicholson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I have known today’s guest for quite some time. Decades in fact. To begin with she didn’t really know me, because she was close friends with my first ever boss. During the time I sat on the sidelines of Lindsay Nicholson’s life, the unimaginable happened and her husband and then daughter both died of a rare form of leukaemia.

Then she picked herself and her younger daughter, Hope, up from the ashes and rebuilt their lives. Already a successful editor she became editor of Good Housekeeping where she stayed for 18 years, winning countless awards.

As if she hadn’t had more than her fair share of shit already, Lindsay then was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has now been in remission for 17 years.

Then I left magazines and our ways parted. But a couple of years later I started to hear rumours - her second marriage (to a man who, from the outside, looked like some kind of knight in shining Armani) had fallen apart, magazines were in trouble and the company we had both worked for dispensed with their experienced talented (for which read expensive) editors. Including her, their most senior and decorated.

That would be more than enough. But that wasn’t even the half of it.

Now Lindsay has written a heart rending memoir, Perfect Bound about the car crash that triggered a crisis and losing it all for a second time. Her obsessive pursuit of perfection. And how she found it in herself to recover. Again. 

CONTENT WARNING: Before we leap in, I have to be honest, this episode is A LOT; a lot of everything. And I do mean everything. A lot of joy, a lot of pain, (including suicidal ideation.) you name it Lindsay has been through it, so if you’re feeling fragile proceed with caution and tissues.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Perfect Bound by Lindsay Nicholson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3744 Taffy Brodesser-Akner: "Everyone taught me to be afraid of middle age - I wish I could have started in it!" https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ If there’s anything more daunting than interviewing a professional interviewer it’s interviewing an award-winning professional interviewer. Today’s guest Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a staff-writer on the New York Times and a legend amongst journalists who often find themselves on the monosyllabic side of a celebrity. (Her interview with Bradley Cooper refusing to be interviewed for is a masterclass.) Her debut novel Fleishman is in Trouble was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller and then, never having written a screenplay before, she adapted it into a hit miniseries, starring Claire Danes, for which she won an Emmy. I mean. Her new novel, Long Island Compromise, has just been bought by Apple TV and looks set to go the same way. It follows four decades in the life of a wealthy Jewish Long Island family whose patriarch is kidnapped in 1980. The fall out is the story. Wealth class privilege trauma BDSM and controlling mothers abound. I met Taffy in her publisher’s office when she was visiting London to talk about her joy of turning 40 and realising the thing she’d been taught her whole life to be afraid of (middle age) was actually her ticket to freedom, the mystifying effect of money, the unlikely promise she made her mum and why her superpower is spotting a nose job. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 06 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0000 full 15 199 sam baker The Fleishman is in Trouble author on middle age, misogyny, nose jobs and the mystifying effect of money If there’s anything more daunting than interviewing a professional interviewer it’s interviewing an award-winning professional interviewer. Today’s guest Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a staff-writer on the New York Times and a legend amongst journalists who often find themselves on the monosyllabic side of a celebrity. (Her interview with Bradley Cooper refusing to be interviewed for is a masterclass.) Her debut novel Fleishman is in Trouble was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller and then, never having written a screenplay before, she adapted it into a hit miniseries, starring Claire Danes, for which she won an Emmy. I mean. Her new novel, Long Island Compromise, has just been bought by Apple TV and looks set to go the same way. It follows four decades in the life of a wealthy Jewish Long Island family whose patriarch is kidnapped in 1980. The fall out is the story. Wealth class privilege trauma BDSM and controlling mothers abound. I met Taffy in her publisher’s office when she was visiting London to talk about her joy of turning 40 and realising the thing she’d been taught her whole life to be afraid of (middle age) was actually her ticket to freedom, the mystifying effect of money, the unlikely promise she made her mum and why her superpower is spotting a nose job. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices If there’s anything more daunting than interviewing a professional interviewer it’s interviewing an award-winning professional interviewer.

Today’s guest Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a staff-writer on the New York Times and a legend amongst journalists who often find themselves on the monosyllabic side of a celebrity. (Her interview with Bradley Cooper refusing to be interviewed for is a masterclass.)

Her debut novel Fleishman is in Trouble was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller and then, never having written a screenplay before, she adapted it into a hit miniseries, starring Claire Danes, for which she won an Emmy. I mean.

Her new novel, Long Island Compromise, has just been bought by Apple TV and looks set to go the same way. It follows four decades in the life of a wealthy Jewish Long Island family whose patriarch is kidnapped in 1980. The fall out is the story. Wealth class privilege trauma BDSM and controlling mothers abound.

I met Taffy in her publisher’s office when she was visiting London to talk about her joy of turning 40 and realising the thing she’d been taught her whole life to be afraid of (middle age) was actually her ticket to freedom, the mystifying effect of money, the unlikely promise she made her mum and why her superpower is spotting a nose job.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3116 Zandra Rhodes: the legendary fashion designer on ageing uncompromisingly https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ I can’t be cool about today’s guest, so I’m not even going to try. Ever since I started The Shift I have had a Wishlist and high up on it from day one was Dame Zandra Rhodes. Yes, that Zandra Rhodes. There can only be one after all. For over 50 years, Zandra has been a leading figure in the British fashion industry, renowned for her prints and her use of colour. Over the years she has dressed everyone from Princesses Diana to Freddie Mercury, Diana Ross and Debbie Harry, and collaborated with everyone from M&S to Ikea. Zandra is nothing if not egalitarian. Now 83 (and in remission from the terminal cancer she was diagnosed with at the start of covid), she has no plans to stop any time soon, as evidenced by her new book Iconic, My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects, a whistle-stop tour through her incredible life hanging out with ossie clark, lunching with Truman Capote, making a lifelong friend of legendary vogue editor Diana Vreeland. Which is how I get to be on my way to Bermondsey to hang out at her fabulous flat to talk about her equally fabulous life. I know! Zandra and I sat down with a cuppa to discuss how a “boring little girl” became synonymous with big, bold, uncompromising style, her lifelong workaholism, living a child-free life, using clothes as armour and the rejection that was the making of her...  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Iconic: My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects by Zandra Rhodes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 30 Jul 2024 03:00:00 -0000 full 15 198 sam baker Workaholism, being child free, why she’s glad she never got married & the rejection that was the making of her I can’t be cool about today’s guest, so I’m not even going to try. Ever since I started The Shift I have had a Wishlist and high up on it from day one was Dame Zandra Rhodes. Yes, that Zandra Rhodes. There can only be one after all. For over 50 years, Zandra has been a leading figure in the British fashion industry, renowned for her prints and her use of colour. Over the years she has dressed everyone from Princesses Diana to Freddie Mercury, Diana Ross and Debbie Harry, and collaborated with everyone from M&S to Ikea. Zandra is nothing if not egalitarian. Now 83 (and in remission from the terminal cancer she was diagnosed with at the start of covid), she has no plans to stop any time soon, as evidenced by her new book Iconic, My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects, a whistle-stop tour through her incredible life hanging out with ossie clark, lunching with Truman Capote, making a lifelong friend of legendary vogue editor Diana Vreeland. Which is how I get to be on my way to Bermondsey to hang out at her fabulous flat to talk about her equally fabulous life. I know! Zandra and I sat down with a cuppa to discuss how a “boring little girl” became synonymous with big, bold, uncompromising style, her lifelong workaholism, living a child-free life, using clothes as armour and the rejection that was the making of her...  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Iconic: My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects by Zandra Rhodes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I can’t be cool about today’s guest, so I’m not even going to try. Ever since I started The Shift I have had a Wishlist and high up on it from day one was Dame Zandra Rhodes.

Yes, that Zandra Rhodes. There can only be one after all.

For over 50 years, Zandra has been a leading figure in the British fashion industry, renowned for her prints and her use of colour.

Over the years she has dressed everyone from Princesses Diana to Freddie Mercury, Diana Ross and Debbie Harry, and collaborated with everyone from M&S to Ikea. Zandra is nothing if not egalitarian.

Now 83 (and in remission from the terminal cancer she was diagnosed with at the start of covid), she has no plans to stop any time soon, as evidenced by her new book Iconic, My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects, a whistle-stop tour through her incredible life hanging out with ossie clark, lunching with Truman Capote, making a lifelong friend of legendary vogue editor Diana Vreeland.

Which is how I get to be on my way to Bermondsey to hang out at her fabulous flat to talk about her equally fabulous life. I know!

Zandra and I sat down with a cuppa to discuss how a “boring little girl” became synonymous with big, bold, uncompromising style, her lifelong workaholism, living a child-free life, using clothes as armour and the rejection that was the making of her... 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Iconic: My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects by Zandra Rhodes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3108 Terri White on work, class and mental health - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ In the last of our FROM THE ARCHIVES episodes, I'm revisiting one of the most important conversations I think I've had on this podcast (not to mention one of my favourites) - with Terri White, the brains behind the award-winning podcast, Finding Britain's Ghost Children, which explored why so many children are missing from Britain's class rooms. Earlier this year, the podcast took home Gold at the ARIAS (industry Oscars etc) as well as a host of other commendations... My guest this week has come a hell of a long way - from the Derbyshire village where she grew up, to London and the editor's seat of Empire magazine, by way of New York where she was one of Folio magazine’s top women in American media. Ostensibly Terri White was living the 'single woman in Manhattan' dream.  But, uber-competent at work, she was clinging by a thread in her personal life, struggling with chronic depression, self-harming and self-medicating with alcohol and prescription pills. When she was admitted to a psychiatric ward it marked the beginning of a remarkable journey that she documents in her extraordinary memoir, Coming Undone. To say it’s raw and unflinching would be a massive understatement. Brace yourself for some extreme honesty as Terri discusses her mental health struggles, being a working class woman in a middle class world, how becoming a mother affected her relationship with her own mother, curing herself of busy busy busy and why she would not go back to 25 if you paid her. Oh, and her extremely complicated relationship with her hair. TRIGGER WARNING: I must stress that if you’re feeling vulnerable there is frank discussion of mental health, sexual abuse, self harm and suicidal ideation. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Coming Undone by Terri White and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 23 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Terri White on work, class and mental health - FROM THE ARCHIVES full 14 196 sam baker The woman behind the award-winning podcast Finding Britain's Ghost Children on why poverty matters In the last of our FROM THE ARCHIVES episodes, I'm revisiting one of the most important conversations I think I've had on this podcast (not to mention one of my favourites) - with Terri White, the brains behind the award-winning podcast, Finding Britain's Ghost Children, which explored why so many children are missing from Britain's class rooms. Earlier this year, the podcast took home Gold at the ARIAS (industry Oscars etc) as well as a host of other commendations... My guest this week has come a hell of a long way - from the Derbyshire village where she grew up, to London and the editor's seat of Empire magazine, by way of New York where she was one of Folio magazine’s top women in American media. Ostensibly Terri White was living the 'single woman in Manhattan' dream.  But, uber-competent at work, she was clinging by a thread in her personal life, struggling with chronic depression, self-harming and self-medicating with alcohol and prescription pills. When she was admitted to a psychiatric ward it marked the beginning of a remarkable journey that she documents in her extraordinary memoir, Coming Undone. To say it’s raw and unflinching would be a massive understatement. Brace yourself for some extreme honesty as Terri discusses her mental health struggles, being a working class woman in a middle class world, how becoming a mother affected her relationship with her own mother, curing herself of busy busy busy and why she would not go back to 25 if you paid her. Oh, and her extremely complicated relationship with her hair. TRIGGER WARNING: I must stress that if you’re feeling vulnerable there is frank discussion of mental health, sexual abuse, self harm and suicidal ideation. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Coming Undone by Terri White and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In the last of our FROM THE ARCHIVES episodes, I'm revisiting one of the most important conversations I think I've had on this podcast (not to mention one of my favourites) - with Terri White, the brains behind the award-winning podcast, Finding Britain's Ghost Children, which explored why so many children are missing from Britain's class rooms. Earlier this year, the podcast took home Gold at the ARIAS (industry Oscars etc) as well as a host of other commendations...


My guest this week has come a hell of a long way - from the Derbyshire village where she grew up, to London and the editor's seat of Empire magazine, by way of New York where she was one of Folio magazine’s top women in American media. Ostensibly Terri White was living the 'single woman in Manhattan' dream. 


But, uber-competent at work, she was clinging by a thread in her personal life, struggling with chronic depression, self-harming and self-medicating with alcohol and prescription pills. When she was admitted to a psychiatric ward it marked the beginning of a remarkable journey that she documents in her extraordinary memoir, Coming Undone. To say it’s raw and unflinching would be a massive understatement.


Brace yourself for some extreme honesty as Terri discusses her mental health struggles, being a working class woman in a middle class world, how becoming a mother affected her relationship with her own mother, curing herself of busy busy busy and why she would not go back to 25 if you paid her. Oh, and her extremely complicated relationship with her hair.


TRIGGER WARNING: I must stress that if you’re feeling vulnerable there is frank discussion of mental health, sexual abuse, self harm and suicidal ideation.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Coming Undone by Terri White and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2999 no BONUS EPISODE! Katie Price on taking back control of her own life at 46 https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ There are plenty of famous women who we think we know all there is to know without ever having met them. Women we judge based on some random unsubstantiated headline, but there are few women that applies to quite so much as Katie Price. Katie has been in the public eye for thirty years. She started as the glamour model Jordan at just 17 years old and is now a bestselling author and businesswoman.  She has published six autobiographies, 11 novels and two series of children's books, released her own lingerie, haircare, perfume and equestrian lines, starred in a host of reality programmes and won Celebrity Big Brother in 2015.  She’s been through divorces, bankruptcies, carjacking, raised five children and campaigned for her disabled son, Harvey. She has survived childhood abuse, addiction, depression and much more. But Katie Price is sick to the back teeth of other people’s opinions of her. Which is why she’s written her 7th autobiography. This Is Me. Because she’s decided, at 46, that it’s about bloody time she wrote her own narrative, instead of letting other people. Katie joined me from her new house (where the wifi hasn’t been sorted out yet!) to talk about how her breakdown changed everything and the agony of revisiting the worst times in her life for the book. We also discussed ADHD, IVF, body dysmorphia, Botox and why, at 46, she’s finally got the knowledge and experience to take back control. Listen to The Katie Price Show. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including This Is Me by Katie Price and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Wed, 17 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0000 BONUS EPISODE! Katie Price on taking back control of her own life at 46 full 14 197 sam baker Botox, body dysmorphia, IVF, toxic relationships, perimenopause & bouncing back from breakdown There are plenty of famous women who we think we know all there is to know without ever having met them. Women we judge based on some random unsubstantiated headline, but there are few women that applies to quite so much as Katie Price. Katie has been in the public eye for thirty years. She started as the glamour model Jordan at just 17 years old and is now a bestselling author and businesswoman.  She has published six autobiographies, 11 novels and two series of children's books, released her own lingerie, haircare, perfume and equestrian lines, starred in a host of reality programmes and won Celebrity Big Brother in 2015.  She’s been through divorces, bankruptcies, carjacking, raised five children and campaigned for her disabled son, Harvey. She has survived childhood abuse, addiction, depression and much more. But Katie Price is sick to the back teeth of other people’s opinions of her. Which is why she’s written her 7th autobiography. This Is Me. Because she’s decided, at 46, that it’s about bloody time she wrote her own narrative, instead of letting other people. Katie joined me from her new house (where the wifi hasn’t been sorted out yet!) to talk about how her breakdown changed everything and the agony of revisiting the worst times in her life for the book. We also discussed ADHD, IVF, body dysmorphia, Botox and why, at 46, she’s finally got the knowledge and experience to take back control. Listen to The Katie Price Show. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including This Is Me by Katie Price and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices There are plenty of famous women who we think we know all there is to know without ever having met them. Women we judge based on some random unsubstantiated headline, but there are few women that applies to quite so much as Katie Price.


Katie has been in the public eye for thirty years. She started as the glamour model Jordan at just 17 years old and is now a bestselling author and businesswoman. 


She has published six autobiographies, 11 novels and two series of children's books, released her own lingerie, haircare, perfume and equestrian lines, starred in a host of reality programmes and won Celebrity Big Brother in 2015. 


She’s been through divorces, bankruptcies, carjacking, raised five children and campaigned for her disabled son, Harvey. She has survived childhood abuse, addiction, depression and much more.


But Katie Price is sick to the back teeth of other people’s opinions of her. Which is why she’s written her 7th autobiography. This Is Me. Because she’s decided, at 46, that it’s about bloody time she wrote her own narrative, instead of letting other people.


Katie joined me from her new house (where the wifi hasn’t been sorted out yet!) to talk about how her breakdown changed everything and the agony of revisiting the worst times in her life for the book. We also discussed ADHD, IVF, body dysmorphia, Botox and why, at 46, she’s finally got the knowledge and experience to take back control.


Listen to The Katie Price Show.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including This Is Me by Katie Price and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2468 yes Kate Mosse: Why caring is a feminist issue - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I'm not sure there's anyone quite like Kate Mosse. The driving power behind the Women's Prize for Fiction which is now in its 27th year (the winner was VV Ganeshananthan's Brotherless Night) and now the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction (whose inaugural winner was Doppleganger by Naomi Klein), she also manages to write a book a year (and they're not small!) The latest of which, The Ghost Ship, is just out in paperback. In tribute I thought we'd replay one of the earliest The Shift conversations with her. This one is from February 2021 when The Shift was but a baby!... You’d be hard pushed to think of anyone who has done more for women writers than this week’s guest. Twenty five years ago, Kate Mosse was working in publishing when she looked around and realised that everyone on all the awards shortlists looked familiar - pale, male and stale. The result - the Women’s Prize for Fiction - has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, and given a much-needed voice to women’s writing. Kate is also a bestselling author of 7 novels and 2 short story collections including the millions-selling global smash hit Labyrinth and her new book, The City of Tears. Kate is kind, funny and candid as she talks about how easily women's history is erased (and why we should never forget the women who went before us), her “other” job as a full-time carer - and why caring is a feminist issue - the devaluing of women’s work, being a pathological optimist and why she CANNOT WAIT to be 60. Trigger Warning: Kate also speaks honestly about bereavement and grief, three quarters of the way through the episode. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Midpoint Plan by Gabby Logan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 16 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Kate Mosse: Why caring is a feminist issue - FROM THE ARCHIVES full 14 195 sam baker The driving force behind the Women's Prize talks grief, the devaluing of women's work and a quarter of a century of the Women's Prize I'm not sure there's anyone quite like Kate Mosse. The driving power behind the Women's Prize for Fiction which is now in its 27th year (the winner was VV Ganeshananthan's Brotherless Night) and now the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction (whose inaugural winner was Doppleganger by Naomi Klein), she also manages to write a book a year (and they're not small!) The latest of which, The Ghost Ship, is just out in paperback. In tribute I thought we'd replay one of the earliest The Shift conversations with her. This one is from February 2021 when The Shift was but a baby!... You’d be hard pushed to think of anyone who has done more for women writers than this week’s guest. Twenty five years ago, Kate Mosse was working in publishing when she looked around and realised that everyone on all the awards shortlists looked familiar - pale, male and stale. The result - the Women’s Prize for Fiction - has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, and given a much-needed voice to women’s writing. Kate is also a bestselling author of 7 novels and 2 short story collections including the millions-selling global smash hit Labyrinth and her new book, The City of Tears. Kate is kind, funny and candid as she talks about how easily women's history is erased (and why we should never forget the women who went before us), her “other” job as a full-time carer - and why caring is a feminist issue - the devaluing of women’s work, being a pathological optimist and why she CANNOT WAIT to be 60. Trigger Warning: Kate also speaks honestly about bereavement and grief, three quarters of the way through the episode. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Midpoint Plan by Gabby Logan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I'm not sure there's anyone quite like Kate Mosse. The driving power behind the Women's Prize for Fiction which is now in its 27th year (the winner was VV Ganeshananthan's Brotherless Night) and now the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction (whose inaugural winner was Doppleganger by Naomi Klein), she also manages to write a book a year (and they're not small!) The latest of which, The Ghost Ship, is just out in paperback. In tribute I thought we'd replay one of the earliest The Shift conversations with her. This one is from February 2021 when The Shift was but a baby!...


You’d be hard pushed to think of anyone who has done more for women writers than this week’s guest. Twenty five years ago, Kate Mosse was working in publishing when she looked around and realised that everyone on all the awards shortlists looked familiar - pale, male and stale. The result - the Women’s Prize for Fiction - has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, and given a much-needed voice to women’s writing.


Kate is also a bestselling author of 7 novels and 2 short story collections including the millions-selling global smash hit Labyrinth and her new book, The City of Tears. Kate is kind, funny and candid as she talks about how easily women's history is erased (and why we should never forget the women who went before us), her “other” job as a full-time carer - and why caring is a feminist issue - the devaluing of women’s work, being a pathological optimist and why she CANNOT WAIT to be 60.


Trigger Warning: Kate also speaks honestly about bereavement and grief, three quarters of the way through the episode.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Midpoint Plan by Gabby Logan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2671 no Gabby Logan on resilience, reclaiming middle age and why equality begins at home - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ It's Gabby Logan's summer. First there's the Euros and then the Paris Olympics are hot on their heels. Plus, she has a new book, The Midpoint Plan, out so it seemed like a fine time to revisit my conversation with her from a couple of years ago... My guest this week has hosted everything from Final Score to the Six Nations to the Olympics. Formerly an international gymnast, Gabby Logan moved into broadcasting in her early 20s and neither she – nor the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting – have looked back. Now 47, she’s launched The Mid-Point, a podcast about midlife career change and becoming more comfortable in your own skin.  Join us as Gabby talks resilience, reclaiming “middle age”, competitive coping, cooking for Mary Berry and why equality begins at home. Oh, and how it feels to be the Dame Judi Dench of sports broadcasting! And… There’s SO MUCH more. You’ll just have to listen on… * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Midpoint Plan by Gabby Logan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Gabby Logan on resilience, reclaiming middle age and why equality begins at home - FROM THE ARCHIVES full 14 194 sam baker As Gabby Logan takes over our TVs this summer, we're revisiting our conversation with the queen of British sports TV It's Gabby Logan's summer. First there's the Euros and then the Paris Olympics are hot on their heels. Plus, she has a new book, The Midpoint Plan, out so it seemed like a fine time to revisit my conversation with her from a couple of years ago... My guest this week has hosted everything from Final Score to the Six Nations to the Olympics. Formerly an international gymnast, Gabby Logan moved into broadcasting in her early 20s and neither she – nor the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting – have looked back. Now 47, she’s launched The Mid-Point, a podcast about midlife career change and becoming more comfortable in your own skin.  Join us as Gabby talks resilience, reclaiming “middle age”, competitive coping, cooking for Mary Berry and why equality begins at home. Oh, and how it feels to be the Dame Judi Dench of sports broadcasting! And… There’s SO MUCH more. You’ll just have to listen on… * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Midpoint Plan by Gabby Logan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices It's Gabby Logan's summer. First there's the Euros and then the Paris Olympics are hot on their heels. Plus, she has a new book, The Midpoint Plan, out so it seemed like a fine time to revisit my conversation with her from a couple of years ago...


My guest this week has hosted everything from Final Score to the Six Nations to the Olympics. Formerly an international gymnast, Gabby Logan moved into broadcasting in her early 20s and neither she – nor the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting – have looked back. Now 47, she’s launched The Mid-Point, a podcast about midlife career change and becoming more comfortable in your own skin. 


Join us as Gabby talks resilience, reclaiming “middle age”, competitive coping, cooking for Mary Berry and why equality begins at home. Oh, and how it feels to be the Dame Judi Dench of sports broadcasting! And… There’s SO MUCH more. You’ll just have to listen on…


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Midpoint Plan by Gabby Logan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2990 no Kathy Lette’s midlife mantra: if it doesn’t spark joy, it’s time to toss it away! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ It's season finale time! And my guest today is the whirlwind also known as Kathy Lette. Australian Kathy smashed her way into the global bestseller lists at the age of 17 with the novel Puberty Blues. Since then she has turned her irreverent, en pointe pen on the peaks and troughs, triumphs and total BS of female existence. I first read her with Girls Night Out and The Llama Parlour in my twenties and met Kathy when I was features editor of New Woman (yet another resident of the magazine graveyard). Foetal Attraction and Mad Cow followed, which was made into a film starring Anna Friel and Joanna Lumley. 20 books later, her latest, The Revenge Club, takes hilarious aim at the way women are scrap-heaped (sometimes professionally and personally) in their 50s. Kathy joined me to play pun bingo and talk about why life is in two acts and the key is surviving the perimenopausal interval, reaping the benefits of the invisibility cloak and chipping away at ageing double standards. She also told me about being told off by her teenage daughter, the power of complaining, why divorce isn’t to be feared and why her midlife mantra is, if it doesn’t spark joy, it’s time to toss it away. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Revenge Club by Kathy Lette and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 02 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Kathy Lette’s midlife mantra: if it doesn’t spark joy, it’s time to toss it away! full 14 193 sam baker The author of Girls Night Out and Mad Cows on revenge, divorce and why she's writing "I don't give a shit lit"! It's season finale time! And my guest today is the whirlwind also known as Kathy Lette. Australian Kathy smashed her way into the global bestseller lists at the age of 17 with the novel Puberty Blues. Since then she has turned her irreverent, en pointe pen on the peaks and troughs, triumphs and total BS of female existence. I first read her with Girls Night Out and The Llama Parlour in my twenties and met Kathy when I was features editor of New Woman (yet another resident of the magazine graveyard). Foetal Attraction and Mad Cow followed, which was made into a film starring Anna Friel and Joanna Lumley. 20 books later, her latest, The Revenge Club, takes hilarious aim at the way women are scrap-heaped (sometimes professionally and personally) in their 50s. Kathy joined me to play pun bingo and talk about why life is in two acts and the key is surviving the perimenopausal interval, reaping the benefits of the invisibility cloak and chipping away at ageing double standards. She also told me about being told off by her teenage daughter, the power of complaining, why divorce isn’t to be feared and why her midlife mantra is, if it doesn’t spark joy, it’s time to toss it away. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Revenge Club by Kathy Lette and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's season finale time! And my guest today is the whirlwind also known as Kathy Lette.


Australian Kathy smashed her way into the global bestseller lists at the age of 17 with the novel Puberty Blues. Since then she has turned her irreverent, en pointe pen on the peaks and troughs, triumphs and total BS of female existence.


I first read her with Girls Night Out and The Llama Parlour in my twenties and met Kathy when I was features editor of New Woman (yet another resident of the magazine graveyard). Foetal Attraction and Mad Cow followed, which was made into a film starring Anna Friel and Joanna Lumley. 20 books later, her latest, The Revenge Club, takes hilarious aim at the way women are scrap-heaped (sometimes professionally and personally) in their 50s.


Kathy joined me to play pun bingo and talk about why life is in two acts and the key is surviving the perimenopausal interval, reaping the benefits of the invisibility cloak and chipping away at ageing double standards. She also told me about being told off by her teenage daughter, the power of complaining, why divorce isn’t to be feared and why her midlife mantra is, if it doesn’t spark joy, it’s time to toss it away.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Revenge Club by Kathy Lette and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2765 no Molly Roden-Winter on becoming an ambassador for polyamory in your 50s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the teacher, musician and writer Molly Roden Winter. Molly hit the headlines earlier this year when her memoir More was published in the United States and caused… let’s just call it “a storm”. Why? Because Molly’s book is an incredibly candid account of her open marriage. Which, lets face it, shouldn’t be that big of a deal in 2024. But something about a woman - a married woman, a mother, and one no longer in the first flushes of youth - talking so frankly about sex and self-discovery seemed to enflame people! More rushed straight to the top of the New York Times bestseller lists and now it’s been published in the UK.  But it’s not just about sex - although there’s plenty of that - it’s about how a lifelong people pleaser, a good girl, “straight As Molly” learnt to put herself first.  As Straight As Sam, I wanted to hear more! Molly joined me from Brooklyn to take us on her journey (sorry!) from monogamous thirtysomething mother of two small boys to unwitting ambassador for polyamory in her mid-50s! We also discussed the importance of owning your mess, becoming a sexual subject on your own terms, the revelation of realising you can love more than one person and the impact of discovering her parents were polyamorous too. I found this conversation a total revelation. Hope you will too.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including More by Molly Roden Winter and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 25 Jun 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Molly Roden-Winter on becoming an ambassador for polyamory in your 50s full 14 192 sam baker Anything can happen when a good girl breaks out! My guest today is the teacher, musician and writer Molly Roden Winter. Molly hit the headlines earlier this year when her memoir More was published in the United States and caused… let’s just call it “a storm”. Why? Because Molly’s book is an incredibly candid account of her open marriage. Which, lets face it, shouldn’t be that big of a deal in 2024. But something about a woman - a married woman, a mother, and one no longer in the first flushes of youth - talking so frankly about sex and self-discovery seemed to enflame people! More rushed straight to the top of the New York Times bestseller lists and now it’s been published in the UK.  But it’s not just about sex - although there’s plenty of that - it’s about how a lifelong people pleaser, a good girl, “straight As Molly” learnt to put herself first.  As Straight As Sam, I wanted to hear more! Molly joined me from Brooklyn to take us on her journey (sorry!) from monogamous thirtysomething mother of two small boys to unwitting ambassador for polyamory in her mid-50s! We also discussed the importance of owning your mess, becoming a sexual subject on your own terms, the revelation of realising you can love more than one person and the impact of discovering her parents were polyamorous too. I found this conversation a total revelation. Hope you will too.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including More by Molly Roden Winter and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the teacher, musician and writer Molly Roden Winter. Molly hit the headlines earlier this year when her memoir More was published in the United States and caused… let’s just call it “a storm”.


Why? Because Molly’s book is an incredibly candid account of her open marriage. Which, lets face it, shouldn’t be that big of a deal in 2024. But something about a woman - a married woman, a mother, and one no longer in the first flushes of youth - talking so frankly about sex and self-discovery seemed to enflame people! More rushed straight to the top of the New York Times bestseller lists and now it’s been published in the UK. 


But it’s not just about sex - although there’s plenty of that - it’s about how a lifelong people pleaser, a good girl, “straight As Molly” learnt to put herself first. 


As Straight As Sam, I wanted to hear more!


Molly joined me from Brooklyn to take us on her journey (sorry!) from monogamous thirtysomething mother of two small boys to unwitting ambassador for polyamory in her mid-50s! We also discussed the importance of owning your mess, becoming a sexual subject on your own terms, the revelation of realising you can love more than one person and the impact of discovering her parents were polyamorous too. I found this conversation a total revelation. Hope you will too. 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including More by Molly Roden Winter and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3804 no Liz Jensen on learning to love life again after devastating loss https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ CONTENT WARNING: There are many moments of joy in this conversation, but please be aware that Liz talks candidly about grief and the sudden death of her son, which some listeners may find upsetting. My guest today is the writer and climate activist Liz Jensen. Half Danish and half-anglo Moroccan, Liz started out as a journalist, working in radio before becoming a BBC producer. Then, Liz turned her hand to novels. She has now written nine, perhaps the best known of which is The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, which was turned into a movie starring Jamie Dornan. Now she has written memoir, one no-one would ever want to write. Your Wild and Precious Life, is, at its heart the devastating story of the nine months after her youngest son Raphael died suddenly at the age of 25. Raph was a zoologist and climate activist, and this is also the story of Liz’s own awakening. She is a founder of Extinction Rebellion Writers Rebel, which combines words and action to highlight the climate and ecological emergency. Liz joined me to talk about surviving the loss of a child, translating grief into hope and opening herself up to the natural world. We also discussed magical thinking, the concept of kairos, the unexpected solace of being part of the terrible club and why she used to want to marry an ape! A note: The episode of The Shift Liz and I discuss in the first five minutes is my conversation with 103-year-old Dr Gladys McGarey, you can listen to it here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Your Wild and Precious Life by Liz Jensen and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Liz Jensen on learning to love life again after devastating loss full 14 191 sam baker The writer and climate activist talks grief, hope, magical thinking and how loss opened her up to the natural world CONTENT WARNING: There are many moments of joy in this conversation, but please be aware that Liz talks candidly about grief and the sudden death of her son, which some listeners may find upsetting. My guest today is the writer and climate activist Liz Jensen. Half Danish and half-anglo Moroccan, Liz started out as a journalist, working in radio before becoming a BBC producer. Then, Liz turned her hand to novels. She has now written nine, perhaps the best known of which is The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, which was turned into a movie starring Jamie Dornan. Now she has written memoir, one no-one would ever want to write. Your Wild and Precious Life, is, at its heart the devastating story of the nine months after her youngest son Raphael died suddenly at the age of 25. Raph was a zoologist and climate activist, and this is also the story of Liz’s own awakening. She is a founder of Extinction Rebellion Writers Rebel, which combines words and action to highlight the climate and ecological emergency. Liz joined me to talk about surviving the loss of a child, translating grief into hope and opening herself up to the natural world. We also discussed magical thinking, the concept of kairos, the unexpected solace of being part of the terrible club and why she used to want to marry an ape! A note: The episode of The Shift Liz and I discuss in the first five minutes is my conversation with 103-year-old Dr Gladys McGarey, you can listen to it here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Your Wild and Precious Life by Liz Jensen and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices CONTENT WARNING: There are many moments of joy in this conversation, but please be aware that Liz talks candidly about grief and the sudden death of her son, which some listeners may find upsetting.


My guest today is the writer and climate activist Liz Jensen. Half Danish and half-anglo Moroccan, Liz started out as a journalist, working in radio before becoming a BBC producer. Then, Liz turned her hand to novels. She has now written nine, perhaps the best known of which is The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, which was turned into a movie starring Jamie Dornan.


Now she has written memoir, one no-one would ever want to write.


Your Wild and Precious Life, is, at its heart the devastating story of the nine months after her youngest son Raphael died suddenly at the age of 25. Raph was a zoologist and climate activist, and this is also the story of Liz’s own awakening.


She is a founder of Extinction Rebellion Writers Rebel, which combines words and action to highlight the climate and ecological emergency.


Liz joined me to talk about surviving the loss of a child, translating grief into hope and opening herself up to the natural world. We also discussed magical thinking, the concept of kairos, the unexpected solace of being part of the terrible club and why she used to want to marry an ape!


A note: The episode of The Shift Liz and I discuss in the first five minutes is my conversation with 103-year-old Dr Gladys McGarey, you can listen to it here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Your Wild and Precious Life by Liz Jensen and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3288 no Emily Nagoski: what happens when a sex expert loses her sex drive? https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I first came across today’s guest, Dr Emily Nagoski, on this very podcast, when my then guest Sarah Knight (creator of the NoFucks Given franchise) raved about the transformational power of her runaway bestseller, Come As You Are. I hunted it down and, like millions of women the world over, I was blown away. A sex expert speaking our language? Taking the pressure off, rather than piling it on? Never! So when I heard that the Kinsey-educated sex educator had turned her attention to long term relationships in her new book, Come Together, I was obsessed. Not least because it turns out that sex experts are human too and Emily had experienced her own fallow period. But instead of wallowing in it or panicking or buying uncomfortable knickers, Emily used her own story of sexual disconnection and reconnection as an opportunity to look at what makes and breaks sexual connections. And guess what: it’s not what you think. Emily joined me from her home in New England to discuss coming out as a sex expert who lost her sex drive, taking the shoulds out of your sex life, why passion is overrated, how to get the weeds out of your sexual garden! being told she no longer had a “young vagina” And Why she only has one inarguable piece of advice: lube is good! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Come As You Are and Come Together by Emily Nagoski and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 11 Jun 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Emily Nagoski: what happens when a sex expert loses her sex drive? full 14 190 sam baker The Kinsey-educated sex educator has some ideas about what a great sex life looks like. It's not what you think I first came across today’s guest, Dr Emily Nagoski, on this very podcast, when my then guest Sarah Knight (creator of the NoFucks Given franchise) raved about the transformational power of her runaway bestseller, Come As You Are. I hunted it down and, like millions of women the world over, I was blown away. A sex expert speaking our language? Taking the pressure off, rather than piling it on? Never! So when I heard that the Kinsey-educated sex educator had turned her attention to long term relationships in her new book, Come Together, I was obsessed. Not least because it turns out that sex experts are human too and Emily had experienced her own fallow period. But instead of wallowing in it or panicking or buying uncomfortable knickers, Emily used her own story of sexual disconnection and reconnection as an opportunity to look at what makes and breaks sexual connections. And guess what: it’s not what you think. Emily joined me from her home in New England to discuss coming out as a sex expert who lost her sex drive, taking the shoulds out of your sex life, why passion is overrated, how to get the weeds out of your sexual garden! being told she no longer had a “young vagina” And Why she only has one inarguable piece of advice: lube is good! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Come As You Are and Come Together by Emily Nagoski and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I first came across today’s guest, Dr Emily Nagoski, on this very podcast, when my then guest Sarah Knight (creator of the NoFucks Given franchise) raved about the transformational power of her runaway bestseller, Come As You Are.


I hunted it down and, like millions of women the world over, I was blown away. A sex expert speaking our language? Taking the pressure off, rather than piling it on? Never!


So when I heard that the Kinsey-educated sex educator had turned her attention to long term relationships in her new book, Come Together, I was obsessed. Not least because it turns out that sex experts are human too and Emily had experienced her own fallow period.


But instead of wallowing in it or panicking or buying uncomfortable knickers, Emily used her own story of sexual disconnection and reconnection as an opportunity to look at what makes and breaks sexual connections.


And guess what: it’s not what you think.


Emily joined me from her home in New England to discuss coming out as a sex expert who lost her sex drive, taking the shoulds out of your sex life, why passion is overrated, how to get the weeds out of your sexual garden! being told she no longer had a “young vagina” And Why she only has one inarguable piece of advice: lube is good!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Come As You Are and Come Together by Emily Nagoski and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3419 no Anna Cascarina: you’re never too old to wear what the hell you want https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is a fashion editor on a mission to improve the representation of all women over 40 - not just the thin white ones with a ton of spare cash! Anna Cascarina has worked in the fashion industry for over 25 years, first as a fashion editor and stylist, then as a teacher. But as she got older and so did her body, something rankled. Yep - she was starting to feel like she and women like her (ie women over 40 and not a size 10) were not welcome here. In the stores she’d always shopped at, in the magazines she’d worked for, in ad campaigns and on screen. And so Anna started her Instagram account to help women who didn’t fit the mould feel empowered through fashion. 120,000 followers later it seems like she’s not the only one who’s hacked off with the fashion industry for invisibling her. Anna joined me to talk about her new book The Forever Wardrobe, Being a size 16 woman who loves fashion when it doesn’t love her back, The impact the fashion industry has had on her Body image and the responsibility she feels not to pass it on to her daughter. We also discussed how her epilepsy has impacted perimenopause and some ugly truths about ageing that no-one wants to tell you (hello arthritis!). * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Forever Wardrobe by Anna Cascarina and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 04 Jun 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Anna Cascarina: you’re never too old to wear what the hell you want full 14 189 sam baker The fashion editor on a mission to improve fashion's representation of ALL women over 40 - not just the thin, white, able-bodied ones My guest today is a fashion editor on a mission to improve the representation of all women over 40 - not just the thin white ones with a ton of spare cash! Anna Cascarina has worked in the fashion industry for over 25 years, first as a fashion editor and stylist, then as a teacher. But as she got older and so did her body, something rankled. Yep - she was starting to feel like she and women like her (ie women over 40 and not a size 10) were not welcome here. In the stores she’d always shopped at, in the magazines she’d worked for, in ad campaigns and on screen. And so Anna started her Instagram account to help women who didn’t fit the mould feel empowered through fashion. 120,000 followers later it seems like she’s not the only one who’s hacked off with the fashion industry for invisibling her. Anna joined me to talk about her new book The Forever Wardrobe, Being a size 16 woman who loves fashion when it doesn’t love her back, The impact the fashion industry has had on her Body image and the responsibility she feels not to pass it on to her daughter. We also discussed how her epilepsy has impacted perimenopause and some ugly truths about ageing that no-one wants to tell you (hello arthritis!). * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Forever Wardrobe by Anna Cascarina and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a fashion editor on a mission to improve the representation of all women over 40 - not just the thin white ones with a ton of spare cash! Anna Cascarina has worked in the fashion industry for over 25 years, first as a fashion editor and stylist, then as a teacher.


But as she got older and so did her body, something rankled. Yep - she was starting to feel like she and women like her (ie women over 40 and not a size 10) were not welcome here. In the stores she’d always shopped at, in the magazines she’d worked for, in ad campaigns and on screen.


And so Anna started her Instagram account to help women who didn’t fit the mould feel empowered through fashion. 120,000 followers later it seems like she’s not the only one who’s hacked off with the fashion industry for invisibling her.


Anna joined me to talk about her new book The Forever Wardrobe, Being a size 16 woman who loves fashion when it doesn’t love her back, The impact the fashion industry has had on her Body image and the responsibility she feels not to pass it on to her daughter. We also discussed how her epilepsy has impacted perimenopause and some ugly truths about ageing that no-one wants to tell you (hello arthritis!).


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Forever Wardrobe by Anna Cascarina and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3723 no Jackie Kay on absence, adoption & the art of living together apart https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today has blazed a trail through the British poetry scene ever since her work was first published in 1991. Born in Edinburgh, Jackie Kay MBE was brought up in Glasgow by her adoptive parents, Helen and John Kay, of whom much more later. She has had countless poetry collections, short stories and novels published to acclaim, as well as her glorious memoir Red Dust Road which tells the story of meeting her birth parents. The winner of over 20 awards, Jackie is a professor of creative writing at Salford University and for five years she was the Scottish Makar (that’s basically poet laureate). Her new collection May Day is an elegy to her beloved parents who (died within a year of each other) and taught her the meaning and power of protest. Something Jackie took to heart marching for women’s rights, gay liberation and Black Lives Matter. I went to Glasgow to meet Jackie while she was on tour. Her beloved older brother Maxie had just died and she spoke candidly about love, loss and absence, living with nothing between you and the sky and how poetry helps her survive. We also discussed coming back into yourself in your 50s and 60s, why there should be lists after white male writer’s names, the art of living together apart and why her emotional age is 150! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including MayDay by Jackie Kay and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Jackie Kay on absence, adoption & the art of living together apart full 14 188 sam baker The acclaimed poet talks grief, coming back into yourself in your 50s and 60s and why her emotional age is 150 My guest today has blazed a trail through the British poetry scene ever since her work was first published in 1991. Born in Edinburgh, Jackie Kay MBE was brought up in Glasgow by her adoptive parents, Helen and John Kay, of whom much more later. She has had countless poetry collections, short stories and novels published to acclaim, as well as her glorious memoir Red Dust Road which tells the story of meeting her birth parents. The winner of over 20 awards, Jackie is a professor of creative writing at Salford University and for five years she was the Scottish Makar (that’s basically poet laureate). Her new collection May Day is an elegy to her beloved parents who (died within a year of each other) and taught her the meaning and power of protest. Something Jackie took to heart marching for women’s rights, gay liberation and Black Lives Matter. I went to Glasgow to meet Jackie while she was on tour. Her beloved older brother Maxie had just died and she spoke candidly about love, loss and absence, living with nothing between you and the sky and how poetry helps her survive. We also discussed coming back into yourself in your 50s and 60s, why there should be lists after white male writer’s names, the art of living together apart and why her emotional age is 150! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including MayDay by Jackie Kay and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today has blazed a trail through the British poetry scene ever since her work was first published in 1991. Born in Edinburgh, Jackie Kay MBE was brought up in Glasgow by her adoptive parents, Helen and John Kay, of whom much more later. She has had countless poetry collections, short stories and novels published to acclaim, as well as her glorious memoir Red Dust Road which tells the story of meeting her birth parents. The winner of over 20 awards, Jackie is a professor of creative writing at Salford University and for five years she was the Scottish Makar (that’s basically poet laureate).


Her new collection May Day is an elegy to her beloved parents who (died within a year of each other) and taught her the meaning and power of protest. Something Jackie took to heart marching for women’s rights, gay liberation and Black Lives Matter.


I went to Glasgow to meet Jackie while she was on tour. Her beloved older brother Maxie had just died and she spoke candidly about love, loss and absence, living with nothing between you and the sky and how poetry helps her survive. We also discussed coming back into yourself in your 50s and 60s, why there should be lists after white male writer’s names, the art of living together apart and why her emotional age is 150!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including MayDay by Jackie Kay and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3606 no Helen Lederer on anxiety, failure & living an “alarmingly truthful” life https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the writer, actress and comedian Helen Lederer. Helen began as a stand-up comedian in the “comedy swamp” of the 1980s, where women were like hen’s teeth and rose to fame with her sloaney girl at the bar in the BBC Comedy ‘Naked video’. Then came Saturday Night Live, The Young Ones, French and Saunders and Bottom with Rik Mayall. But she’s probably best known as Catriona the dippy journalist in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous. It was after writing her first novel, Losing It, that Helen set up the Comedy Women In Print prize to put funny women’s writing on the map and help ensure the next generation wouldn’t have to put up with the lack of recognition she endured. (Also, she was pissed off!) Now the woman Dawn French calls “the third funniest woman in the world” has written a hilarious and frequently painful memoir about surviving that swamp, Not That I’m Bitter. She tells truths, she names names and she gives herself an absolute hiding! Helen and I got together over a Zoom cuppa to discuss life as the lone woman on the 80s comedy circuit and why being a pioneer is all very well, but she’d rather have had mainstream success! She also talked about professional jealousy, not “being in the A team”, fear of authority, why she’s spent her life on a diet (remember Limmits biscuits?!) And being tougher on herself than anyone else. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Not That I'm Bitter by Helen Lederer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 21 May 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Helen Lederer on anxiety, failure & living an “alarmingly truthful” life full 14 187 sam baker The woman Dawn French described as "the third funniest woman in the world" talks professional jealousy, the downside of being a pioneer and 80s diet culture My guest today is the writer, actress and comedian Helen Lederer. Helen began as a stand-up comedian in the “comedy swamp” of the 1980s, where women were like hen’s teeth and rose to fame with her sloaney girl at the bar in the BBC Comedy ‘Naked video’. Then came Saturday Night Live, The Young Ones, French and Saunders and Bottom with Rik Mayall. But she’s probably best known as Catriona the dippy journalist in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous. It was after writing her first novel, Losing It, that Helen set up the Comedy Women In Print prize to put funny women’s writing on the map and help ensure the next generation wouldn’t have to put up with the lack of recognition she endured. (Also, she was pissed off!) Now the woman Dawn French calls “the third funniest woman in the world” has written a hilarious and frequently painful memoir about surviving that swamp, Not That I’m Bitter. She tells truths, she names names and she gives herself an absolute hiding! Helen and I got together over a Zoom cuppa to discuss life as the lone woman on the 80s comedy circuit and why being a pioneer is all very well, but she’d rather have had mainstream success! She also talked about professional jealousy, not “being in the A team”, fear of authority, why she’s spent her life on a diet (remember Limmits biscuits?!) And being tougher on herself than anyone else. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Not That I'm Bitter by Helen Lederer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the writer, actress and comedian Helen Lederer. Helen began as a stand-up comedian in the “comedy swamp” of the 1980s, where women were like hen’s teeth and rose to fame with her sloaney girl at the bar in the BBC Comedy ‘Naked video’. Then came Saturday Night Live, The Young Ones, French and Saunders and Bottom with Rik Mayall. But she’s probably best known as Catriona the dippy journalist in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous.


It was after writing her first novel, Losing It, that Helen set up the Comedy Women In Print prize to put funny women’s writing on the map and help ensure the next generation wouldn’t have to put up with the lack of recognition she endured. (Also, she was pissed off!)


Now the woman Dawn French calls “the third funniest woman in the world” has written a hilarious and frequently painful memoir about surviving that swamp, Not That I’m Bitter. She tells truths, she names names and she gives herself an absolute hiding!


Helen and I got together over a Zoom cuppa to discuss life as the lone woman on the 80s comedy circuit and why being a pioneer is all very well, but she’d rather have had mainstream success! She also talked about professional jealousy, not “being in the A team”, fear of authority, why she’s spent her life on a diet (remember Limmits biscuits?!) And being tougher on herself than anyone else.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Not That I'm Bitter by Helen Lederer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3271 no Miranda July on the unexpected wildness of ageing https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Every so often you get the chance to interview someone whose work has fascinated you for, well, forever. And today is one of those days.  Miranda July is an artist, performer, film maker and writer who has been doing it her own way since she was in her teens. She has made three films - The Future, Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, held countless exhibitions, written several books and won a bunch of awards. You get the picture. Now 50, Miranda has turned her attention to midlife with her first novel in a decade. All Fours is a painful, poignant, hilarious and extremely hot exploration of what happens when “a curious, creative, sexually active woman reaches the midpoint of her life, goes off the oestrogen cliff and starts to question her direction?” It is wholly unlike anything else I’ve read about this life stage. And is sure to change a few games. Miranda joined me to talk about her own trip off the oestrogen cliff, reimagining relationships as we get older, conscious co-parenting and moving into the house in the backyard. We also discussed the menopause whisper network, outing herself as “no longer young”, getting out of the anxiety cul de sac and why ageing is “unexpectedly wild”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including All Fours by Miranda July and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 14 May 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Miranda July on the unexpected wildness of ageing full 14 186 sam baker What happens when a curious, creative, sexually active woman dives off the oestrogen cliff? Prepare to find out! Every so often you get the chance to interview someone whose work has fascinated you for, well, forever. And today is one of those days.  Miranda July is an artist, performer, film maker and writer who has been doing it her own way since she was in her teens. She has made three films - The Future, Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, held countless exhibitions, written several books and won a bunch of awards. You get the picture. Now 50, Miranda has turned her attention to midlife with her first novel in a decade. All Fours is a painful, poignant, hilarious and extremely hot exploration of what happens when “a curious, creative, sexually active woman reaches the midpoint of her life, goes off the oestrogen cliff and starts to question her direction?” It is wholly unlike anything else I’ve read about this life stage. And is sure to change a few games. Miranda joined me to talk about her own trip off the oestrogen cliff, reimagining relationships as we get older, conscious co-parenting and moving into the house in the backyard. We also discussed the menopause whisper network, outing herself as “no longer young”, getting out of the anxiety cul de sac and why ageing is “unexpectedly wild”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including All Fours by Miranda July and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Every so often you get the chance to interview someone whose work has fascinated you for, well, forever. And today is one of those days. 


Miranda July is an artist, performer, film maker and writer who has been doing it her own way since she was in her teens. She has made three films - The Future, Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, held countless exhibitions, written several books and won a bunch of awards. You get the picture.


Now 50, Miranda has turned her attention to midlife with her first novel in a decade. All Fours is a painful, poignant, hilarious and extremely hot exploration of what happens when “a curious, creative, sexually active woman reaches the midpoint of her life, goes off the oestrogen cliff and starts to question her direction?”


It is wholly unlike anything else I’ve read about this life stage. And is sure to change a few games.


Miranda joined me to talk about her own trip off the oestrogen cliff, reimagining relationships as we get older, conscious co-parenting and moving into the house in the backyard. We also discussed the menopause whisper network, outing herself as “no longer young”, getting out of the anxiety cul de sac and why ageing is “unexpectedly wild”.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including All Fours by Miranda July and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2999 no Kate Muir on the menopause experience that turned her into an activist https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the writer, film-maker and women’s health campaigner Kate Muir. Until perimenopause struck, Kate was the chief film critic of The Times, then all hell broke lose (as anyone who’s found themselves in the midst of the peri-maelstrom will understand). Her life and her job underwent massive turmoil. Now out the other side, she has produced two smash-hit documentaries for Channel 4 about the menopause, with Davina McCall, and followed that up with Davina McCall’s Pill Revolution. Alongside that she has written two books Everything You Need To Know About the Menopause (but were afraid to ask) and now Everything You Need to Know About the Pill (but were ALSO afraid to ask). In short, she’s a woman on a mission - to demystify, educate and empower women to have agency over their own body. A lifelong troublemaker, Kate joined me to talk about the menopause bomb that made her upend her life, going to film school at 50(ish), the story of her mum’s last period and the HRT/Alzheimers equation. We also discuss the fatberg of gender bias consuming women’s healthcare, why her daughter’s contraception experience made her turn her attention to the pill and the chameleon power of ageing. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Everything You Need to Know about the Menopause and Everything You Need to Know About The Pill by Kate Muir and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Kate Muir on the menopause experience that turned her into an activist full 14 185 sam baker The producer of the landmark Davina McCall documentaries and women's health campaigner on gender bias, the power of ageing and upending her life My guest today is the writer, film-maker and women’s health campaigner Kate Muir. Until perimenopause struck, Kate was the chief film critic of The Times, then all hell broke lose (as anyone who’s found themselves in the midst of the peri-maelstrom will understand). Her life and her job underwent massive turmoil. Now out the other side, she has produced two smash-hit documentaries for Channel 4 about the menopause, with Davina McCall, and followed that up with Davina McCall’s Pill Revolution. Alongside that she has written two books Everything You Need To Know About the Menopause (but were afraid to ask) and now Everything You Need to Know About the Pill (but were ALSO afraid to ask). In short, she’s a woman on a mission - to demystify, educate and empower women to have agency over their own body. A lifelong troublemaker, Kate joined me to talk about the menopause bomb that made her upend her life, going to film school at 50(ish), the story of her mum’s last period and the HRT/Alzheimers equation. We also discuss the fatberg of gender bias consuming women’s healthcare, why her daughter’s contraception experience made her turn her attention to the pill and the chameleon power of ageing. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Everything You Need to Know about the Menopause and Everything You Need to Know About The Pill by Kate Muir and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the writer, film-maker and women’s health campaigner Kate Muir. Until perimenopause struck, Kate was the chief film critic of The Times, then all hell broke lose (as anyone who’s found themselves in the midst of the peri-maelstrom will understand). Her life and her job underwent massive turmoil. Now out the other side, she has produced two smash-hit documentaries for Channel 4 about the menopause, with Davina McCall, and followed that up with Davina McCall’s Pill Revolution.


Alongside that she has written two books Everything You Need To Know About the Menopause (but were afraid to ask) and now Everything You Need to Know About the Pill (but were ALSO afraid to ask).


In short, she’s a woman on a mission - to demystify, educate and empower women to have agency over their own body.


A lifelong troublemaker, Kate joined me to talk about the menopause bomb that made her upend her life, going to film school at 50(ish), the story of her mum’s last period and the HRT/Alzheimers equation. We also discuss the fatberg of gender bias consuming women’s healthcare, why her daughter’s contraception experience made her turn her attention to the pill and the chameleon power of ageing.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Everything You Need to Know about the Menopause and Everything You Need to Know About The Pill by Kate Muir and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3497 no Amanda de Cadenet on reframing ambition and success in midlife https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today has lived a lot of lives in her 50 years.  If you were knocking around in 1990, Amanda de Cadenet burst into your world when she became presenter on the seminal late night TV show, The Word, at 18 and appeared most days on the front of the British tabloids. Like many young women trapped in the public gaze, she has spent the rest of her life wresting back control. Since then she has achieved international success as a photographer (she was the youngest woman ever to shoot a Vogue cover), created and hosted The Conversation podcast series in which she’s interviewed the likes of Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Jane Fonda… And founded GirlGaze, which saw her named one of the Most creative people in business by Fast Company. But what does 50 look like when you’ve been in the public eye since the age of 16? Amanda joined me from her home in LA to talk about the lifelong project of reclaiming her own narrative, surviving on-stage perimenopause moments, going back to basics after losing her dad, Not having a five year plan for the first time in her life And why The new love of her life is a camper van. We started by talking about the impact of being constantly shamed by the British press in her teens… * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Amanda de Cadenet on reframing ambition and success in midlife full 14 184 sam baker Plus perimenopause, reclaiming her narrative and why ageing is a learning game My guest today has lived a lot of lives in her 50 years.  If you were knocking around in 1990, Amanda de Cadenet burst into your world when she became presenter on the seminal late night TV show, The Word, at 18 and appeared most days on the front of the British tabloids. Like many young women trapped in the public gaze, she has spent the rest of her life wresting back control. Since then she has achieved international success as a photographer (she was the youngest woman ever to shoot a Vogue cover), created and hosted The Conversation podcast series in which she’s interviewed the likes of Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Jane Fonda… And founded GirlGaze, which saw her named one of the Most creative people in business by Fast Company. But what does 50 look like when you’ve been in the public eye since the age of 16? Amanda joined me from her home in LA to talk about the lifelong project of reclaiming her own narrative, surviving on-stage perimenopause moments, going back to basics after losing her dad, Not having a five year plan for the first time in her life And why The new love of her life is a camper van. We started by talking about the impact of being constantly shamed by the British press in her teens… * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today has lived a lot of lives in her 50 years. 


If you were knocking around in 1990, Amanda de Cadenet burst into your world when she became presenter on the seminal late night TV show, The Word, at 18 and appeared most days on the front of the British tabloids.


Like many young women trapped in the public gaze, she has spent the rest of her life wresting back control.


Since then she has achieved international success as a photographer (she was the youngest woman ever to shoot a Vogue cover), created and hosted The Conversation podcast series in which she’s interviewed the likes of Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Jane Fonda… And founded GirlGaze, which saw her named one of the Most creative people in business by Fast Company.


But what does 50 look like when you’ve been in the public eye since the age of 16?


Amanda joined me from her home in LA to talk about the lifelong project of reclaiming her own narrative, surviving on-stage perimenopause moments, going back to basics after losing her dad, Not having a five year plan for the first time in her life And why The new love of her life is a camper van.


We started by talking about the impact of being constantly shamed by the British press in her teens…


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3055 no Minnie Driver on ageing, expectation and creased Brad Pitt! - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is one of the most enduring movie actresses of our (by which I mean my!) generation. Minnie Driver made her first film, Circle of Friends in 1995, and went on to follow that with a lead role in Stanley Tucci’s gorgeous ode to Italian food, Big Night, an Oscar nominated turn in Goodwill Hunting. And my personal favourite Grosse Point Blank.  Now 52, with a 13yo son, Henry, and over fifty roles under her belt, Minnie is still “doing Hollywood” very much her own way. As well as two albums and a podcast (Minnie’s Questions), she’s now written a memoir, Managing Expectations, a book about how things not working out for her inevitably led to other things working out. Minnie joined me from her LA home to tell me why being called outspoken makes her want to punch walls, overcoming the curse of other people’s expectations (and her own!), why she always felt like a failure for not being married, how getting fired never feels any less unjust and embracing her vengeful streak! She also introduces me to the concept of is-ness, shares her big hair survival tips and has things to say about why Hollywood dudes can be creased, but women can’t! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Managing Expectations by Minnie Driver, Minnie's book recommendation Send Nudes by Saba Sams and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 23 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Minnie Driver on ageing, expectation and creased Brad Pitt! - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 13 183 sam baker The myth of the difficult woman, marriage "failure" and Hollywood's double standards (amongst other things!) My guest this week is one of the most enduring movie actresses of our (by which I mean my!) generation. Minnie Driver made her first film, Circle of Friends in 1995, and went on to follow that with a lead role in Stanley Tucci’s gorgeous ode to Italian food, Big Night, an Oscar nominated turn in Goodwill Hunting. And my personal favourite Grosse Point Blank.  Now 52, with a 13yo son, Henry, and over fifty roles under her belt, Minnie is still “doing Hollywood” very much her own way. As well as two albums and a podcast (Minnie’s Questions), she’s now written a memoir, Managing Expectations, a book about how things not working out for her inevitably led to other things working out. Minnie joined me from her LA home to tell me why being called outspoken makes her want to punch walls, overcoming the curse of other people’s expectations (and her own!), why she always felt like a failure for not being married, how getting fired never feels any less unjust and embracing her vengeful streak! She also introduces me to the concept of is-ness, shares her big hair survival tips and has things to say about why Hollywood dudes can be creased, but women can’t! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Managing Expectations by Minnie Driver, Minnie's book recommendation Send Nudes by Saba Sams and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is one of the most enduring movie actresses of our (by which I mean my!) generation. Minnie Driver made her first film, Circle of Friends in 1995, and went on to follow that with a lead role in Stanley Tucci’s gorgeous ode to Italian food, Big Night, an Oscar nominated turn in Goodwill Hunting. And my personal favourite Grosse Point Blank. 


Now 52, with a 13yo son, Henry, and over fifty roles under her belt, Minnie is still “doing Hollywood” very much her own way. As well as two albums and a podcast (Minnie’s Questions), she’s now written a memoir, Managing Expectations, a book about how things not working out for her inevitably led to other things working out.


Minnie joined me from her LA home to tell me why being called outspoken makes her want to punch walls, overcoming the curse of other people’s expectations (and her own!), why she always felt like a failure for not being married, how getting fired never feels any less unjust and embracing her vengeful streak! She also introduces me to the concept of is-ness, shares her big hair survival tips and has things to say about why Hollywood dudes can be creased, but women can’t!


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Managing Expectations by Minnie Driver, Minnie's book recommendation Send Nudes by Saba Sams and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2622 no Mariella Frostrup on refusing to be "scrap-heaped" at 50 - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ A couple of weeks ago, journalist and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup stepped down from her presenting role at Times Radio so she could concentrate full-time on the women's health advocacy that has become her life's work. Seemed like a good time to look back at our episode from two and a half years ago when she discussed why she was on a mission to make menopause mainstream. Original show notes below: ------- My guest this week was known for her willingness for say it like it is even before she made a TV show about the menopause. No, not THAT one. The one BEFORE. Broadcaster Mariella Frostrup was banging the menopause drum back in 2018 when her own ignorance about her symptoms at first shocked her and then prompted her to do something bout it. The resulting documentary, The Truth About Menopause, was a smash hit.  And she’s now followed that up with a book, Cracking The Menopause, written with her friend, journalist Alice Smellie. If you’re a fan of the book of this podcast - The Shift (how I lost and found myself after 40 and you can too) - Mariella’s book will be right up your street. Mariella and I talk candidly about all things menopause - from menopause ignorance to sleeplessness to “the bubble of poison bile” that surrounds the whole subject! She also has plenty to say about the insidiousness of women being “scrap heaped” at 50, why fearlessness is so much sexier than the ability to look 28 and why the time has come to just stop bloody putting up with it! • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Cracking The Menopause by Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 16 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Mariella Frostrup on refusing to be "scrap-heaped" at 50 - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 13 182 sam baker The broadcaster and women's health campaigner is on a mission to "burst the bubble of poison bile!" that surrounds menopause A couple of weeks ago, journalist and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup stepped down from her presenting role at Times Radio so she could concentrate full-time on the women's health advocacy that has become her life's work. Seemed like a good time to look back at our episode from two and a half years ago when she discussed why she was on a mission to make menopause mainstream. Original show notes below: ------- My guest this week was known for her willingness for say it like it is even before she made a TV show about the menopause. No, not THAT one. The one BEFORE. Broadcaster Mariella Frostrup was banging the menopause drum back in 2018 when her own ignorance about her symptoms at first shocked her and then prompted her to do something bout it. The resulting documentary, The Truth About Menopause, was a smash hit.  And she’s now followed that up with a book, Cracking The Menopause, written with her friend, journalist Alice Smellie. If you’re a fan of the book of this podcast - The Shift (how I lost and found myself after 40 and you can too) - Mariella’s book will be right up your street. Mariella and I talk candidly about all things menopause - from menopause ignorance to sleeplessness to “the bubble of poison bile” that surrounds the whole subject! She also has plenty to say about the insidiousness of women being “scrap heaped” at 50, why fearlessness is so much sexier than the ability to look 28 and why the time has come to just stop bloody putting up with it! • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Cracking The Menopause by Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices A couple of weeks ago, journalist and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup stepped down from her presenting role at Times Radio so she could concentrate full-time on the women's health advocacy that has become her life's work. Seemed like a good time to look back at our episode from two and a half years ago when she discussed why she was on a mission to make menopause mainstream. Original show notes below:


-------


My guest this week was known for her willingness for say it like it is even before she made a TV show about the menopause. No, not THAT one. The one BEFORE. Broadcaster Mariella Frostrup was banging the menopause drum back in 2018 when her own ignorance about her symptoms at first shocked her and then prompted her to do something bout it. The resulting documentary, The Truth About Menopause, was a smash hit. 


And she’s now followed that up with a book, Cracking The Menopause, written with her friend, journalist Alice Smellie. If you’re a fan of the book of this podcast - The Shift (how I lost and found myself after 40 and you can too) - Mariella’s book will be right up your street.


Mariella and I talk candidly about all things menopause - from menopause ignorance to sleeplessness to “the bubble of poison bile” that surrounds the whole subject! She also has plenty to say about the insidiousness of women being “scrap heaped” at 50, why fearlessness is so much sexier than the ability to look 28 and why the time has come to just stop bloody putting up with it!


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Cracking The Menopause by Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2835 no Marian Keyes on HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week, Marian Keyes celebrates the publication of her 16th novel, My Favourite Mistake. So it seemed like as good a time as any to revisit the second ever episode of The Shift podcast. Yes, the goddess Marian Keyes was one of the first people to say, "Sure, why not?" when I told her I was starting a podcast that celebrated women in midlife and beyond and, not to worry because nobody might listen. Back then in 2020 we were banging the drum for menopause and we're still banging that drum right now! Original show notes below. ---------- Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She can’t not speak the truth. Which could well be why she’s sold over 35 million books. Her trademark: the silk glove of laugh out loud funny stories that conceal within them the iron fist of tough contemporary issues. The latest of which is the frankly fabliss and immensely truth-telly no. 1 bestseller Grown Ups. Over the next 45 minutes Marian will tell the unvarnished truth about menopause (how different would it be if it happened to men???), invisibility, infertility grief, HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless. (Oh and her passion for fashion. And beauty products. And…) In short, this episode is not to be missed. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including My Favourite Mistake, Marian Keyes latest novel and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Marian Keyes on HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 13 181 sam baker The bestselling Irish novelist has a fair few things to say about menopause! This week, Marian Keyes celebrates the publication of her 16th novel, My Favourite Mistake. So it seemed like as good a time as any to revisit the second ever episode of The Shift podcast. Yes, the goddess Marian Keyes was one of the first people to say, "Sure, why not?" when I told her I was starting a podcast that celebrated women in midlife and beyond and, not to worry because nobody might listen. Back then in 2020 we were banging the drum for menopause and we're still banging that drum right now! Original show notes below. ---------- Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She can’t not speak the truth. Which could well be why she’s sold over 35 million books. Her trademark: the silk glove of laugh out loud funny stories that conceal within them the iron fist of tough contemporary issues. The latest of which is the frankly fabliss and immensely truth-telly no. 1 bestseller Grown Ups. Over the next 45 minutes Marian will tell the unvarnished truth about menopause (how different would it be if it happened to men???), invisibility, infertility grief, HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless. (Oh and her passion for fashion. And beauty products. And…) In short, this episode is not to be missed. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including My Favourite Mistake, Marian Keyes latest novel and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week, Marian Keyes celebrates the publication of her 16th novel, My Favourite Mistake. So it seemed like as good a time as any to revisit the second ever episode of The Shift podcast. Yes, the goddess Marian Keyes was one of the first people to say, "Sure, why not?" when I told her I was starting a podcast that celebrated women in midlife and beyond and, not to worry because nobody might listen. Back then in 2020 we were banging the drum for menopause and we're still banging that drum right now! Original show notes below.


----------


Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She can’t not speak the truth. Which could well be why she’s sold over 35 million books. Her trademark: the silk glove of laugh out loud funny stories that conceal within them the iron fist of tough contemporary issues. The latest of which is the frankly fabliss and immensely truth-telly no. 1 bestseller Grown Ups.


Over the next 45 minutes Marian will tell the unvarnished truth about menopause (how different would it be if it happened to men???), invisibility, infertility grief, HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless. (Oh and her passion for fashion. And beauty products. And…) In short, this episode is not to be missed.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including My Favourite Mistake, Marian Keyes latest novel and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2754 no Cathy Newman: "turning 50 feels like a superpower" https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is the first female main presenter of Channel 4 news, Cathy Newman. Cathy joined Channel 4 News as political correspondent in 2006 after more than a decade working in newspapers, including The Independent, Financial Times and Washington Post. She is an award-winning investigative journalist whose scoops include the sexual harassment allegations against the liberal democrat peer Lord Rennard. That’s the first four days of the week! On the fifth, she hosts her own show on Times Radio. Oh, and on the side, she’s a pretty accomplished amateur violinist. But Google her name, and will you see all those achievements? Nope, just reams and reams of the kind of internet abuse that will be familiar to almost every woman in the public eye. Cathy joined me to talk about her new book, The Ladder, a collection of wisdom from women who've climbed it - and why “the ladder” doesn’t work for women or minorities. Her own personal sliding doors moment, sexual harassment and discovering she was paid less than the bloke at the next desk. We also discussed learning not to give a monkeys about internet trolls, menopause, heavy periods, HRT and why turning 50 really does feel like a superpower to her. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Ladder by Cathy Newman and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0000 Cathy Newman: "turning 50 feels like a superpower" full 13 180 sam baker The broadcaster on menopause, trolling, equal pay and why "the ladder" doesn't really work for women and minorities My guest this week is the first female main presenter of Channel 4 news, Cathy Newman. Cathy joined Channel 4 News as political correspondent in 2006 after more than a decade working in newspapers, including The Independent, Financial Times and Washington Post. She is an award-winning investigative journalist whose scoops include the sexual harassment allegations against the liberal democrat peer Lord Rennard. That’s the first four days of the week! On the fifth, she hosts her own show on Times Radio. Oh, and on the side, she’s a pretty accomplished amateur violinist. But Google her name, and will you see all those achievements? Nope, just reams and reams of the kind of internet abuse that will be familiar to almost every woman in the public eye. Cathy joined me to talk about her new book, The Ladder, a collection of wisdom from women who've climbed it - and why “the ladder” doesn’t work for women or minorities. Her own personal sliding doors moment, sexual harassment and discovering she was paid less than the bloke at the next desk. We also discussed learning not to give a monkeys about internet trolls, menopause, heavy periods, HRT and why turning 50 really does feel like a superpower to her. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Ladder by Cathy Newman and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is the first female main presenter of Channel 4 news, Cathy Newman. Cathy joined Channel 4 News as political correspondent in 2006 after more than a decade working in newspapers, including The Independent, Financial Times and Washington Post. She is an award-winning investigative journalist whose scoops include the sexual harassment allegations against the liberal democrat peer Lord Rennard.


That’s the first four days of the week! On the fifth, she hosts her own show on Times Radio. Oh, and on the side, she’s a pretty accomplished amateur violinist. But Google her name, and will you see all those achievements? Nope, just reams and reams of the kind of internet abuse that will be familiar to almost every woman in the public eye.


Cathy joined me to talk about her new book, The Ladder, a collection of wisdom from women who've climbed it - and why “the ladder” doesn’t work for women or minorities. Her own personal sliding doors moment, sexual harassment and discovering she was paid less than the bloke at the next desk. We also discussed learning not to give a monkeys about internet trolls, menopause, heavy periods, HRT and why turning 50 really does feel like a superpower to her.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Ladder by Cathy Newman and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3129 no Helen Garner on marriage, divorce and why she couldn't give a monkey's about the erotic gaze https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit vague. Because despite being one of Australia’s greatest living writers she is surprisingly little known here. But not for much longer because, at the age of 81, she is finally about to see almost all her books in print in the UK and US for the first time. Born in 1941 in Geelong, Victoria, the eldest of six, Helen has lived a fascinating life and one that has found its way into her 13 books. Her debut Monkey Grip, published in 1977 when she was a single mother, is still in print today; her second novel, The Children’s Bach (which is where I recommend you start if you’ve never read her), has been compared with Hemingway and Fitzgerald; and, her true crime classic, This House of Grief, has been declared one of the best books of the 21st century. Not bad for a regular kid from, as she puts it, “an ordinary Australian home - not many books and not much talk.” I was lucky enough to get to chat to Helen (and her chooks) from her home near Melbourne. In fact she kept me up long past my bedtime (!) as we discussed the difficult father-daughter relationship, making peace with the older generations and the emotional impact of being a war baby. She also told me why getting married a fourth time would have been the definition of madness, how she couldn’t give a shit about the withdrawal of the erotic gaze and why grandmothering has been the greatest pleasure of her life.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Monkey Grip, The Children's Bach and This House of Grief by Helen Garner and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 26 Mar 2024 01:00:00 -0000 Helen Garner on marriage, divorce and why she couldn't give a monkey's about the erotic gaze full 13 179 sam baker One of Australia's greatest living writers on the weirdness of achieving "international recognition" in her 80s My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit vague. Because despite being one of Australia’s greatest living writers she is surprisingly little known here. But not for much longer because, at the age of 81, she is finally about to see almost all her books in print in the UK and US for the first time. Born in 1941 in Geelong, Victoria, the eldest of six, Helen has lived a fascinating life and one that has found its way into her 13 books. Her debut Monkey Grip, published in 1977 when she was a single mother, is still in print today; her second novel, The Children’s Bach (which is where I recommend you start if you’ve never read her), has been compared with Hemingway and Fitzgerald; and, her true crime classic, This House of Grief, has been declared one of the best books of the 21st century. Not bad for a regular kid from, as she puts it, “an ordinary Australian home - not many books and not much talk.” I was lucky enough to get to chat to Helen (and her chooks) from her home near Melbourne. In fact she kept me up long past my bedtime (!) as we discussed the difficult father-daughter relationship, making peace with the older generations and the emotional impact of being a war baby. She also told me why getting married a fourth time would have been the definition of madness, how she couldn’t give a shit about the withdrawal of the erotic gaze and why grandmothering has been the greatest pleasure of her life.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Monkey Grip, The Children's Bach and This House of Grief by Helen Garner and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit vague. Because despite being one of Australia’s greatest living writers she is surprisingly little known here.


But not for much longer because, at the age of 81, she is finally about to see almost all her books in print in the UK and US for the first time.


Born in 1941 in Geelong, Victoria, the eldest of six, Helen has lived a fascinating life and one that has found its way into her 13 books. Her debut Monkey Grip, published in 1977 when she was a single mother, is still in print today; her second novel, The Children’s Bach (which is where I recommend you start if you’ve never read her), has been compared with Hemingway and Fitzgerald; and, her true crime classic, This House of Grief, has been declared one of the best books of the 21st century.


Not bad for a regular kid from, as she puts it, “an ordinary Australian home - not many books and not much talk.”


I was lucky enough to get to chat to Helen (and her chooks) from her home near Melbourne. In fact she kept me up long past my bedtime (!) as we discussed the difficult father-daughter relationship, making peace with the older generations and the emotional impact of being a war baby. She also told me why getting married a fourth time would have been the definition of madness, how she couldn’t give a shit about the withdrawal of the erotic gaze and why grandmothering has been the greatest pleasure of her life. 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Monkey Grip, The Children's Bach and This House of Grief by Helen Garner and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2963 no Leslie Jamison on divorce, ambition & discovering the parts of ourselves we don't yet know https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the American author and essayist, Leslie Jamison. Leslie has the kind of CV that makes other writers weep with envy: the memoir of her alcoholism, The Recovering was an NYT bestseller as was her essay collection The Empathy Exams. That’s the tip of the iceberg, but we only have so much time! Often compared to such legends as Joan Didion and Susan Sontag (no pressure), Leslie has now written Splinters: a glorious and heart-rending memoir of what it means to be a mother and a daughter, divorce and dating, of learning how to be many women in one occasionally (OK, often) unravelling package. Leslie joined me from her home in Brooklyn - wearing her earrings of power! - to tell me how her parents divorce shaped her, why her small daughter forced her to live in the now and her penchant for an unhappy ending! We also discussed finding the parts of ourselves we don’t yet know, why she’s no longer ashamed of her ambition and that perennial discovery of midlife women - how to say no! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Leslie's memoir, Splinters and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 19 Mar 2024 01:00:00 -0000 Leslie Jamison on divorce, ambition & discovering the parts of ourselves we don't yet know full 13 178 sam baker Oh, and if you want to know the secret to how to say no – and make it stick! – you've come to the right place! My guest today is the American author and essayist, Leslie Jamison. Leslie has the kind of CV that makes other writers weep with envy: the memoir of her alcoholism, The Recovering was an NYT bestseller as was her essay collection The Empathy Exams. That’s the tip of the iceberg, but we only have so much time! Often compared to such legends as Joan Didion and Susan Sontag (no pressure), Leslie has now written Splinters: a glorious and heart-rending memoir of what it means to be a mother and a daughter, divorce and dating, of learning how to be many women in one occasionally (OK, often) unravelling package. Leslie joined me from her home in Brooklyn - wearing her earrings of power! - to tell me how her parents divorce shaped her, why her small daughter forced her to live in the now and her penchant for an unhappy ending! We also discussed finding the parts of ourselves we don’t yet know, why she’s no longer ashamed of her ambition and that perennial discovery of midlife women - how to say no! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Leslie's memoir, Splinters and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the American author and essayist, Leslie Jamison. Leslie has the kind of CV that makes other writers weep with envy: the memoir of her alcoholism, The Recovering was an NYT bestseller as was her essay collection The Empathy Exams. That’s the tip of the iceberg, but we only have so much time!


Often compared to such legends as Joan Didion and Susan Sontag (no pressure), Leslie has now written Splinters: a glorious and heart-rending memoir of what it means to be a mother and a daughter, divorce and dating, of learning how to be many women in one occasionally (OK, often) unravelling package.


Leslie joined me from her home in Brooklyn - wearing her earrings of power! - to tell me how her parents divorce shaped her, why her small daughter forced her to live in the now and her penchant for an unhappy ending! We also discussed finding the parts of ourselves we don’t yet know, why she’s no longer ashamed of her ambition and that perennial discovery of midlife women - how to say no!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Leslie's memoir, Splinters and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2975 no Lyn Slater (aka Accidental Icon) on writing a new narrative for ageing https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is a woman who knows all about reinvention. For 45 years, Lyn Slater was a professor of social work with a side-passion for fashion. Feeling burnt out, she started a blog aimed at women like her who wanted to talk about clothes and the way they shape our identity.  And, just like that, the phenomenon that was Accidental Icon was born. Suddenly, the professor found herself an “influencer”. And For the best part of her 60s, Accidental Icon’s million Instagram followers and countless brand campaigns took over her life. Until she reached a point where she began to wonder precisely where LYN had gone. Now, in How To Be Old - a story of ageing, identity and what it means to be comfortable in your own skin - she has done it again. At 70, she’s a debut writer. Something she has dreamt of from the age of seven. Lyn joined me from her home on the Hudson to talk about why we need a new narrative for ageing, intergenerational belligerence, her rebel grandmother and the unlikely feminism of nuns. We also discussed how she lost herself to life online, how accidental icon gave her body image issues, deciding to swap fashion for family and why she’s finally realised she doesn’t have to be the good-bad girl any more.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Lyn's book, How To Be Old and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 12 Mar 2024 01:00:00 -0000 Lyn Slater (aka Accidental Icon) on writing a new narrative for ageing full 13 177 sam baker The social worker turned influencer turned debut writer at 70 tells how she lost herself to life online, how her mother's dementia changed her own attitude to clothes and deciding to swap fashion for family My guest today is a woman who knows all about reinvention. For 45 years, Lyn Slater was a professor of social work with a side-passion for fashion. Feeling burnt out, she started a blog aimed at women like her who wanted to talk about clothes and the way they shape our identity.  And, just like that, the phenomenon that was Accidental Icon was born. Suddenly, the professor found herself an “influencer”. And For the best part of her 60s, Accidental Icon’s million Instagram followers and countless brand campaigns took over her life. Until she reached a point where she began to wonder precisely where LYN had gone. Now, in How To Be Old - a story of ageing, identity and what it means to be comfortable in your own skin - she has done it again. At 70, she’s a debut writer. Something she has dreamt of from the age of seven. Lyn joined me from her home on the Hudson to talk about why we need a new narrative for ageing, intergenerational belligerence, her rebel grandmother and the unlikely feminism of nuns. We also discussed how she lost herself to life online, how accidental icon gave her body image issues, deciding to swap fashion for family and why she’s finally realised she doesn’t have to be the good-bad girl any more.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Lyn's book, How To Be Old and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a woman who knows all about reinvention. For 45 years, Lyn Slater was a professor of social work with a side-passion for fashion. Feeling burnt out, she started a blog aimed at women like her who wanted to talk about clothes and the way they shape our identity. 


And, just like that, the phenomenon that was Accidental Icon was born.


Suddenly, the professor found herself an “influencer”. And For the best part of her 60s, Accidental Icon’s million Instagram followers and countless brand campaigns took over her life. Until she reached a point where she began to wonder precisely where LYN had gone.


Now, in How To Be Old - a story of ageing, identity and what it means to be comfortable in your own skin - she has done it again. At 70, she’s a debut writer. Something she has dreamt of from the age of seven.


Lyn joined me from her home on the Hudson to talk about why we need a new narrative for ageing, intergenerational belligerence, her rebel grandmother and the unlikely feminism of nuns.


We also discussed how she lost herself to life online, how accidental icon gave her body image issues, deciding to swap fashion for family and why she’s finally realised she doesn’t have to be the good-bad girl any more. 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Lyn's book, How To Be Old and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3233 no Karyn McCluskey on menopause, paying it forward & being the only woman in the room https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Regular listeners have probably noticed that I’m trying a few different things with this series. I wanted to hear more women’s voices, with more varied experiences and today’s guest is one of those! I first met Karyn McCluskey 12 years ago when I was editor of Red magazine and we gave her a woman of the year award for her role in reducing gang violence by 50% in Glasgow, formerly known as the murder capital of Europe. In large part, thanks to Karyn, Glasgow became one of the safest cities in the UK.  Karyn has been advocating for a more enlightened and empathetic approach to violent crime for most of her career. She became a nurse at 17 before training as forensic psychologist, and then joined the police where she has worked - extremely successfully - to bring a public health approach to violence reduction. All this while being a single parent.  I met Karyn at her office, off a busy road on the outskirts of Edinburgh, as you’ll hear!, where she is now Chief Executive of Community Justice Scotland to talk about constantly being the only woman in the room, breastfeeding in the police car park, and how she’s avoided vicarious trauma. We also discussed why she was “slightly terrified of the menopause” (no not Glasgow knife gangs, menopause…), why parenting is just an exercise guilt, high heels, HRT and why her mantra is “feel bad move on” CW there is discussion of violence, sexual abuse and domestic violence • If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like my chats with Nicola Sturgeon and Val McDermid. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Annie's new book, The Mess We're In and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 05 Mar 2024 01:00:00 -0000 Karyn McCluskey on menopause, paying it forward & being the only woman in the room full 13 176 sam baker The forensic psychologist and former police officer talks about a life lived in a room full of men - as a single mother Regular listeners have probably noticed that I’m trying a few different things with this series. I wanted to hear more women’s voices, with more varied experiences and today’s guest is one of those! I first met Karyn McCluskey 12 years ago when I was editor of Red magazine and we gave her a woman of the year award for her role in reducing gang violence by 50% in Glasgow, formerly known as the murder capital of Europe. In large part, thanks to Karyn, Glasgow became one of the safest cities in the UK.  Karyn has been advocating for a more enlightened and empathetic approach to violent crime for most of her career. She became a nurse at 17 before training as forensic psychologist, and then joined the police where she has worked - extremely successfully - to bring a public health approach to violence reduction. All this while being a single parent.  I met Karyn at her office, off a busy road on the outskirts of Edinburgh, as you’ll hear!, where she is now Chief Executive of Community Justice Scotland to talk about constantly being the only woman in the room, breastfeeding in the police car park, and how she’s avoided vicarious trauma. We also discussed why she was “slightly terrified of the menopause” (no not Glasgow knife gangs, menopause…), why parenting is just an exercise guilt, high heels, HRT and why her mantra is “feel bad move on” CW there is discussion of violence, sexual abuse and domestic violence • If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like my chats with Nicola Sturgeon and Val McDermid. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Annie's new book, The Mess We're In and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Regular listeners have probably noticed that I’m trying a few different things with this series. I wanted to hear more women’s voices, with more varied experiences and today’s guest is one of those! I first met Karyn McCluskey 12 years ago when I was editor of Red magazine and we gave her a woman of the year award for her role in reducing gang violence by 50% in Glasgow, formerly known as the murder capital of Europe. In large part, thanks to Karyn, Glasgow became one of the safest cities in the UK. 


Karyn has been advocating for a more enlightened and empathetic approach to violent crime for most of her career. She became a nurse at 17 before training as forensic psychologist, and then joined the police where she has worked - extremely successfully - to bring a public health approach to violence reduction. All this while being a single parent. 


I met Karyn at her office, off a busy road on the outskirts of Edinburgh, as you’ll hear!, where she is now Chief Executive of Community Justice Scotland to talk about constantly being the only woman in the room, breastfeeding in the police car park, and how she’s avoided vicarious trauma. We also discussed why she was “slightly terrified of the menopause” (no not Glasgow knife gangs, menopause…), why parenting is just an exercise guilt, high heels, HRT and why her mantra is “feel bad move on”


CW there is discussion of violence, sexual abuse and domestic violence


• If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like my chats with Nicola Sturgeon and Val McDermid.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Annie's new book, The Mess We're In and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3454 no Annie Macmanus on rebuilding her identity at 45 https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Last time Annie Macmanus came on The Shift she was about to make a MASSIVE change. Then, in her early 40s, one of the country’s biggest female DJs was on the brink of walking away. The prescribed way of doing things - climbing, climbing, climbing, until you were Johnny Big Balls, as she put it, was not for her. She, like so many women at this life stage, wanted to find a new way, to build her own decks. Since then Annie, now 45, has written two novels, the latest of which is The mess we’re in, out now in paperback, helmed two hit podcasts and launched the so-fabulous-I-can’t-believe-nobody-thought of it-before club night, Before Midnight. Aimed at those of us who love to dance but don’t want to stay up til 3am to do it. Annie joined me for one of those conversations that goes to all the places. We discussed the emotional upheaval of leaving a big job after 17 years and how she rediscovered who she was when she wasn’t on the radio. Plus the loneliness of working from home, the hormonal chaos of perimenopause, the scary urge to “set fire to something”, making new friends in your 40s, getting back on the football pitch and leaning into who she really is now she no longer has to waste time getting manicures! You can read Annie's piece on the shock of realising she was lonely here. • If you loved this episode, you might also like my earlier conversation with Annie where she talks about reaching the decision to leave Radio 1, and my chats with Jo Whiley and DJ Paulette. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Annie's new book, The Mess We're In and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 27 Feb 2024 01:00:00 -0000 Annie Macmanus on rebuilding her identity at 45 full 13 175 sam baker The writer and broadcaster talks hormones, loneliness, football, manicures and making new friends in your 40s Last time Annie Macmanus came on The Shift she was about to make a MASSIVE change. Then, in her early 40s, one of the country’s biggest female DJs was on the brink of walking away. The prescribed way of doing things - climbing, climbing, climbing, until you were Johnny Big Balls, as she put it, was not for her. She, like so many women at this life stage, wanted to find a new way, to build her own decks. Since then Annie, now 45, has written two novels, the latest of which is The mess we’re in, out now in paperback, helmed two hit podcasts and launched the so-fabulous-I-can’t-believe-nobody-thought of it-before club night, Before Midnight. Aimed at those of us who love to dance but don’t want to stay up til 3am to do it. Annie joined me for one of those conversations that goes to all the places. We discussed the emotional upheaval of leaving a big job after 17 years and how she rediscovered who she was when she wasn’t on the radio. Plus the loneliness of working from home, the hormonal chaos of perimenopause, the scary urge to “set fire to something”, making new friends in your 40s, getting back on the football pitch and leaning into who she really is now she no longer has to waste time getting manicures! You can read Annie's piece on the shock of realising she was lonely here. • If you loved this episode, you might also like my earlier conversation with Annie where she talks about reaching the decision to leave Radio 1, and my chats with Jo Whiley and DJ Paulette. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Annie's new book, The Mess We're In and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Last time Annie Macmanus came on The Shift she was about to make a MASSIVE change. Then, in her early 40s, one of the country’s biggest female DJs was on the brink of walking away. The prescribed way of doing things - climbing, climbing, climbing, until you were Johnny Big Balls, as she put it, was not for her. She, like so many women at this life stage, wanted to find a new way, to build her own decks.


Since then Annie, now 45, has written two novels, the latest of which is The mess we’re in, out now in paperback, helmed two hit podcasts and launched the so-fabulous-I-can’t-believe-nobody-thought of it-before club night, Before Midnight. Aimed at those of us who love to dance but don’t want to stay up til 3am to do it.


Annie joined me for one of those conversations that goes to all the places. We discussed the emotional upheaval of leaving a big job after 17 years and how she rediscovered who she was when she wasn’t on the radio. Plus the loneliness of working from home, the hormonal chaos of perimenopause, the scary urge to “set fire to something”, making new friends in your 40s, getting back on the football pitch and leaning into who she really is now she no longer has to waste time getting manicures!


You can read Annie's piece on the shock of realising she was lonely here.


• If you loved this episode, you might also like my earlier conversation with Annie where she talks about reaching the decision to leave Radio 1, and my chats with Jo Whiley and DJ Paulette.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Annie's new book, The Mess We're In and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com


• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3520 no Lucinda Chambers: the former Vogue fashion director gives us a midlife style masterclass https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is a woman whose style I have admired for a very long time. To quote the fashion journalist Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion director, stylist and curator Lucinda Chambers has the kind of style you just can’t buy. And, like many other women, I’ve certainly tried.  Lucinda has worked in the fashion industry for more than three decades. For 25 years she was fashion director of British Vogue, as well as creative consultant to brands ranging from Prada and Marni to H&M and River Island.  Five years ago, she left Vogue in the kind of blaze that will be familiar to many midlife women who intentionally or otherwise put a bomb under everything. She went on to co-found Collagerie, a digital platform that curates, frankly, lovely things that range in price from the very affordable to the very much not. TBH I took one look at Collagerie’s site and practically handed over the keys to my bank account. Lucinda joined me from her beautiful toasty TV room to tell me why being pushed out of Vogue was a blessing and the joy of embracing BIG change in her 50s. We also discussed the difference between drive and ambition, why you can’t be stylish if you’re not comfortable and how to put some colour confidence in your wardrobe. • If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with India Knight and Times Fashion Director Anna Murphy. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 20 Feb 2024 01:00:00 -0000 Lucinda Chambers: the former Vogue fashion director gives us a midlife style masterclass full 13 174 sam baker The former Vogue fashion director also talks adapting to massive midlife change, coming to terms with being a workaholic, losing the job that defined her and why everyone needs the five fashion food groups My guest today is a woman whose style I have admired for a very long time. To quote the fashion journalist Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion director, stylist and curator Lucinda Chambers has the kind of style you just can’t buy. And, like many other women, I’ve certainly tried.  Lucinda has worked in the fashion industry for more than three decades. For 25 years she was fashion director of British Vogue, as well as creative consultant to brands ranging from Prada and Marni to H&M and River Island.  Five years ago, she left Vogue in the kind of blaze that will be familiar to many midlife women who intentionally or otherwise put a bomb under everything. She went on to co-found Collagerie, a digital platform that curates, frankly, lovely things that range in price from the very affordable to the very much not. TBH I took one look at Collagerie’s site and practically handed over the keys to my bank account. Lucinda joined me from her beautiful toasty TV room to tell me why being pushed out of Vogue was a blessing and the joy of embracing BIG change in her 50s. We also discussed the difference between drive and ambition, why you can’t be stylish if you’re not comfortable and how to put some colour confidence in your wardrobe. • If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with India Knight and Times Fashion Director Anna Murphy. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is a woman whose style I have admired for a very long time.


To quote the fashion journalist Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion director, stylist and curator Lucinda Chambers has the kind of style you just can’t buy. And, like many other women, I’ve certainly tried. 


Lucinda has worked in the fashion industry for more than three decades. For 25 years she was fashion director of British Vogue, as well as creative consultant to brands ranging from Prada and Marni to H&M and River Island. 


Five years ago, she left Vogue in the kind of blaze that will be familiar to many midlife women who intentionally or otherwise put a bomb under everything. She went on to co-found Collagerie, a digital platform that curates, frankly, lovely things that range in price from the very affordable to the very much not. TBH I took one look at Collagerie’s site and practically handed over the keys to my bank account.


Lucinda joined me from her beautiful toasty TV room to tell me why being pushed out of Vogue was a blessing and the joy of embracing BIG change in her 50s. We also discussed the difference between drive and ambition, why you can’t be stylish if you’re not comfortable and how to put some colour confidence in your wardrobe.


• If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with India Knight and Times Fashion Director Anna Murphy.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2936 no Bryony Gordon on burnout, binge eating and perimenopause https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ Today I’m delighted to welcome back one of The Shift’s very first guests, journalist and mental health campaigner Bryony Gordon. Bryony has been a columnist on the Telegraph for over 20 years and for ten of those she has been writing candidly about her own experiences of addiction and mental illness. She is the best selling author of Mad Girl and The Wrong Knickers and in 2016 she founded Mental Health Mates a global peer support network that encourages people with mental health issues to connect, for which she has won several awards. She also, FWIW, ran the London marathon in her knickers.  Three years after her first visit to The Shift, Bryony is back - older, wiser (yes really) - and with a new book, the pertinently titled, Mad Woman, which discusses her struggles with burnout, binge eating and, yep, you guessed it, fluctuating hormones. Bryony joined me from bed in south London to talk about maintaining a public facade when you’re privately falling apart, finally learning to feed herself properly at 43, discovering all the women in her family went into menopause in their early 40s, why she’s done with feeling like she’s the problem and how Davina McCall saved her life! If you'd like to sponsor Bryony's Big Challenge, you can find out more here. • If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Sharon Blackie and Ruby Wax. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Mad Woman by Bryony Gordon and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 13 Feb 2024 01:00:00 -0000 Bryony Gordon on burnout, binge eating and perimenopause full 13 173 sam baker At 43, the mental health and body neutrality campaigner on being a Mad Woman and finally kicking perfectionism to the curb Today I’m delighted to welcome back one of The Shift’s very first guests, journalist and mental health campaigner Bryony Gordon. Bryony has been a columnist on the Telegraph for over 20 years and for ten of those she has been writing candidly about her own experiences of addiction and mental illness. She is the best selling author of Mad Girl and The Wrong Knickers and in 2016 she founded Mental Health Mates a global peer support network that encourages people with mental health issues to connect, for which she has won several awards. She also, FWIW, ran the London marathon in her knickers.  Three years after her first visit to The Shift, Bryony is back - older, wiser (yes really) - and with a new book, the pertinently titled, Mad Woman, which discusses her struggles with burnout, binge eating and, yep, you guessed it, fluctuating hormones. Bryony joined me from bed in south London to talk about maintaining a public facade when you’re privately falling apart, finally learning to feed herself properly at 43, discovering all the women in her family went into menopause in their early 40s, why she’s done with feeling like she’s the problem and how Davina McCall saved her life! If you'd like to sponsor Bryony's Big Challenge, you can find out more here. • If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Sharon Blackie and Ruby Wax. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Mad Woman by Bryony Gordon and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today I’m delighted to welcome back one of The Shift’s very first guests, journalist and mental health campaigner Bryony Gordon.


Bryony has been a columnist on the Telegraph for over 20 years and for ten of those she has been writing candidly about her own experiences of addiction and mental illness. She is the best selling author of Mad Girl and The Wrong Knickers and in 2016 she founded Mental Health Mates a global peer support network that encourages people with mental health issues to connect, for which she has won several awards. She also, FWIW, ran the London marathon in her knickers. 


Three years after her first visit to The Shift, Bryony is back - older, wiser (yes really) - and with a new book, the pertinently titled, Mad Woman, which discusses her struggles with burnout, binge eating and, yep, you guessed it, fluctuating hormones.


Bryony joined me from bed in south London to talk about maintaining a public facade when you’re privately falling apart, finally learning to feed herself properly at 43, discovering all the women in her family went into menopause in their early 40s, why she’s done with feeling like she’s the problem and how Davina McCall saved her life!


If you'd like to sponsor Bryony's Big Challenge, you can find out more here.


• If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Sharon Blackie and Ruby Wax.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Mad Woman by Bryony Gordon and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2943 no Jennifer Clement on women, art, creativity & why we love Frida Kahlo https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today has lived, well, a life like no other. The writer Jennifer Clement grew up in 1960s Mexico, at the tail end of the Mexican Golden Age, next door to the former home and extended family of seminal artist Frida Kahlo. As a teenager she moved to New York, where she inhabited the artistic downtown world of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. She was - and still is - a magnet for the creative and surreal. But Mexico had her heart. Since returning to Mexico City, she has written many books, including the cult classic Widow Basquiat and Prayers for the Stolen which became an award-winning Netflix film. Jennifer was also the first and only woman president of the writers human rights organisation PEN International in its 100+ year history. In her memoir, The Promised Party, Jennifer looks back at an extraordinary youth spent with artists and revolutionaries, and examines the way it shaped her. Jennifer joined me from her home in Mexico City to talk about playing in Frida Kahlo’s bathtub and why Kahlo’s art speaks to so many women, why so much women’s art is still sidelined, and how she developed a passion ethic not a work ethic. We also discussed rebellion, running away, the power of girlfriends, how acting on dreams can change your life and why her mother has been taking HRT for 50 (yes five oh) years If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Isabel Allende and Esther Freud. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Promised Party by Jennifer Clemenet and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 06 Feb 2024 01:00:00 -0000 Jennifer Clement on women, art, creativity & why we love Frida Kahlo full 13 172 sam baker From Mexico City to downtown NYC and back again, the writer shares her extraordinary life (oh and why she'll never stop taking HRT!) My guest today has lived, well, a life like no other. The writer Jennifer Clement grew up in 1960s Mexico, at the tail end of the Mexican Golden Age, next door to the former home and extended family of seminal artist Frida Kahlo. As a teenager she moved to New York, where she inhabited the artistic downtown world of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. She was - and still is - a magnet for the creative and surreal. But Mexico had her heart. Since returning to Mexico City, she has written many books, including the cult classic Widow Basquiat and Prayers for the Stolen which became an award-winning Netflix film. Jennifer was also the first and only woman president of the writers human rights organisation PEN International in its 100+ year history. In her memoir, The Promised Party, Jennifer looks back at an extraordinary youth spent with artists and revolutionaries, and examines the way it shaped her. Jennifer joined me from her home in Mexico City to talk about playing in Frida Kahlo’s bathtub and why Kahlo’s art speaks to so many women, why so much women’s art is still sidelined, and how she developed a passion ethic not a work ethic. We also discussed rebellion, running away, the power of girlfriends, how acting on dreams can change your life and why her mother has been taking HRT for 50 (yes five oh) years If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Isabel Allende and Esther Freud. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Promised Party by Jennifer Clemenet and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today has lived, well, a life like no other. The writer Jennifer Clement grew up in 1960s Mexico, at the tail end of the Mexican Golden Age, next door to the former home and extended family of seminal artist Frida Kahlo. As a teenager she moved to New York, where she inhabited the artistic downtown world of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. She was - and still is - a magnet for the creative and surreal.


But Mexico had her heart. Since returning to Mexico City, she has written many books, including the cult classic Widow Basquiat and Prayers for the Stolen which became an award-winning Netflix film. Jennifer was also the first and only woman president of the writers human rights organisation PEN International in its 100+ year history.


In her memoir, The Promised Party, Jennifer looks back at an extraordinary youth spent with artists and revolutionaries, and examines the way it shaped her.


Jennifer joined me from her home in Mexico City to talk about playing in Frida Kahlo’s bathtub and why Kahlo’s art speaks to so many women, why so much women’s art is still sidelined, and how she developed a passion ethic not a work ethic. We also discussed rebellion, running away, the power of girlfriends, how acting on dreams can change your life and why her mother has been taking HRT for 50 (yes five oh) years


If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Isabel Allende and Esther Freud.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Promised Party by Jennifer Clemenet and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2616 no DJ paulette: how perimeno knocked her sideways at 39 (39!) https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is a true trailblazer. If you’ve ever been a clubber, DJ Paulette will need zero introduction. If you haven’t, well, all you really need to know is she has been breaking barriers since day one. One of the Hacienda’s first female DJs, she became a stalwart of the Manchester music scene in the 90s, before being catapulted to stardom playing crowds of tens of thousands all over the world. All this in a world that’s a notorious boys club; where women famously have to do it backwards in high heels. And as a black queer woman she’s had to do triple back flips as well, just to get a fraction of the recognition. In November 2022 she became the first female of colour to win DJ Magazine’s lifetime achievement award, amongst an all-male roll-call. (Surprise!) Now she’s reliving those years in her first book. Welcome to The Club - the life and lessons of a black woman DJ, discusses the highs and lows, the sexism, racism and ageism, she’s navigated throughout her 30 year career. Paulette joined me from Manchester to talk about how perimenopause knocked her sideways at 39. 39! Being told no-one would book her bc she was too old at 41. The career-kids conundrum. Back fat, underarm vaginas & a kangaroo pouch. Being older at 24 than 54. And why she will never stop sticking her neck out. If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Annie Macmanus and Karen Arthur. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Welcome to the Club by DJ Paulette and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 30 Jan 2024 01:00:00 -0000 DJ paulette: how perimeno knocked her sideways at 39 (39!) full 13 171 sam baker The trailblazing DJ discusses the highs and lows, the sexism, racism and ageism, she’s navigated throughout her 30 year career My guest today is a true trailblazer. If you’ve ever been a clubber, DJ Paulette will need zero introduction. If you haven’t, well, all you really need to know is she has been breaking barriers since day one. One of the Hacienda’s first female DJs, she became a stalwart of the Manchester music scene in the 90s, before being catapulted to stardom playing crowds of tens of thousands all over the world. All this in a world that’s a notorious boys club; where women famously have to do it backwards in high heels. And as a black queer woman she’s had to do triple back flips as well, just to get a fraction of the recognition. In November 2022 she became the first female of colour to win DJ Magazine’s lifetime achievement award, amongst an all-male roll-call. (Surprise!) Now she’s reliving those years in her first book. Welcome to The Club - the life and lessons of a black woman DJ, discusses the highs and lows, the sexism, racism and ageism, she’s navigated throughout her 30 year career. Paulette joined me from Manchester to talk about how perimenopause knocked her sideways at 39. 39! Being told no-one would book her bc she was too old at 41. The career-kids conundrum. Back fat, underarm vaginas & a kangaroo pouch. Being older at 24 than 54. And why she will never stop sticking her neck out. If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Annie Macmanus and Karen Arthur. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Welcome to the Club by DJ Paulette and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a true trailblazer. If you’ve ever been a clubber, DJ Paulette will need zero introduction. If you haven’t, well, all you really need to know is she has been breaking barriers since day one. One of the Hacienda’s first female DJs, she became a stalwart of the Manchester music scene in the 90s, before being catapulted to stardom playing crowds of tens of thousands all over the world. All this in a world that’s a notorious boys club; where women famously have to do it backwards in high heels. And as a black queer woman she’s had to do triple back flips as well, just to get a fraction of the recognition.


In November 2022 she became the first female of colour to win DJ Magazine’s lifetime achievement award, amongst an all-male roll-call. (Surprise!)


Now she’s reliving those years in her first book. Welcome to The Club - the life and lessons of a black woman DJ, discusses the highs and lows, the sexism, racism and ageism, she’s navigated throughout her 30 year career.


Paulette joined me from Manchester to talk about how perimenopause knocked her sideways at 39. 39! Being told no-one would book her bc she was too old at 41. The career-kids conundrum. Back fat, underarm vaginas & a kangaroo pouch. Being older at 24 than 54. And why she will never stop sticking her neck out.


If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Annie Macmanus and Karen Arthur.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Welcome to the Club by DJ Paulette and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2887 no Delia Ephron on getting a second chance at love in your 70s - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ For the last of our January archive episodes, we're revisiting an emotional and uplifting chat with screenwriter Delia Ephron. Next week, we're back with a brand new season of The Shift with Sam Baker. --- My final guest of the season is the acclaimed screenwriter and bestselling author, Delia Ephron. Unfailingly wise, warm and witty, Delia is perhaps best known as co-writer of the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks smash hit You’ve Got Mail, with her sister, the writer and director Nora Ephron,. Delia’s new memoir, Left On Tenth, is the kind of story that would out-rom if not out-com - anything Nora could have come up with. Except… every word is true. At 72, Delia found herself quite literally left on Tenth street in Manhattan, when her husband of 37 years, Jerry, died of cancer, just three years after the death of her beloved big sister Nora. A year later Delia reconnected with Peter, a man she didn’t even remember dating in college. It was love at second sight. But that was only the start of the story. Because just four months later, Delia was diagnosed with the same cancer that killed her sister. Now 77, and recovering from a successful bone marrow transplant, Delia joined me from California to talk about getting a second chance at life and love in your 70s, the imperfection of sisterhood, being a lifelong worrier, why friendship is her superpower and shy she's addicted to blow dries (and pastries!). Oh, and, “if someone wants to crush your dreams with their big fat foot get out!”.  You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Left On Tenth by Delia Ephron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 23 Jan 2024 01:00:02 -0000 Delia Ephron on getting a second chance at love in your 70s - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 12 170 sam baker An emotional chat with the hit screenwriter of Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks hit You've Got Mail and sister of the writer-director Nora For the last of our January archive episodes, we're revisiting an emotional and uplifting chat with screenwriter Delia Ephron. Next week, we're back with a brand new season of The Shift with Sam Baker. --- My final guest of the season is the acclaimed screenwriter and bestselling author, Delia Ephron. Unfailingly wise, warm and witty, Delia is perhaps best known as co-writer of the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks smash hit You’ve Got Mail, with her sister, the writer and director Nora Ephron,. Delia’s new memoir, Left On Tenth, is the kind of story that would out-rom if not out-com - anything Nora could have come up with. Except… every word is true. At 72, Delia found herself quite literally left on Tenth street in Manhattan, when her husband of 37 years, Jerry, died of cancer, just three years after the death of her beloved big sister Nora. A year later Delia reconnected with Peter, a man she didn’t even remember dating in college. It was love at second sight. But that was only the start of the story. Because just four months later, Delia was diagnosed with the same cancer that killed her sister. Now 77, and recovering from a successful bone marrow transplant, Delia joined me from California to talk about getting a second chance at life and love in your 70s, the imperfection of sisterhood, being a lifelong worrier, why friendship is her superpower and shy she's addicted to blow dries (and pastries!). Oh, and, “if someone wants to crush your dreams with their big fat foot get out!”.  You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Left On Tenth by Delia Ephron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices For the last of our January archive episodes, we're revisiting an emotional and uplifting chat with screenwriter Delia Ephron. Next week, we're back with a brand new season of The Shift with Sam Baker.


---


My final guest of the season is the acclaimed screenwriter and bestselling author, Delia Ephron. Unfailingly wise, warm and witty, Delia is perhaps best known as co-writer of the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks smash hit You’ve Got Mail, with her sister, the writer and director Nora Ephron,.


Delia’s new memoir, Left On Tenth, is the kind of story that would out-rom if not out-com - anything Nora could have come up with. Except… every word is true.


At 72, Delia found herself quite literally left on Tenth street in Manhattan, when her husband of 37 years, Jerry, died of cancer, just three years after the death of her beloved big sister Nora. A year later Delia reconnected with Peter, a man she didn’t even remember dating in college. It was love at second sight. But that was only the start of the story. Because just four months later, Delia was diagnosed with the same cancer that killed her sister.


Now 77, and recovering from a successful bone marrow transplant, Delia joined me from California to talk about getting a second chance at life and love in your 70s, the imperfection of sisterhood, being a lifelong worrier, why friendship is her superpower and shy she's addicted to blow dries (and pastries!). Oh, and, “if someone wants to crush your dreams with their big fat foot get out!”. 


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Left On Tenth by Delia Ephron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2786 no Julia Cameron believes creativity is the answer, whatever the question - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Been meaning to get going on those Morning Pages since forever? Well, as part of our January motivation series, this week we're revisiting my fascinating conversation with the woman who brought us The Artist's Way. --- My guest today is the author of the cult bestseller The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron. Part book, part tool-kit, part spiritual guide, The Artists Way has sold over 4 million copies globally and has inspired countless artists, writers, and creatives including Elizabeth Gilbert, Alicia Keyes, Pete Townshend and many more. In the 30 years since that was published, Julia has written a movie, 7 plays and 23 books, including her memoir Floor Sample. Written in her late 50s she looked back over the first half(ish) of her life: her catholic education, alcoholism and drug abuse, her brief marriage to director Martin Scorsese, and her subsequent search for meaning, for herself, for home, ultimately for a way to be comfortably sober. Speaking from her home in Santa Fe, Julia shared her incredible journey from “just a girl” at Catholic school to The Artists Way by way of leaving Washington a writer and landing in Hollywood a wife. She spoke candidly about losing the love of her life, getting and staying sober, how the nuns were her introduction to women with power and how the morning pages transformed her life. Now 74 and 45 years dry, she says, she’s braver than ever. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Artists Way by Julia Cameron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! Julia's recommendation, Creative Ideas by Ernest Holmes is out of print, but you can buy it here. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 16 Jan 2024 01:00:44 -0000 Julia Cameron believes creativity is the answer, whatever the question - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 12 169 sam baker <p>Been meaning to get going on those Morning Pages since forever? Well, as part of our January motivation series, this week we're revisiting my fascinating conversation with the woman who brought us The Artist's Way.</p><br><p>---</p><br><p><strong>My guest today is the author of the cult bestseller The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron. </strong>Part book, part tool-kit, part spiritual guide, The Artists Way has sold over 4 million copies globally and has inspired countless artists, writers, and creatives including Elizabeth Gilbert, Alicia Keyes, Pete Townshend and many more.</p><br><p>In the 30 years since that was published, Julia has written a movie, 7 plays and 23 books, including her memoir Floor Sample. Written in her late 50s she looked back over the first half(ish) of her life: her catholic education, alcoholism and drug abuse, her brief marriage to director Martin Scorsese, and her subsequent search for meaning, for herself, for home, ultimately for a way to be comfortably sober.</p><br><p>Speaking from her home in Santa Fe, Julia shared her incredible journey from “just a girl” at Catholic school to The Artists Way by way of leaving Washington a writer and landing in Hollywood a wife. She spoke candidly about losing the love of her life, getting and staying sober, how the nuns were her introduction to women with power and how the morning pages transformed her life. Now 74 and 45 years dry, she says, she’s braver than ever.</p><br><p>* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at <a href="https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/the-shift-podcast-guests-books" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, including <strong>The Artists Way by Julia Cameron</strong> and the book that inspired this podcast, <strong>The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too</strong>, by me! Julia's recommendation, <strong>Creative Ideas by Ernest Holmes</strong> is out of print, but you can buy it <a href="https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Creative-Ideas-Spiritual-Compass-Personal-Expression/31258978334/bd?cm_mmc=ggl-_-UK_Shopp_Tradestandard-_-product_id=UK9780972718448USED-_-keyword=&amp;gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7qWgibKl-QIVmJ3VCh1lzAF2EAQYASABEgKPQ_D_BwE" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here.</a></p><br><p><strong>* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at </strong><a href="https://open.acast.com/shows/611ed58706c05e6eb2f40e7f/episodes/www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com</strong></a></p><br><p><strong>• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker</strong> is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br><p><br></p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> Been meaning to get going on those Morning Pages since forever? Well, as part of our January motivation series, this week we're revisiting my fascinating conversation with the woman who brought us The Artist's Way. --- My guest today is the author of the cult bestseller The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron. Part book, part tool-kit, part spiritual guide, The Artists Way has sold over 4 million copies globally and has inspired countless artists, writers, and creatives including Elizabeth Gilbert, Alicia Keyes, Pete Townshend and many more. In the 30 years since that was published, Julia has written a movie, 7 plays and 23 books, including her memoir Floor Sample. Written in her late 50s she looked back over the first half(ish) of her life: her catholic education, alcoholism and drug abuse, her brief marriage to director Martin Scorsese, and her subsequent search for meaning, for herself, for home, ultimately for a way to be comfortably sober. Speaking from her home in Santa Fe, Julia shared her incredible journey from “just a girl” at Catholic school to The Artists Way by way of leaving Washington a writer and landing in Hollywood a wife. She spoke candidly about losing the love of her life, getting and staying sober, how the nuns were her introduction to women with power and how the morning pages transformed her life. Now 74 and 45 years dry, she says, she’s braver than ever. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Artists Way by Julia Cameron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! Julia's recommendation, Creative Ideas by Ernest Holmes is out of print, but you can buy it here. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Been meaning to get going on those Morning Pages since forever? Well, as part of our January motivation series, this week we're revisiting my fascinating conversation with the woman who brought us The Artist's Way.


---


My guest today is the author of the cult bestseller The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron. Part book, part tool-kit, part spiritual guide, The Artists Way has sold over 4 million copies globally and has inspired countless artists, writers, and creatives including Elizabeth Gilbert, Alicia Keyes, Pete Townshend and many more.


In the 30 years since that was published, Julia has written a movie, 7 plays and 23 books, including her memoir Floor Sample. Written in her late 50s she looked back over the first half(ish) of her life: her catholic education, alcoholism and drug abuse, her brief marriage to director Martin Scorsese, and her subsequent search for meaning, for herself, for home, ultimately for a way to be comfortably sober.


Speaking from her home in Santa Fe, Julia shared her incredible journey from “just a girl” at Catholic school to The Artists Way by way of leaving Washington a writer and landing in Hollywood a wife. She spoke candidly about losing the love of her life, getting and staying sober, how the nuns were her introduction to women with power and how the morning pages transformed her life. Now 74 and 45 years dry, she says, she’s braver than ever.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Artists Way by Julia Cameron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! Julia's recommendation, Creative Ideas by Ernest Holmes is out of print, but you can buy it here.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.




Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2301 no Dr Sharon Blackie wants you to embrace your inner hag - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Yes, it's still January! And this week we're revisiting an episode with psychologist, folklorist, mythologist and all-round one-woman campaigner for us to embrace our inner crone! --- How do I want to age? What does the rest of my life look like? Those are questions I know many of you have given A LOT of thought. Well, my guest today has some answers. Dr Sharon Blackie is a psychologist and folklorist who is passionate about reimagining the ageing process for the better. Her last book If Women Rose Rooted was an ecofeminist sleeper hit about finding your place in the world that was passed from woman to woman with the words “you MUST read this”.  Her new book, Hagitude: reimagining the second half of life, does JUST that. What, she asks, would ageing as a woman in the west be like if we embraced it. If we saw it as an adventure, not something to be dreaded, dodged, denied. At its heart is the radical idea: what if older women knew how to use the power and influence many of us don't know we have. What if we recognised our value? What if we wrote our own narratives? Sharon joined me to talk about the power of myth, embracing your inner hag and why she’d rather be the old woman in the wood than a boring old fairytale princess any day. She also told me what she learnt from THREE midlife crises, her decade of hot flushes and the joy of no longer having skin in the mating game. I found this conversation so motivating and inspiring. I hope you do too. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Hagitude and If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 Jan 2024 01:00:28 -0000 Dr Sharon Blackie wants you to embrace your inner hag - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 12 168 sam baker A radical new approach to ageing Yes, it's still January! And this week we're revisiting an episode with psychologist, folklorist, mythologist and all-round one-woman campaigner for us to embrace our inner crone! --- How do I want to age? What does the rest of my life look like? Those are questions I know many of you have given A LOT of thought. Well, my guest today has some answers. Dr Sharon Blackie is a psychologist and folklorist who is passionate about reimagining the ageing process for the better. Her last book If Women Rose Rooted was an ecofeminist sleeper hit about finding your place in the world that was passed from woman to woman with the words “you MUST read this”.  Her new book, Hagitude: reimagining the second half of life, does JUST that. What, she asks, would ageing as a woman in the west be like if we embraced it. If we saw it as an adventure, not something to be dreaded, dodged, denied. At its heart is the radical idea: what if older women knew how to use the power and influence many of us don't know we have. What if we recognised our value? What if we wrote our own narratives? Sharon joined me to talk about the power of myth, embracing your inner hag and why she’d rather be the old woman in the wood than a boring old fairytale princess any day. She also told me what she learnt from THREE midlife crises, her decade of hot flushes and the joy of no longer having skin in the mating game. I found this conversation so motivating and inspiring. I hope you do too. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Hagitude and If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Yes, it's still January! And this week we're revisiting an episode with psychologist, folklorist, mythologist and all-round one-woman campaigner for us to embrace our inner crone!


---


How do I want to age? What does the rest of my life look like? Those are questions I know many of you have given A LOT of thought. Well, my guest today has some answers.


Dr Sharon Blackie is a psychologist and folklorist who is passionate about reimagining the ageing process for the better. Her last book If Women Rose Rooted was an ecofeminist sleeper hit about finding your place in the world that was passed from woman to woman with the words “you MUST read this”. 


Her new book, Hagitude: reimagining the second half of life, does JUST that. What, she asks, would ageing as a woman in the west be like if we embraced it. If we saw it as an adventure, not something to be dreaded, dodged, denied. At its heart is the radical idea: what if older women knew how to use the power and influence many of us don't know we have. What if we recognised our value? What if we wrote our own narratives?


Sharon joined me to talk about the power of myth, embracing your inner hag and why she’d rather be the old woman in the wood than a boring old fairytale princess any day. She also told me what she learnt from THREE midlife crises, her decade of hot flushes and the joy of no longer having skin in the mating game.


I found this conversation so motivating and inspiring. I hope you do too.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Hagitude and If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2843 no Raynor Winn on the power of hope & becoming a public person at 60 - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ It's January (Again! So soon!) so, rather than give up everything, this month we're revisiting a host of episodes that are all about a little inspiration. First up the one and only Raynor Winn... --- One hundred episodes... how did that happen?! The little podcast that started on a whim and a prayer (and no, that's not a typo!) is still here and soaring. So I could not think of a more fitting guest for such a landmark episode than a woman whose life is a tribute to the power of hope... Where do you turn when everything feels hopeless? My guest today knows the answer to better than most. Nine years ago, in the space of one week, Raynor Winn lost her home, and her husband, Moth, was diagnosed with a degenerative disease. In the face of such loss, there was only one thing to do: they packed what little of their life they could carry into their backpacks, and walked. That walk - 630 miles along the South West Coast path - became the bestseller The Salt Path. It sold a million copies, spent more than 90 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller lists and changed thousands of lives - not least Raynor and Moth’s. Despite defying the medical odds, two years ago Moth’s health began to decline again. Clutching at hope, they set out for one last walk: this time 1000 miles, from Cape Wrath in the far North West of Scotland back home to Cornwall. But in walking back home, could they really walk Moth back to health a second time? Raynor joined me to talk about the book of that epic journey, Landlines, and how walking The Salt Path wiped her clean. We also discuss the power of walking, why nature has always been her safe place, putting yourself in the way of hope and how a shy girl hiding behind the sofa became a public person at 60.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Landlines by Raynor Winn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 02 Jan 2024 01:00:42 -0000 Raynor Winn on the power of hope & becoming a public person at 60 - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 12 167 sam baker <p>It's January (Again! So soon!) so, rather than give up everything, this month we're revisiting a host of episodes that are all about a little inspiration. First up the one and only Raynor Winn...</p><br><p>---</p><br><p>One hundred episodes... how did that happen?! The little podcast that started on a whim and a prayer (and no, that's not a typo!) is still here and soaring. So I could not think of a more fitting guest for such a landmark episode than a woman whose life is a tribute to the power of hope...</p><br><p>Where do you turn when everything feels hopeless? My guest today knows the answer to better than most. Nine years ago, in the space of one week, Raynor Winn lost her home, and her husband, Moth, was diagnosed with a degenerative disease. In the face of such loss, there was only one thing to do: they packed what little of their life they could carry into their backpacks, and walked.</p><br><p>That walk - 630 miles along the South West Coast path - became the bestseller The Salt Path. It sold a million copies, spent more than 90 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller lists and changed thousands of lives - not least Raynor and Moth’s.</p><br><p>Despite defying the medical odds, two years ago Moth’s health began to decline again. Clutching at hope, they set out for one last walk: this time 1000 miles, from Cape Wrath in the far North West of Scotland back home to Cornwall. But in walking back home, could they really walk Moth back to health a second time?</p><br><p>Raynor joined me to talk about the book of that epic journey, Landlines, and how walking The Salt Path wiped her clean. We also discuss the power of walking, why nature has always been her safe place, putting yourself in the way of hope and how a shy girl hiding behind the sofa became a public person at 60.&nbsp;</p><br><p>* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at <a href="https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/the-shift-podcast-guests-books" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, including <strong>Landlines by Raynor Winn </strong>and the book that inspired this podcast, <strong>The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too</strong>, by me!</p><br><p><strong>* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at </strong><a href="https://open.acast.com/shows/611ed58706c05e6eb2f40e7f/episodes/www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com</strong></a></p><br><p>• <strong>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker</strong> is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> It's January (Again! So soon!) so, rather than give up everything, this month we're revisiting a host of episodes that are all about a little inspiration. First up the one and only Raynor Winn... --- One hundred episodes... how did that happen?! The little podcast that started on a whim and a prayer (and no, that's not a typo!) is still here and soaring. So I could not think of a more fitting guest for such a landmark episode than a woman whose life is a tribute to the power of hope... Where do you turn when everything feels hopeless? My guest today knows the answer to better than most. Nine years ago, in the space of one week, Raynor Winn lost her home, and her husband, Moth, was diagnosed with a degenerative disease. In the face of such loss, there was only one thing to do: they packed what little of their life they could carry into their backpacks, and walked. That walk - 630 miles along the South West Coast path - became the bestseller The Salt Path. It sold a million copies, spent more than 90 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller lists and changed thousands of lives - not least Raynor and Moth’s. Despite defying the medical odds, two years ago Moth’s health began to decline again. Clutching at hope, they set out for one last walk: this time 1000 miles, from Cape Wrath in the far North West of Scotland back home to Cornwall. But in walking back home, could they really walk Moth back to health a second time? Raynor joined me to talk about the book of that epic journey, Landlines, and how walking The Salt Path wiped her clean. We also discuss the power of walking, why nature has always been her safe place, putting yourself in the way of hope and how a shy girl hiding behind the sofa became a public person at 60.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Landlines by Raynor Winn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices It's January (Again! So soon!) so, rather than give up everything, this month we're revisiting a host of episodes that are all about a little inspiration. First up the one and only Raynor Winn...


---


One hundred episodes... how did that happen?! The little podcast that started on a whim and a prayer (and no, that's not a typo!) is still here and soaring. So I could not think of a more fitting guest for such a landmark episode than a woman whose life is a tribute to the power of hope...


Where do you turn when everything feels hopeless? My guest today knows the answer to better than most. Nine years ago, in the space of one week, Raynor Winn lost her home, and her husband, Moth, was diagnosed with a degenerative disease. In the face of such loss, there was only one thing to do: they packed what little of their life they could carry into their backpacks, and walked.


That walk - 630 miles along the South West Coast path - became the bestseller The Salt Path. It sold a million copies, spent more than 90 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller lists and changed thousands of lives - not least Raynor and Moth’s.


Despite defying the medical odds, two years ago Moth’s health began to decline again. Clutching at hope, they set out for one last walk: this time 1000 miles, from Cape Wrath in the far North West of Scotland back home to Cornwall. But in walking back home, could they really walk Moth back to health a second time?


Raynor joined me to talk about the book of that epic journey, Landlines, and how walking The Salt Path wiped her clean. We also discuss the power of walking, why nature has always been her safe place, putting yourself in the way of hope and how a shy girl hiding behind the sofa became a public person at 60. 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Landlines by Raynor Winn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3007 no Lindsey Hilsum on menopause in a warzone and why going grey is NOT brave - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week we're revisiting one of my favourite episodes from one of the first series. It was back in the day when it was still taboo to talk about menopause, so getting a so-called hardened war reporter to do just that was, well a bit of a coup. Here's Lindsey Hilsum admitting to hiding behind a tank! --- You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012. Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years… • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 26 Dec 2023 01:00:43 -0000 Lindsey Hilsum on menopause in a warzone and why going grey is NOT brave - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 12 166 sam baker <p>This week we're revisiting one of my favourite episodes from one of the first series. It was back in the day when it was still taboo to talk about menopause, so getting a so-called hardened war reporter to do just that was, well a bit of a coup. Here's Lindsey Hilsum admitting to hiding behind a tank!</p><br><p>---</p><br><p>You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012.</p><br><p>Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years…</p><br><p>• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at <a href="https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/sambaker" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, including the book that accompanies this podcast, <em>The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too</em> by Sam Baker and <em>In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin </em>by Lindsey Hilsum.</p><br><p><strong>* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at </strong><a href="https://open.acast.com/shows/611ed58706c05e6eb2f40e7f/episodes/www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com</strong></a></p><br><p>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> This week we're revisiting one of my favourite episodes from one of the first series. It was back in the day when it was still taboo to talk about menopause, so getting a so-called hardened war reporter to do just that was, well a bit of a coup. Here's Lindsey Hilsum admitting to hiding behind a tank! --- You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012. Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years… • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week we're revisiting one of my favourite episodes from one of the first series. It was back in the day when it was still taboo to talk about menopause, so getting a so-called hardened war reporter to do just that was, well a bit of a coup. Here's Lindsey Hilsum admitting to hiding behind a tank!


---


You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012.


Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years…


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2456 no Nina Stibbe on menopause, middle age and midlife sex scenes - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Last week, Nina Stibbe joined me on The Shift bookclub (if you're not a member, I've taken the "lock" off for a week or so, so you can check it out on Youtube) to talk about her new memoir, Went to London, Took The Dog - what happens when a 60-year-old menopausal woman does a runner. So now seemed like a good time to revisit the episode of The Shift that was recorded just before she did that runner! --- What happens when “one of the great comic writers of our time” hits menopause? That’s the conundrum that faced this week’s guest, award-winning novelist Nina Stibbe when she sat down to write her new novel.  With five bestselling books under her belt, including her first memoir, Love Nina, which was turned into a hit TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter. And three novels centred around the turbulent teens and twenties of her alter-ego Lizzie Vogel, Nina decided it was time to turn her hand to middle age.  In One Day I Shall Astonish The World, Nina examines the heartbreak, hilarity and occasional hatred of a friendship that stretches from late teens to mid-50s by way of very different love, life and career choices. Nina joined me to talk about being hit by the menopause truck, the pressure to be always funny and why her greatest midlife inspiration has come from comedy women. She also said she looks older than her mum and shared her ultimate midlife relationship-saver (or not!): the sofa bed. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including One Day I Shall Astonish The World and Went to London, Took The Dog by Nina Stibbe and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 19 Dec 2023 01:00:23 -0000 Nina Stibbe on menopause, middle age and midlife sex scenes - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 12 165 sam baker <p>Last week, Nina Stibbe joined me on The Shift bookclub (if you're not a member, I've taken the "lock" off for a week or so, so you can check it out on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk35KjQUVJ7_506W8_3QDSQ" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Youtube</a>) to talk about her new memoir, <a href="https://amzn.to/47Snu0p" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Went to London, Took The Dog</a> - what happens when a 60-year-old menopausal woman does a runner. So now seemed like a good time to revisit the episode of The Shift that was recorded just before she did that runner!</p><br><p>---</p><br><p>What happens when “one of the great comic writers of our time” hits menopause? That’s the conundrum that faced this week’s guest, award-winning novelist Nina Stibbe when she sat down to write her new novel.&nbsp;</p><br><p>With five bestselling books under her belt, including her first memoir, Love Nina, which was turned into a hit TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter. And three novels centred around the turbulent teens and twenties of her alter-ego Lizzie Vogel, Nina decided it was time to turn her hand to middle age.&nbsp;</p><br><p>In One Day I Shall Astonish The World, Nina examines the heartbreak, hilarity and occasional hatred of a friendship that stretches from late teens to mid-50s by way of very different love, life and career choices.</p><br><p>Nina joined me to talk about being hit by the menopause truck, the pressure to be always funny and why her greatest midlife inspiration has come from comedy women. She also said she looks older than her mum and shared her ultimate midlife relationship-saver (or not!): the sofa bed.</p><br><p>You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at <a href="https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/the-shift-podcast-guests-books" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, including <strong>One Day I Shall Astonish The World </strong>and <strong>Went to London, Took The Dog</strong> by Nina Stibbe and the book that inspired this podcast, <strong>The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too</strong>, by me!</p><br><p><strong>* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at </strong><a href="https://open.acast.com/shows/611ed58706c05e6eb2f40e7f/episodes/www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com</strong></a></p><br><p>• <strong>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker</strong> is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> Last week, Nina Stibbe joined me on The Shift bookclub (if you're not a member, I've taken the "lock" off for a week or so, so you can check it out on Youtube) to talk about her new memoir, Went to London, Took The Dog - what happens when a 60-year-old menopausal woman does a runner. So now seemed like a good time to revisit the episode of The Shift that was recorded just before she did that runner! --- What happens when “one of the great comic writers of our time” hits menopause? That’s the conundrum that faced this week’s guest, award-winning novelist Nina Stibbe when she sat down to write her new novel.  With five bestselling books under her belt, including her first memoir, Love Nina, which was turned into a hit TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter. And three novels centred around the turbulent teens and twenties of her alter-ego Lizzie Vogel, Nina decided it was time to turn her hand to middle age.  In One Day I Shall Astonish The World, Nina examines the heartbreak, hilarity and occasional hatred of a friendship that stretches from late teens to mid-50s by way of very different love, life and career choices. Nina joined me to talk about being hit by the menopause truck, the pressure to be always funny and why her greatest midlife inspiration has come from comedy women. She also said she looks older than her mum and shared her ultimate midlife relationship-saver (or not!): the sofa bed. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including One Day I Shall Astonish The World and Went to London, Took The Dog by Nina Stibbe and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Last week, Nina Stibbe joined me on The Shift bookclub (if you're not a member, I've taken the "lock" off for a week or so, so you can check it out on Youtube) to talk about her new memoir, Went to London, Took The Dog - what happens when a 60-year-old menopausal woman does a runner. So now seemed like a good time to revisit the episode of The Shift that was recorded just before she did that runner!


---


What happens when “one of the great comic writers of our time” hits menopause? That’s the conundrum that faced this week’s guest, award-winning novelist Nina Stibbe when she sat down to write her new novel. 


With five bestselling books under her belt, including her first memoir, Love Nina, which was turned into a hit TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter. And three novels centred around the turbulent teens and twenties of her alter-ego Lizzie Vogel, Nina decided it was time to turn her hand to middle age. 


In One Day I Shall Astonish The World, Nina examines the heartbreak, hilarity and occasional hatred of a friendship that stretches from late teens to mid-50s by way of very different love, life and career choices.


Nina joined me to talk about being hit by the menopause truck, the pressure to be always funny and why her greatest midlife inspiration has come from comedy women. She also said she looks older than her mum and shared her ultimate midlife relationship-saver (or not!): the sofa bed.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including One Day I Shall Astonish The World and Went to London, Took The Dog by Nina Stibbe and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2022 no Miriam Margolyes on the power of living a life with no secrets https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ It’s the final episode of the season and all my podcasting dreams have come true. Because my guest this week - by popular demand and a whole ton of begging - is the one, the only, the legend that is Miriam Margolyes. Miriam started her career in theatre and radio, voiced some of the best known ads of the late 20th century (hello Cadburys Caramel bunny), won a BAFTA for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence and millions of tiny hearts as Professor Sprout in Harry Potter. At 82, she is busier than ever; A Vogue cover star, one of TV’s best-loved documentary makers and the bestselling author of two memoirs, This Much Is True and Oh Miriam! Can you tell how excited I was?! I met Miriam in Glasgow ahead of her live show to talk about everything from having her womb out in her mid-30s (she only went to the dr for a sore nose!), wearing trainers to Buckingham palace (before that was a thing) and why she’s really really bored of being labelled “just a lesbian”. We also discussed never wanting children, her 54 year love match and the power of living a life with no secrets. If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Sheila Hancock and Janey Godley. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Oh Miriam! and This Much Is True by Miriam Margolyes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 12 Dec 2023 01:00:00 -0000 Miriam Margolyes on the power of living a life with no secrets full 12 164 sam baker The living legend on becoming a Vogue covergirl in her 80s, being more than "just a lesbian" and the secret behind her 50+ year love It’s the final episode of the season and all my podcasting dreams have come true. Because my guest this week - by popular demand and a whole ton of begging - is the one, the only, the legend that is Miriam Margolyes. Miriam started her career in theatre and radio, voiced some of the best known ads of the late 20th century (hello Cadburys Caramel bunny), won a BAFTA for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence and millions of tiny hearts as Professor Sprout in Harry Potter. At 82, she is busier than ever; A Vogue cover star, one of TV’s best-loved documentary makers and the bestselling author of two memoirs, This Much Is True and Oh Miriam! Can you tell how excited I was?! I met Miriam in Glasgow ahead of her live show to talk about everything from having her womb out in her mid-30s (she only went to the dr for a sore nose!), wearing trainers to Buckingham palace (before that was a thing) and why she’s really really bored of being labelled “just a lesbian”. We also discussed never wanting children, her 54 year love match and the power of living a life with no secrets. If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Sheila Hancock and Janey Godley. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Oh Miriam! and This Much Is True by Miriam Margolyes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices It’s the final episode of the season and all my podcasting dreams have come true. Because my guest this week - by popular demand and a whole ton of begging - is the one, the only, the legend that is Miriam Margolyes.


Miriam started her career in theatre and radio, voiced some of the best known ads of the late 20th century (hello Cadburys Caramel bunny), won a BAFTA for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence and millions of tiny hearts as Professor Sprout in Harry Potter.


At 82, she is busier than ever; A Vogue cover star, one of TV’s best-loved documentary makers and the bestselling author of two memoirs, This Much Is True and Oh Miriam! Can you tell how excited I was?!


I met Miriam in Glasgow ahead of her live show to talk about everything from having her womb out in her mid-30s (she only went to the dr for a sore nose!), wearing trainers to Buckingham palace (before that was a thing) and why she’s really really bored of being labelled “just a lesbian”. We also discussed never wanting children, her 54 year love match and the power of living a life with no secrets.


If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Sheila Hancock and Janey Godley.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Oh Miriam! and This Much Is True by Miriam Margolyes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3032 no Bee Wilson on how cooking helped her heal after divorce https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is a food writer’s food writer. Beloved by such luminaries as Nigella Lawson, Diana Henry and Yotam Ottolenghi, Bee Wilson may be a bestselling food writer and newspaper columnist (she has published seven books and currently writes the popular Table Talk column for the Wall Street Journal), but she is also a home cook with her own fair share of mess and imperfection. Bee understands the anxiety so many of us share around food and cooking it; And how getting a meal on the table is often about so much more than what that meal is. In her new book, The Secret of Cooking, Bee shares a lifetime of “cooking secrets” that will make even the most culinary phobic - by which I mean me! - feel a glimmer of interest in doing something with a recipe book other than read it. Bee joined me to talk candidly about how cooking brought her back to herself after the trauma of unexpected divorce and how she came around to seeing that separation as a gift. We also discussed overcoming disordered relationships with food, cooking as a love language, getting back in touch with your greedy inner child - and why everybody needs a spider! (Never one to overlook a shopping opportunity, I’ve already bought one!) If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Aasmah Mir and marina Benjamin. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Secret of Cooking by Bee Wilson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 05 Dec 2023 01:00:37 -0000 Bee Wilson on how cooking helped her heal after divorce full 12 163 sam baker The food writer on overcoming disordered eating, dealing with her mother's dementia and why she loves Nigella My guest today is a food writer’s food writer. Beloved by such luminaries as Nigella Lawson, Diana Henry and Yotam Ottolenghi, Bee Wilson may be a bestselling food writer and newspaper columnist (she has published seven books and currently writes the popular Table Talk column for the Wall Street Journal), but she is also a home cook with her own fair share of mess and imperfection. Bee understands the anxiety so many of us share around food and cooking it; And how getting a meal on the table is often about so much more than what that meal is. In her new book, The Secret of Cooking, Bee shares a lifetime of “cooking secrets” that will make even the most culinary phobic - by which I mean me! - feel a glimmer of interest in doing something with a recipe book other than read it. Bee joined me to talk candidly about how cooking brought her back to herself after the trauma of unexpected divorce and how she came around to seeing that separation as a gift. We also discussed overcoming disordered relationships with food, cooking as a love language, getting back in touch with your greedy inner child - and why everybody needs a spider! (Never one to overlook a shopping opportunity, I’ve already bought one!) If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Aasmah Mir and marina Benjamin. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Secret of Cooking by Bee Wilson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a food writer’s food writer. Beloved by such luminaries as Nigella Lawson, Diana Henry and Yotam Ottolenghi, Bee Wilson may be a bestselling food writer and newspaper columnist (she has published seven books and currently writes the popular Table Talk column for the Wall Street Journal), but she is also a home cook with her own fair share of mess and imperfection. Bee understands the anxiety so many of us share around food and cooking it; And how getting a meal on the table is often about so much more than what that meal is.


In her new book, The Secret of Cooking, Bee shares a lifetime of “cooking secrets” that will make even the most culinary phobic - by which I mean me! - feel a glimmer of interest in doing something with a recipe book other than read it.


Bee joined me to talk candidly about how cooking brought her back to herself after the trauma of unexpected divorce and how she came around to seeing that separation as a gift. We also discussed overcoming disordered relationships with food, cooking as a love language, getting back in touch with your greedy inner child - and why everybody needs a spider! (Never one to overlook a shopping opportunity, I’ve already bought one!)


If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Aasmah Mir and marina Benjamin.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Secret of Cooking by Bee Wilson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3126 no Patricia Cornwell on how writing helped her take back control of her life https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is the crime writing legend, Patricia Cornwell. Patricia wrote her first novel about forensic pathologist kay scarpetta in 1990. Called Postmortem, it was such a hit it became the first book ever to win all four major crime awards on both sides of the Atlantic in the same year. (It also scared the bejesus out of me.) But Kay Scarpetta was more than a hit, she was a breakthrough. Because mad as it might sound now, if you were looking for a crime novel where the female characters were actually alive in the late 1980s, you weren’t exactly spoilt for choice. Now 39 books and 100 million copies later, Patricia’s 27th Kay Scarpetta novel, Unnatural Death, is about to hit bookshops and the one and only Jamie Lee Curtis is bringing her to our screens. Patricia zoomed from her home in Boston, where she lives with her wife Staci to talk about, well, everything. We ran the full gamut from gun crime and serial killers to how writing books enabled her to take back control after a difficult childhood, feeling like a failure and the danger of self-loathing. We also discussed how she narrowly escaped being a minister’s wife, marriage second time around and the enormous debt she owes Jamie Lee Curtis.  If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Val McDermid and Barbara Kingsolver. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Unnatural Death by Patricia Cornwell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 28 Nov 2023 01:00:24 -0000 Patricia Cornwell on how writing helped her take back control of her life full 12 162 sam baker The legendary crime writer also opened up about fear of failure, marriage second time around & how she narrowly escaped being a minister's wife My guest this week is the crime writing legend, Patricia Cornwell. Patricia wrote her first novel about forensic pathologist kay scarpetta in 1990. Called Postmortem, it was such a hit it became the first book ever to win all four major crime awards on both sides of the Atlantic in the same year. (It also scared the bejesus out of me.) But Kay Scarpetta was more than a hit, she was a breakthrough. Because mad as it might sound now, if you were looking for a crime novel where the female characters were actually alive in the late 1980s, you weren’t exactly spoilt for choice. Now 39 books and 100 million copies later, Patricia’s 27th Kay Scarpetta novel, Unnatural Death, is about to hit bookshops and the one and only Jamie Lee Curtis is bringing her to our screens. Patricia zoomed from her home in Boston, where she lives with her wife Staci to talk about, well, everything. We ran the full gamut from gun crime and serial killers to how writing books enabled her to take back control after a difficult childhood, feeling like a failure and the danger of self-loathing. We also discussed how she narrowly escaped being a minister’s wife, marriage second time around and the enormous debt she owes Jamie Lee Curtis.  If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Val McDermid and Barbara Kingsolver. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Unnatural Death by Patricia Cornwell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is the crime writing legend, Patricia Cornwell. Patricia wrote her first novel about forensic pathologist kay scarpetta in 1990. Called Postmortem, it was such a hit it became the first book ever to win all four major crime awards on both sides of the Atlantic in the same year. (It also scared the bejesus out of me.) But Kay Scarpetta was more than a hit, she was a breakthrough. Because mad as it might sound now, if you were looking for a crime novel where the female characters were actually alive in the late 1980s, you weren’t exactly spoilt for choice.


Now 39 books and 100 million copies later, Patricia’s 27th Kay Scarpetta novel, Unnatural Death, is about to hit bookshops and the one and only Jamie Lee Curtis is bringing her to our screens.


Patricia zoomed from her home in Boston, where she lives with her wife Staci to talk about, well, everything. We ran the full gamut from gun crime and serial killers to how writing books enabled her to take back control after a difficult childhood, feeling like a failure and the danger of self-loathing. We also discussed how she narrowly escaped being a minister’s wife, marriage second time around and the enormous debt she owes Jamie Lee Curtis. 


If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Val McDermid and Barbara Kingsolver.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Unnatural Death by Patricia Cornwell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2690 no Lindsey Kelk on grief, gynae hell and why she's had enough of ageism in romcoms https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Anyone else feel in serious need a romcom right now? I know I do. And my guest today has your back. Lindsey Kelk’s unashamedly feel good fiction has won her a legion of fans from the queen Marian Keyes and Jane Fallon to Emily Henry and Mhairi McFarlane. Born in Doncaster and now living in LA by way of New York, Lindsey has written 19 novels and sold 2.5million copies. The most recent of which are Love Me Do - a fun gender-flipped Cyrano de Bergerac meets The Holiday - and The Christmas Wish, which turns Christmas Day into Groundhog Day. Sounds more like a horror story than a romcom to me! Self-confessed oversharer and cat lover, Lindsey hung out in my kitchen with Sausage the cat (but of course) to tell me about losing both her mother and grandmother in the space of the year, how she learnt that often what looks like a wall is actually a door and how a Northern girl who grew up in a diet-y household, maintains a semblance of self-esteem in the city of beautiful people. We also discussed Lindsey’s gynaecological history FROM HELL (and as regular listeners will know, it takes one to know one), finally finding a partner who’s all about a green flag and how she’s fully sick of ageism in romcoms.  If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Jane Fallon and Marian Keyes. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Love Me Do by Lindsey Kelk and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 21 Nov 2023 01:00:26 -0000 Lindsey Kelk on grief, gynae hell and why she's had enough of ageism in romcoms full 12 161 sam baker The romcom queen and self-confessed oversharer talks body image and maintaining a semblance of self-image in LA Anyone else feel in serious need a romcom right now? I know I do. And my guest today has your back. Lindsey Kelk’s unashamedly feel good fiction has won her a legion of fans from the queen Marian Keyes and Jane Fallon to Emily Henry and Mhairi McFarlane. Born in Doncaster and now living in LA by way of New York, Lindsey has written 19 novels and sold 2.5million copies. The most recent of which are Love Me Do - a fun gender-flipped Cyrano de Bergerac meets The Holiday - and The Christmas Wish, which turns Christmas Day into Groundhog Day. Sounds more like a horror story than a romcom to me! Self-confessed oversharer and cat lover, Lindsey hung out in my kitchen with Sausage the cat (but of course) to tell me about losing both her mother and grandmother in the space of the year, how she learnt that often what looks like a wall is actually a door and how a Northern girl who grew up in a diet-y household, maintains a semblance of self-esteem in the city of beautiful people. We also discussed Lindsey’s gynaecological history FROM HELL (and as regular listeners will know, it takes one to know one), finally finding a partner who’s all about a green flag and how she’s fully sick of ageism in romcoms.  If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Jane Fallon and Marian Keyes. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Love Me Do by Lindsey Kelk and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anyone else feel in serious need a romcom right now? I know I do. And my guest today has your back. Lindsey Kelk’s unashamedly feel good fiction has won her a legion of fans from the queen Marian Keyes and Jane Fallon to Emily Henry and Mhairi McFarlane.


Born in Doncaster and now living in LA by way of New York, Lindsey has written 19 novels and sold 2.5million copies. The most recent of which are Love Me Do - a fun gender-flipped Cyrano de Bergerac meets The Holiday - and The Christmas Wish, which turns Christmas Day into Groundhog Day. Sounds more like a horror story than a romcom to me!


Self-confessed oversharer and cat lover, Lindsey hung out in my kitchen with Sausage the cat (but of course) to tell me about losing both her mother and grandmother in the space of the year, how she learnt that often what looks like a wall is actually a door and how a Northern girl who grew up in a diet-y household, maintains a semblance of self-esteem in the city of beautiful people.


We also discussed Lindsey’s gynaecological history FROM HELL (and as regular listeners will know, it takes one to know one), finally finding a partner who’s all about a green flag and how she’s fully sick of ageism in romcoms. 


If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Jane Fallon and Marian Keyes.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Love Me Do by Lindsey Kelk and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3375 no Dr Gladys McGarey: a 102-year-old shares their life lessons https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote candidly about losing her partner in life and work after 46 years. Not because he passed away, but because he handed her divorce papers! That would have floored most of us, but despite being sideswiped, Dr Gladys McGarey, picked herself up, started a new medical practice with her daughter before becoming a speaker, author and all-round inspiration. All this at the age of 70. Since then Dr Gladys, who is known as the mother of holistic medicine, has received countless awards including the Humanities Award for Outstanding Service to Mankind.  At 85 she travelled to Afghanistan to teach rural women safer birthing practices. At her 90th birthday party she jumped out of her birthday cake. At 102 she became the proud owner of an adult tricycle. Who is this woman? And how does she do it? I HAD to know. Now on the cusp of 103, Dr Gladys joined me from her home in Arizona to tell me her secrets to health and happiness. We discussed ageing into health, femifesting (as opposed to manifesting), how divorce was the remaking of her, finding her voice at 93 and why we should all spend our energy wildly! I know this isn’t the first time I’ve said I found my old bird role model, but seriously. Dr Gladys is IT. If you loved this episode you might also like my conversations with Hilma Wolitzer and Isabel Allende * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Well-Lived Life by Dr Gladys McGarey and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 14 Nov 2023 01:00:00 -0000 Dr Gladys McGarey: a 102-year-old shares their life lessons full 12 160 sam baker From remaking herself after divorce at 69 to finding your voice at 93, you won't want to miss this one A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote candidly about losing her partner in life and work after 46 years. Not because he passed away, but because he handed her divorce papers! That would have floored most of us, but despite being sideswiped, Dr Gladys McGarey, picked herself up, started a new medical practice with her daughter before becoming a speaker, author and all-round inspiration. All this at the age of 70. Since then Dr Gladys, who is known as the mother of holistic medicine, has received countless awards including the Humanities Award for Outstanding Service to Mankind.  At 85 she travelled to Afghanistan to teach rural women safer birthing practices. At her 90th birthday party she jumped out of her birthday cake. At 102 she became the proud owner of an adult tricycle. Who is this woman? And how does she do it? I HAD to know. Now on the cusp of 103, Dr Gladys joined me from her home in Arizona to tell me her secrets to health and happiness. We discussed ageing into health, femifesting (as opposed to manifesting), how divorce was the remaking of her, finding her voice at 93 and why we should all spend our energy wildly! I know this isn’t the first time I’ve said I found my old bird role model, but seriously. Dr Gladys is IT. If you loved this episode you might also like my conversations with Hilma Wolitzer and Isabel Allende * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Well-Lived Life by Dr Gladys McGarey and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices A few months ago I read an article that took my breath away. The author was 102 years old and in it she wrote candidly about losing her partner in life and work after 46 years. Not because he passed away, but because he handed her divorce papers!


That would have floored most of us, but despite being sideswiped, Dr Gladys McGarey, picked herself up, started a new medical practice with her daughter before becoming a speaker, author and all-round inspiration. All this at the age of 70.


Since then Dr Gladys, who is known as the mother of holistic medicine, has received countless awards including the Humanities Award for Outstanding Service to Mankind. 


At 85 she travelled to Afghanistan to teach rural women safer birthing practices. At her 90th birthday party she jumped out of her birthday cake. At 102 she became the proud owner of an adult tricycle.


Who is this woman? And how does she do it? I HAD to know.


Now on the cusp of 103, Dr Gladys joined me from her home in Arizona to tell me her secrets to health and happiness. We discussed ageing into health, femifesting (as opposed to manifesting), how divorce was the remaking of her, finding her voice at 93 and why we should all spend our energy wildly!


I know this isn’t the first time I’ve said I found my old bird role model, but seriously. Dr Gladys is IT.


If you loved this episode you might also like my conversations with Hilma Wolitzer and Isabel Allende


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Well-Lived Life by Dr Gladys McGarey and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2670 no India Knight answers your midlife beauty questions https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/episodes/india-knight-answers-your-midlife-beauty-questions Today’s guest is the Sunday Times’ Style’s beauty columnist India Knight. Every week thousands of women turn to her column for beauty advice - not beauty junkies, not trend followers, just regular women like you and me who want to know what works, why it works and what’s worth spending their hard earned cash on. Now India has turned that column into a book, “India Knight’s Beauty Edit: what works when you’re older” giving practical advice if you’ve suddenly found your skin, body, hair, or all three, are changing and your tried and tested “look” is no longer working for you. India joined me to talk about Why she doesn’t miss anything about being younger (no, not a single thing), how she gained a sense of self in her 50s, why skincare is the foundation of everything and what happened to make her - a loud and proud tweakement refusenik - finally cave. If you can’t be arsed hunting down beauty tutorials on tiktok and there is no way on earth you’re going to use 35 products where 2 or 3 will do this chat is for you. Finally I understand the point of serum. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Sali Hughes and Anita B. You’ll find a link to them in the show notes. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including India Knight's Beauty Edit and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 07 Nov 2023 01:00:31 -0000 India Knight answers your midlife beauty questions full 12 159 sam baker PLUS why a tweakment-refusenik caved and how she doesn't miss a single thing - no, not a single thing, about being younger Today’s guest is the Sunday Times’ Style’s beauty columnist India Knight. Every week thousands of women turn to her column for beauty advice - not beauty junkies, not trend followers, just regular women like you and me who want to know what works, why it works and what’s worth spending their hard earned cash on. Now India has turned that column into a book, “India Knight’s Beauty Edit: what works when you’re older” giving practical advice if you’ve suddenly found your skin, body, hair, or all three, are changing and your tried and tested “look” is no longer working for you. India joined me to talk about Why she doesn’t miss anything about being younger (no, not a single thing), how she gained a sense of self in her 50s, why skincare is the foundation of everything and what happened to make her - a loud and proud tweakement refusenik - finally cave. If you can’t be arsed hunting down beauty tutorials on tiktok and there is no way on earth you’re going to use 35 products where 2 or 3 will do this chat is for you. Finally I understand the point of serum. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Sali Hughes and Anita B. You’ll find a link to them in the show notes. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including India Knight's Beauty Edit and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is the Sunday Times’ Style’s beauty columnist India Knight. Every week thousands of women turn to her column for beauty advice - not beauty junkies, not trend followers, just regular women like you and me who want to know what works, why it works and what’s worth spending their hard earned cash on.


Now India has turned that column into a book, “India Knight’s Beauty Edit: what works when you’re older” giving practical advice if you’ve suddenly found your skin, body, hair, or all three, are changing and your tried and tested “look” is no longer working for you.


India joined me to talk about Why she doesn’t miss anything about being younger (no, not a single thing), how she gained a sense of self in her 50s, why skincare is the foundation of everything and what happened to make her - a loud and proud tweakement refusenik - finally cave. If you can’t be arsed hunting down beauty tutorials on tiktok and there is no way on earth you’re going to use 35 products where 2 or 3 will do this chat is for you. Finally I understand the point of serum.


If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Sali Hughes and Anita B. You’ll find a link to them in the show notes.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including India Knight's Beauty Edit and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3035 no Tracy-Ann Oberman on the strong women who've shaped her https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest, Tracy-Ann Oberman has made a career out of defying expectations. After training as an actor she went straight to the RSC before deciding to study standup so she could switch between comedy and drama. She has starred in Dr Who, Friday Night Dinner, It’s a sin, amongst many others But It was when she got the role of Chrissie Watts (Dirty Den’s second wife on Eastenders - sorry kids if you don’t know WTH I’m talking about!) That she became a household face and name. Right now, she is breaking more new ground, as the first actress to play Shylock in a landmark production of the Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare’s classic is transported to 1930s London and Tracy-Ann plays Shylock as a tough, no-nonsense jewish matriarch inspired by her grandmother. Tracy-Ann and I zoomed during a break in rehearsals to talk about the matriarchs that shaped her, refusing to be put in a box, standing up to anti-semitism, making your own opportunities as you get older, in praise of “pushy”, the importance of “putting your face on” and the power of older women in amazing shoes. This episode was recorded before the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Minnie Driver and Sheila Hancock. For more info on the Merchant of Venice 1936 tour dates visit The Merchant of Venice 1936. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 31 Oct 2023 01:00:38 -0000 Tracy-Ann Oberman on the strong women who've shaped her full 12 158 sam baker The actress and campaigner on refusing to be put in a box, standing up to anti-semitism and the importance of “putting your face on” Today’s guest, Tracy-Ann Oberman has made a career out of defying expectations. After training as an actor she went straight to the RSC before deciding to study standup so she could switch between comedy and drama. She has starred in Dr Who, Friday Night Dinner, It’s a sin, amongst many others But It was when she got the role of Chrissie Watts (Dirty Den’s second wife on Eastenders - sorry kids if you don’t know WTH I’m talking about!) That she became a household face and name. Right now, she is breaking more new ground, as the first actress to play Shylock in a landmark production of the Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare’s classic is transported to 1930s London and Tracy-Ann plays Shylock as a tough, no-nonsense jewish matriarch inspired by her grandmother. Tracy-Ann and I zoomed during a break in rehearsals to talk about the matriarchs that shaped her, refusing to be put in a box, standing up to anti-semitism, making your own opportunities as you get older, in praise of “pushy”, the importance of “putting your face on” and the power of older women in amazing shoes. This episode was recorded before the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Minnie Driver and Sheila Hancock. For more info on the Merchant of Venice 1936 tour dates visit The Merchant of Venice 1936. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest, Tracy-Ann Oberman has made a career out of defying expectations. After training as an actor she went straight to the RSC before deciding to study standup so she could switch between comedy and drama. She has starred in Dr Who, Friday Night Dinner, It’s a sin, amongst many others But It was when she got the role of Chrissie Watts (Dirty Den’s second wife on Eastenders - sorry kids if you don’t know WTH I’m talking about!) That she became a household face and name.


Right now, she is breaking more new ground, as the first actress to play Shylock in a landmark production of the Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare’s classic is transported to 1930s London and Tracy-Ann plays Shylock as a tough, no-nonsense jewish matriarch inspired by her grandmother.


Tracy-Ann and I zoomed during a break in rehearsals to talk about the matriarchs that shaped her, refusing to be put in a box, standing up to anti-semitism, making your own opportunities as you get older, in praise of “pushy”, the importance of “putting your face on” and the power of older women in amazing shoes.


This episode was recorded before the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023.


If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Minnie Driver and Sheila Hancock. For more info on the Merchant of Venice 1936 tour dates visit The Merchant of Venice 1936.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2619 no The Shift LIVE: Trinny Woodall on how she learnt to fear less in her 50s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest for this very special live episode of The Shift is the entrepreneur, CEO, fashion and beauty expert, presenter and author Trinny Woodall. Trinny, as you know, bounded onto our screens in 2001, with her friend Susannah Constantine, when they created What Not To Wear, a groundbreaking TV makeover show that showed women all over - first the country and then the world - how to look and consequently feel better.  In 2017, at the age of 53, when many women feel they’re being overlooked and even shoved out of the workplace, Trinny founded Trinny London, an online beauty business aimed at women over 35. Now one of the fastest growing beauty brands in Europe, Trinny London is rumoured to be worth $250million and is beloved by millions of women with 1.2milion followers on instagram, 400k on YouTube… Not bad for a business idea investors didn’t think would work because it wasn’t aimed at millennials… Now Trinny has written Fearless. A book about style, about beauty, about life. About overcoming the everyday barriers we encounter along the way. Because Trinny knows, better than any of us, that those things are intertwined. Trinny joined me on stage at Cheltenham Literature Festival to talk about finally starting to feel better about herself in her 50s (and how she felt "too far from the ground" in her 20s (I love that)), imposter syndrome, learning to fear less, how menopause made her lose her mojo and the power and importance of futurproofing your mind and body. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including FearLess by Trinny Woodall, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 24 Oct 2023 00:00:04 -0000 The Shift LIVE: Trinny Woodall on how she learnt to fear less in her 50s full 12 157 sam baker Plus how it feels to launch a multi-million dollar business at 53, how menopause made her lose her mojo and futureproofing your mind and body My guest for this very special live episode of The Shift is the entrepreneur, CEO, fashion and beauty expert, presenter and author Trinny Woodall. Trinny, as you know, bounded onto our screens in 2001, with her friend Susannah Constantine, when they created What Not To Wear, a groundbreaking TV makeover show that showed women all over - first the country and then the world - how to look and consequently feel better.  In 2017, at the age of 53, when many women feel they’re being overlooked and even shoved out of the workplace, Trinny founded Trinny London, an online beauty business aimed at women over 35. Now one of the fastest growing beauty brands in Europe, Trinny London is rumoured to be worth $250million and is beloved by millions of women with 1.2milion followers on instagram, 400k on YouTube… Not bad for a business idea investors didn’t think would work because it wasn’t aimed at millennials… Now Trinny has written Fearless. A book about style, about beauty, about life. About overcoming the everyday barriers we encounter along the way. Because Trinny knows, better than any of us, that those things are intertwined. Trinny joined me on stage at Cheltenham Literature Festival to talk about finally starting to feel better about herself in her 50s (and how she felt "too far from the ground" in her 20s (I love that)), imposter syndrome, learning to fear less, how menopause made her lose her mojo and the power and importance of futurproofing your mind and body. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including FearLess by Trinny Woodall, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest for this very special live episode of The Shift is the entrepreneur, CEO, fashion and beauty expert, presenter and author Trinny Woodall.


Trinny, as you know, bounded onto our screens in 2001, with her friend Susannah Constantine, when they created What Not To Wear, a groundbreaking TV makeover show that showed women all over - first the country and then the world - how to look and consequently feel better. 


In 2017, at the age of 53, when many women feel they’re being overlooked and even shoved out of the workplace, Trinny founded Trinny London, an online beauty business aimed at women over 35.


Now one of the fastest growing beauty brands in Europe, Trinny London is rumoured to be worth $250million and is beloved by millions of women with 1.2milion followers on instagram, 400k on YouTube… Not bad for a business idea investors didn’t think would work because it wasn’t aimed at millennials…


Now Trinny has written Fearless. A book about style, about beauty, about life. About overcoming the everyday barriers we encounter along the way. Because Trinny knows, better than any of us, that those things are intertwined.


Trinny joined me on stage at Cheltenham Literature Festival to talk about finally starting to feel better about herself in her 50s (and how she felt "too far from the ground" in her 20s (I love that)), imposter syndrome, learning to fear less, how menopause made her lose her mojo and the power and importance of futurproofing your mind and body.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including FearLess by Trinny Woodall, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2972 no Dr Louise Newson: I was "told off" for prescribing HRT https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today we’re celebrating Menopause Awareness month (now there’s a phrase I couldn’t have imagined saying four years ago when I was writing The Shift book and everyone was telling me no-one was interested in menopause or women over 40…) And I’m delighted that my guest is a leading light in the British menopause movement. Dr Louise Newson is a GP and menopause specialist who is passionate about increasing awareness of menopause and perimenopause care for all women. (That ALL is crucial.) As well as her own private practice specialising in menopause, Louise is founder of the Balance app and the Menopause Charity. Plus author of the bestseller, the definitive guide to perimenopause and menopause. Louise joined me to talk about her personal menopause experience (sorry to say, even doctors struggle to get help), the lack of female role models in medicine and what drives her menopause mission. She recalls being ‘told off’ for prescribing HRT, her battle to get women’s health front and centre on the agenda and answers some of your most asked questions.  If you’d like to hear some alternative menopause perspectives, try my episodes with Dr Jen Gunter, Mariella Frostrup and Karen Arthur. Listenn to the Dr Louise Newson Podcast here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Definitive Guide to the Perimenopause and Menopause by Dr Louise Newson, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:12 -0000 Dr Louise Newson: I was "told off" for prescribing HRT full 12 156 sam baker The menopause expert answers your most-asked questions and shares her own experience of struggling to get help Today we’re celebrating Menopause Awareness month (now there’s a phrase I couldn’t have imagined saying four years ago when I was writing The Shift book and everyone was telling me no-one was interested in menopause or women over 40…) And I’m delighted that my guest is a leading light in the British menopause movement. Dr Louise Newson is a GP and menopause specialist who is passionate about increasing awareness of menopause and perimenopause care for all women. (That ALL is crucial.) As well as her own private practice specialising in menopause, Louise is founder of the Balance app and the Menopause Charity. Plus author of the bestseller, the definitive guide to perimenopause and menopause. Louise joined me to talk about her personal menopause experience (sorry to say, even doctors struggle to get help), the lack of female role models in medicine and what drives her menopause mission. She recalls being ‘told off’ for prescribing HRT, her battle to get women’s health front and centre on the agenda and answers some of your most asked questions.  If you’d like to hear some alternative menopause perspectives, try my episodes with Dr Jen Gunter, Mariella Frostrup and Karen Arthur. Listenn to the Dr Louise Newson Podcast here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Definitive Guide to the Perimenopause and Menopause by Dr Louise Newson, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices


Today we’re celebrating Menopause Awareness month (now there’s a phrase I couldn’t have imagined saying four years ago when I was writing The Shift book and everyone was telling me no-one was interested in menopause or women over 40…) And I’m delighted that my guest is a leading light in the British menopause movement.


Dr Louise Newson is a GP and menopause specialist who is passionate about increasing awareness of menopause and perimenopause care for all women. (That ALL is crucial.) As well as her own private practice specialising in menopause, Louise is founder of the Balance app and the Menopause Charity. Plus author of the bestseller, the definitive guide to perimenopause and menopause.


Louise joined me to talk about her personal menopause experience (sorry to say, even doctors struggle to get help), the lack of female role models in medicine and what drives her menopause mission. She recalls being ‘told off’ for prescribing HRT, her battle to get women’s health front and centre on the agenda and answers some of your most asked questions. 


If you’d like to hear some alternative menopause perspectives, try my episodes with Dr Jen Gunter, Mariella Frostrup and Karen Arthur. Listenn to the Dr Louise Newson Podcast here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Definitive Guide to the Perimenopause and Menopause by Dr Louise Newson, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3802 no Agony Aunt Philippa Perry is back! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I’m delighted to welcome back one of my most popular guests ever, Philippa Perry. Philippa is an artist, psychotherapist, agony aunt and TV presenter, but she has become best known for her smash hit book, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read which sold over 2million copies and spent 41 weeks in the bestseller lists. Thanks to that book, and her agony column in The Observer, she has become known as “the voice of sanity”. Last time we spoke, I remember saying Philippa should turn her particular brand of wisdom to the other relationships in our lives…Well, now she has. In The Book You Want Everyone you Love to read (and maybe a few you don’t) Philippa brings her no-nonsense wisdom to everything from how we love, to how we argue or don’t (if you’re me). Philippa (and her cat Kevin) joined me to talk about how physical ageing sucks, why it took her until she was 50 to realise a thing didn’t have to be perfect to be worth doing and how she learnt to ditch the shoulds. She also talks about prioritising enjoyment, How to change the stories we tell ourselves, and why learning to please yourself can make your relationships better. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Julia Cameron and Sarah Knight. Find out more about Philippa's tour here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Book You Want Everyone You Love To Read by Philippa Perry, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 10 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0000 Agony Aunt Philippa Perry is back! full 12 155 sam baker By popular demand, the bestselling agony aunt is here to help you make your relationships better I’m delighted to welcome back one of my most popular guests ever, Philippa Perry. Philippa is an artist, psychotherapist, agony aunt and TV presenter, but she has become best known for her smash hit book, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read which sold over 2million copies and spent 41 weeks in the bestseller lists. Thanks to that book, and her agony column in The Observer, she has become known as “the voice of sanity”. Last time we spoke, I remember saying Philippa should turn her particular brand of wisdom to the other relationships in our lives…Well, now she has. In The Book You Want Everyone you Love to read (and maybe a few you don’t) Philippa brings her no-nonsense wisdom to everything from how we love, to how we argue or don’t (if you’re me). Philippa (and her cat Kevin) joined me to talk about how physical ageing sucks, why it took her until she was 50 to realise a thing didn’t have to be perfect to be worth doing and how she learnt to ditch the shoulds. She also talks about prioritising enjoyment, How to change the stories we tell ourselves, and why learning to please yourself can make your relationships better. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Julia Cameron and Sarah Knight. Find out more about Philippa's tour here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Book You Want Everyone You Love To Read by Philippa Perry, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I’m delighted to welcome back one of my most popular guests ever, Philippa Perry.


Philippa is an artist, psychotherapist, agony aunt and TV presenter, but she has become best known for her smash hit book, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read which sold over 2million copies and spent 41 weeks in the bestseller lists. Thanks to that book, and her agony column in The Observer, she has become known as “the voice of sanity”.


Last time we spoke, I remember saying Philippa should turn her particular brand of wisdom to the other relationships in our lives…Well, now she has. In The Book You Want Everyone you Love to read (and maybe a few you don’t) Philippa brings her no-nonsense wisdom to everything from how we love, to how we argue or don’t (if you’re me).


Philippa (and her cat Kevin) joined me to talk about how physical ageing sucks, why it took her until she was 50 to realise a thing didn’t have to be perfect to be worth doing and how she learnt to ditch the shoulds. She also talks about prioritising enjoyment, How to change the stories we tell ourselves, and why learning to please yourself can make your relationships better.


If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Julia Cameron and Sarah Knight. Find out more about Philippa's tour here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Book You Want Everyone You Love To Read by Philippa Perry, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3272 no Grace Dent on balancing a Gen X body image with eating for a living https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest and I have lived parallel-ish lives. Growing up “ordinary” her in the north, me in the south, Grace Dent and I both spent our childhood eating baked beans, angel delight and funny coloured school custard, we both “thought we were IT” apparently and we both got our first break on the weekly real life magazine, Chat and somehow wangled our way into glossy magazines. But there our paths diverged because Grace Dent went on to become “one of the nation’s best loved food writers” quote unquote and the woman who brought true potato love to Masterchef. As well as being a Masterchef regular, she is the guardian’s restaurant critic, fortnum restaurant writer of the year, host of the Comfort Eating podcast and the author of two memoirs, the bestselling Hungry, and now Comfort Eating, about what we eat when no-one’s looking. It would be understating it to say I over-identified. Grace joined me to talk about how the hell of secondary school never leaves you, deciding it was time to get sober, balancing her problematic gen x body image with eating for a living, why she moved home in her 40s to care for her mum and dad and The actual crime of being 50 If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Kate Spicer and Marina Hyde. Find out more about Grace’s podcast, Comfort Eating with Grace Dent here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Comfort Eating by Grace Dent, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:00:54 -0000 Grace Dent on balancing a Gen X body image with eating for a living full 12 154 sam baker The Masterchef regular on cold baked beans, thinking you're "it" and the "actual crime" of being 50 Today’s guest and I have lived parallel-ish lives. Growing up “ordinary” her in the north, me in the south, Grace Dent and I both spent our childhood eating baked beans, angel delight and funny coloured school custard, we both “thought we were IT” apparently and we both got our first break on the weekly real life magazine, Chat and somehow wangled our way into glossy magazines. But there our paths diverged because Grace Dent went on to become “one of the nation’s best loved food writers” quote unquote and the woman who brought true potato love to Masterchef. As well as being a Masterchef regular, she is the guardian’s restaurant critic, fortnum restaurant writer of the year, host of the Comfort Eating podcast and the author of two memoirs, the bestselling Hungry, and now Comfort Eating, about what we eat when no-one’s looking. It would be understating it to say I over-identified. Grace joined me to talk about how the hell of secondary school never leaves you, deciding it was time to get sober, balancing her problematic gen x body image with eating for a living, why she moved home in her 40s to care for her mum and dad and The actual crime of being 50 If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Kate Spicer and Marina Hyde. Find out more about Grace’s podcast, Comfort Eating with Grace Dent here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Comfort Eating by Grace Dent, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest and I have lived parallel-ish lives. Growing up “ordinary” her in the north, me in the south, Grace Dent and I both spent our childhood eating baked beans, angel delight and funny coloured school custard, we both “thought we were IT” apparently and we both got our first break on the weekly real life magazine, Chat and somehow wangled our way into glossy magazines. But there our paths diverged because Grace Dent went on to become “one of the nation’s best loved food writers” quote unquote and the woman who brought true potato love to Masterchef.


As well as being a Masterchef regular, she is the guardian’s restaurant critic, fortnum restaurant writer of the year, host of the Comfort Eating podcast and the author of two memoirs, the bestselling Hungry, and now Comfort Eating, about what we eat when no-one’s looking. It would be understating it to say I over-identified.


Grace joined me to talk about how the hell of secondary school never leaves you, deciding it was time to get sober, balancing her problematic gen x body image with eating for a living, why she moved home in her 40s to care for her mum and dad and The actual crime of being 50


If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with Kate Spicer and Marina Hyde. Find out more about Grace’s podcast, Comfort Eating with Grace Dent here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Comfort Eating by Grace Dent, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3555 no Stacey Duguid on coming back from midlife collapse https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Before I got to know today’s guest, Stacey Duguid, I thought she was a bit scary TBH. Fierce in all the ways. And then I got to know her - when I was editor of Red and she worked on Elle - and discovered she wasn’t. At all. Because Stacey, like so many of us, is just exceptionally good at putting on a front. And that front served her well, until it didn’t. She was 45 when everything collapsed. Or, more accurately, she put a grenade under it. The thing she’d been trained to want ever since she was tiny: the house, the husband, the children, the career, the happy ever after. All blown to smithereens.  Now 49, a single mum and a successful journalist, very much back from the brink, Stacey has written In Pursuit of Happiness, the most brilliant book about a midlife collapse and ultimately recovery. I know you are going to love it. As candid in person as she is in print, Stacey talks frankly about the pain of divorce, searching for a self you’ve never met, self-blame, “hotness syndrome”, perimenopause mayhem (and I mean MAYHEM), making peace with her mother, rediscovering her creativity, midlife sexuality and… toyboywarehouse.com. If you enjoyed this episode, you might like my conversations with Rosie Green and Natalie Lee. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including In Pursuit of Happiness by Stacey Duguid, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:00:47 -0000 Stacey Duguid on coming back from midlife collapse full 12 153 sam baker Rediscovering your sexuality, your self and your creativity at 49 Before I got to know today’s guest, Stacey Duguid, I thought she was a bit scary TBH. Fierce in all the ways. And then I got to know her - when I was editor of Red and she worked on Elle - and discovered she wasn’t. At all. Because Stacey, like so many of us, is just exceptionally good at putting on a front. And that front served her well, until it didn’t. She was 45 when everything collapsed. Or, more accurately, she put a grenade under it. The thing she’d been trained to want ever since she was tiny: the house, the husband, the children, the career, the happy ever after. All blown to smithereens.  Now 49, a single mum and a successful journalist, very much back from the brink, Stacey has written In Pursuit of Happiness, the most brilliant book about a midlife collapse and ultimately recovery. I know you are going to love it. As candid in person as she is in print, Stacey talks frankly about the pain of divorce, searching for a self you’ve never met, self-blame, “hotness syndrome”, perimenopause mayhem (and I mean MAYHEM), making peace with her mother, rediscovering her creativity, midlife sexuality and… toyboywarehouse.com. If you enjoyed this episode, you might like my conversations with Rosie Green and Natalie Lee. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including In Pursuit of Happiness by Stacey Duguid, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Before I got to know today’s guest, Stacey Duguid, I thought she was a bit scary TBH. Fierce in all the ways. And then I got to know her - when I was editor of Red and she worked on Elle - and discovered she wasn’t. At all.


Because Stacey, like so many of us, is just exceptionally good at putting on a front. And that front served her well, until it didn’t. She was 45 when everything collapsed. Or, more accurately, she put a grenade under it. The thing she’d been trained to want ever since she was tiny: the house, the husband, the children, the career, the happy ever after. All blown to smithereens. 


Now 49, a single mum and a successful journalist, very much back from the brink, Stacey has written In Pursuit of Happiness, the most brilliant book about a midlife collapse and ultimately recovery. I know you are going to love it.


As candid in person as she is in print, Stacey talks frankly about the pain of divorce, searching for a self you’ve never met, self-blame, “hotness syndrome”, perimenopause mayhem (and I mean MAYHEM), making peace with her mother, rediscovering her creativity, midlife sexuality and… toyboywarehouse.com.


If you enjoyed this episode, you might like my conversations with Rosie Green and Natalie Lee.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including In Pursuit of Happiness by Stacey Duguid, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3904 no Sara Pascoe: what happens when a weirdo grows up! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week’s guest is the comedian, writer, and all-round screen hogger, Sara Pascoe. Host of The Great British Sewing Bee, presenter of Last Woman on Earth and ubiquitous panel-show presence. She has written and starred in her own sitcom Out Of Her Mind (before TV realised women could write sitcoms too!) And she’s also the author of two brainy non-fiction bestsellers, Animal and Sex Love Money.  Sara came and sat in my kitchen with Sausage the cat (who was still a bit poorly after his encounter with Ecoli. Thanks for asking) to talk about her debut novel, Weirdo, the tale of a woman desperate to seem like a ‘normal’, well-adjusted grown up... We talked about everything from cat-love, the rhesus monkey theory of motherhood, Happy Valley, Strictly and her short-lived teenage rebellion, to IVF, the importance of sharing salary info, how she learnt to stop doing things resentfully and why she won’t be sad to be done with menstruation! If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with comedians Josie Long and Cariad Lloyd. Find out more about Sara & Cariad’s Weirdo’s bookclub here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Weirdo by Sara Pascoe, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:00:31 -0000 Sara Pascoe: what happens when a weirdo grows up! full 12 152 sam baker The comedian and writer talks IVF, Strictly, finance and why she can't wait to see the back of periods This week’s guest is the comedian, writer, and all-round screen hogger, Sara Pascoe. Host of The Great British Sewing Bee, presenter of Last Woman on Earth and ubiquitous panel-show presence. She has written and starred in her own sitcom Out Of Her Mind (before TV realised women could write sitcoms too!) And she’s also the author of two brainy non-fiction bestsellers, Animal and Sex Love Money.  Sara came and sat in my kitchen with Sausage the cat (who was still a bit poorly after his encounter with Ecoli. Thanks for asking) to talk about her debut novel, Weirdo, the tale of a woman desperate to seem like a ‘normal’, well-adjusted grown up... We talked about everything from cat-love, the rhesus monkey theory of motherhood, Happy Valley, Strictly and her short-lived teenage rebellion, to IVF, the importance of sharing salary info, how she learnt to stop doing things resentfully and why she won’t be sad to be done with menstruation! If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with comedians Josie Long and Cariad Lloyd. Find out more about Sara & Cariad’s Weirdo’s bookclub here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Weirdo by Sara Pascoe, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week’s guest is the comedian, writer, and all-round screen hogger, Sara Pascoe. Host of The Great British Sewing Bee, presenter of Last Woman on Earth and ubiquitous panel-show presence. She has written and starred in her own sitcom Out Of Her Mind (before TV realised women could write sitcoms too!) And she’s also the author of two brainy non-fiction bestsellers, Animal and Sex Love Money. 


Sara came and sat in my kitchen with Sausage the cat (who was still a bit poorly after his encounter with Ecoli. Thanks for asking) to talk about her debut novel, Weirdo, the tale of a woman desperate to seem like a ‘normal’, well-adjusted grown up...


We talked about everything from cat-love, the rhesus monkey theory of motherhood, Happy Valley, Strictly and her short-lived teenage rebellion, to IVF, the importance of sharing salary info, how she learnt to stop doing things resentfully and why she won’t be sad to be done with menstruation!


If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with comedians Josie Long and Cariad Lloyd. Find out more about Sara & Cariad’s Weirdo’s bookclub here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Weirdo by Sara Pascoe, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3902 no Natasha Walter on being a middle-aged activist https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the journalist and human rights activist, Natasha Walter. She is the author of two generation-defining books about feminism - The New Feminism, published in the late 90s and Living Dolls, published just over ten years later, a shocking polemic in which she questioned her own previous beliefs that equality was on the way to being a given and old fashioned sexism was just that, old-fashioned. Oh, how we laughed.  Her new book, Before The Light Fades is very different and yet has a lot in common with those books. A memoir of grief and resistance it follows Natasha, now in her 50s, on a journey into her mother’s past after losing her to suicide in her mid-70s. What she finds not only makes her question what she thought she knew about her mother but also what she wants for her future self. Natasha joined me to talk about getting to know your parents as people, rejecting her mother’s feminism and why we MUST keep talking across the generations. We also discussed What feminine rebellion looks like, Doing civil disobedience in her 50s and Why she’s so over organising other people. Oh and thanks to Natasha’s mum I have a new mantra: You HAVE shoes! If you enjoyed this episode you might also like our conversations with bestselling novelist Kate Mosse and broadcaster, therapist and agony aunt, Philippa Perry. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Before The Light Fades and Living Dolls by Natasha Walter, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:00:18 -0000 Natasha Walter on being a middle-aged activist full 12 151 sam baker The journalist and human rights activist talked feminine rebellion, rediscovering her mother and whether you can ever have enough shoes My guest today is the journalist and human rights activist, Natasha Walter. She is the author of two generation-defining books about feminism - The New Feminism, published in the late 90s and Living Dolls, published just over ten years later, a shocking polemic in which she questioned her own previous beliefs that equality was on the way to being a given and old fashioned sexism was just that, old-fashioned. Oh, how we laughed.  Her new book, Before The Light Fades is very different and yet has a lot in common with those books. A memoir of grief and resistance it follows Natasha, now in her 50s, on a journey into her mother’s past after losing her to suicide in her mid-70s. What she finds not only makes her question what she thought she knew about her mother but also what she wants for her future self. Natasha joined me to talk about getting to know your parents as people, rejecting her mother’s feminism and why we MUST keep talking across the generations. We also discussed What feminine rebellion looks like, Doing civil disobedience in her 50s and Why she’s so over organising other people. Oh and thanks to Natasha’s mum I have a new mantra: You HAVE shoes! If you enjoyed this episode you might also like our conversations with bestselling novelist Kate Mosse and broadcaster, therapist and agony aunt, Philippa Perry. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Before The Light Fades and Living Dolls by Natasha Walter, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the journalist and human rights activist, Natasha Walter. She is the author of two generation-defining books about feminism - The New Feminism, published in the late 90s and Living Dolls, published just over ten years later, a shocking polemic in which she questioned her own previous beliefs that equality was on the way to being a given and old fashioned sexism was just that, old-fashioned. Oh, how we laughed. 


Her new book, Before The Light Fades is very different and yet has a lot in common with those books. A memoir of grief and resistance it follows Natasha, now in her 50s, on a journey into her mother’s past after losing her to suicide in her mid-70s. What she finds not only makes her question what she thought she knew about her mother but also what she wants for her future self.


Natasha joined me to talk about getting to know your parents as people, rejecting her mother’s feminism and why we MUST keep talking across the generations. We also discussed What feminine rebellion looks like, Doing civil disobedience in her 50s and Why she’s so over organising other people. Oh and thanks to Natasha’s mum I have a new mantra: You HAVE shoes!


If you enjoyed this episode you might also like our conversations with bestselling novelist Kate Mosse and broadcaster, therapist and agony aunt, Philippa Perry.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Before The Light Fades and Living Dolls by Natasha Walter, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3409 no Maggie Smith on her midlife reappearing act https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Like most of the rest of the world, I first discovered today’s guest Maggie Smith (no, not the legendary British actress, the American poet) when her poem, Good Bones went viral on social media thrusting her into the news on both sides of the Atlantic, featured on primetime TV and was read at an event by Meryl Streep.  It’s the kind of exposure people dream of, but in Maggie’s own words “my marriage was never the same after that”. And I know that sentiment is something that will resonate with so many of you. Maggie’s new book, her debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful is about the collapse of that marriage, but it’s also about the start of something new, how in losing their shared history and knowledge of the future, she began to build a new story - her own.  Maggie joined me from Ohio to talk about putting herself back together after sudden success destroyed her marriage, being a service provider in your own home, how she got herself back after years of bargaining herself away and why we keep having the same conversation about women and ambition. We also compared our Strong First Daughter Energy and she introduced me to the concept of an emotional alchemist. If you liked this episode you might enjoy my conversations with Dani Shapiro and Curtis Sittenfeld. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:00:02 -0000 Maggie Smith on her midlife reappearing act full 12 150 sam baker The viral American poet discusses how sudden success destroyed her marriage and why we keep having the same old conversation about women, success and emotional load Like most of the rest of the world, I first discovered today’s guest Maggie Smith (no, not the legendary British actress, the American poet) when her poem, Good Bones went viral on social media thrusting her into the news on both sides of the Atlantic, featured on primetime TV and was read at an event by Meryl Streep.  It’s the kind of exposure people dream of, but in Maggie’s own words “my marriage was never the same after that”. And I know that sentiment is something that will resonate with so many of you. Maggie’s new book, her debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful is about the collapse of that marriage, but it’s also about the start of something new, how in losing their shared history and knowledge of the future, she began to build a new story - her own.  Maggie joined me from Ohio to talk about putting herself back together after sudden success destroyed her marriage, being a service provider in your own home, how she got herself back after years of bargaining herself away and why we keep having the same conversation about women and ambition. We also compared our Strong First Daughter Energy and she introduced me to the concept of an emotional alchemist. If you liked this episode you might enjoy my conversations with Dani Shapiro and Curtis Sittenfeld. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Like most of the rest of the world, I first discovered today’s guest Maggie Smith (no, not the legendary British actress, the American poet) when her poem, Good Bones went viral on social media thrusting her into the news on both sides of the Atlantic, featured on primetime TV and was read at an event by Meryl Streep. 


It’s the kind of exposure people dream of, but in Maggie’s own words “my marriage was never the same after that”. And I know that sentiment is something that will resonate with so many of you.


Maggie’s new book, her debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful is about the collapse of that marriage, but it’s also about the start of something new, how in losing their shared history and knowledge of the future, she began to build a new story - her own. 


Maggie joined me from Ohio to talk about putting herself back together after sudden success destroyed her marriage, being a service provider in your own home, how she got herself back after years of bargaining herself away and why we keep having the same conversation about women and ambition. We also compared our Strong First Daughter Energy and she introduced me to the concept of an emotional alchemist.


If you liked this episode you might enjoy my conversations with Dani Shapiro and Curtis Sittenfeld.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3180 no Helen Rebanks is flying the flag for invisible women https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the farmer, business woman, cook, conservationist, mother and now writer, Helen Rebanks. She has been cooking and baking, professionally and domestically, for more than 30 years, and with her husband, has turned the farm that has been in their family for generations into a global beacon for regenerative farming. (No, I didn’t know what that was either - in short, it’s farming in nature-friendly ways.) Now she’s put all her experience of food, farming and nurturing into one beautiful book, The Farmer’s Wife. A moving and honest account of the daily grind of life on a farm, as a woman whose work too often goes ignored. Helen joined me from the Lake District, where she lives with her husband, four children, Six sheepdogs, 2 ponies, 20 chickens, fifty cattle, 500 sheep and 110 different species of flowers and grasses (!) to talk about the reality of being a farmer’s wife, paying tribute to our foremothers and the invisible work of wifedom (yes it’s that domestic load conversation again). She also explained why she’s passionate about sustainability and being part of the climate solution, What it means to live a good life and The messy dirty joyful stuff of life. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like the episodes featuring Marina Benjamin and Tamsin Calidas. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Farmer's Wife by Helen Rebanks, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 29 Aug 2023 00:00:48 -0000 Helen Rebanks is flying the flag for invisible women full 12 149 sam baker On food, farming and why she's sick of the way women who work in the home are overlooked My guest today is the farmer, business woman, cook, conservationist, mother and now writer, Helen Rebanks. She has been cooking and baking, professionally and domestically, for more than 30 years, and with her husband, has turned the farm that has been in their family for generations into a global beacon for regenerative farming. (No, I didn’t know what that was either - in short, it’s farming in nature-friendly ways.) Now she’s put all her experience of food, farming and nurturing into one beautiful book, The Farmer’s Wife. A moving and honest account of the daily grind of life on a farm, as a woman whose work too often goes ignored. Helen joined me from the Lake District, where she lives with her husband, four children, Six sheepdogs, 2 ponies, 20 chickens, fifty cattle, 500 sheep and 110 different species of flowers and grasses (!) to talk about the reality of being a farmer’s wife, paying tribute to our foremothers and the invisible work of wifedom (yes it’s that domestic load conversation again). She also explained why she’s passionate about sustainability and being part of the climate solution, What it means to live a good life and The messy dirty joyful stuff of life. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like the episodes featuring Marina Benjamin and Tamsin Calidas. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Farmer's Wife by Helen Rebanks, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the farmer, business woman, cook, conservationist, mother and now writer, Helen Rebanks. She has been cooking and baking, professionally and domestically, for more than 30 years, and with her husband, has turned the farm that has been in their family for generations into a global beacon for regenerative farming. (No, I didn’t know what that was either - in short, it’s farming in nature-friendly ways.)


Now she’s put all her experience of food, farming and nurturing into one beautiful book, The Farmer’s Wife. A moving and honest account of the daily grind of life on a farm, as a woman whose work too often goes ignored.


Helen joined me from the Lake District, where she lives with her husband, four children, Six sheepdogs, 2 ponies, 20 chickens, fifty cattle, 500 sheep and 110 different species of flowers and grasses (!) to talk about the reality of being a farmer’s wife, paying tribute to our foremothers and the invisible work of wifedom (yes it’s that domestic load conversation again). She also explained why she’s passionate about sustainability and being part of the climate solution, What it means to live a good life and The messy dirty joyful stuff of life.


If you enjoyed this episode you might also like the episodes featuring Marina Benjamin and Tamsin Calidas.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Farmer's Wife by Helen Rebanks, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2907 no Dawn Butler is living proof that well-behaved women seldom make history https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today has made history – more than once. Dawn Butler, MP for Brent Central was only the third Black woman elected to parliament, when she became an MP in 2005, aged 37. She was the first Black female whip and then the first Black woman to stand at the dispatch box four years later. You might know her, though, as the person who was ejected from the House of Commons for saying what so many people were thinking and using her parliamentary privilege to call Boris Johnson a liar.  But before all that Dawn was a computer programmer - no small achievement for a black woman who grew up in the 70s. She also worked in a job centre and then for the GMB union. In short, she is not your common or garden privileged career politician.  Now 53, Dawn joined me to talk about what drives her, putting her mission down on paper for her new book A Purposeful Life and how being diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago caused a total rethink. We also discussed menopause, learning to be still in the moment, why she has no time for women who pull the ladder up behind them and the power of a lime green suit If you enjoyed this episode you might also like the episodes featuring Nicola Sturgeon and Sabrina Pace-Humphreys. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Purposeful Life by Dawn Butler, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:08 -0000 Dawn Butler is living proof that well-behaved women seldom make history full 12 148 sam baker The MP for Brent Central talks about her breast cancer diagnosis and women who pull the ladder up behind them My guest today has made history – more than once. Dawn Butler, MP for Brent Central was only the third Black woman elected to parliament, when she became an MP in 2005, aged 37. She was the first Black female whip and then the first Black woman to stand at the dispatch box four years later. You might know her, though, as the person who was ejected from the House of Commons for saying what so many people were thinking and using her parliamentary privilege to call Boris Johnson a liar.  But before all that Dawn was a computer programmer - no small achievement for a black woman who grew up in the 70s. She also worked in a job centre and then for the GMB union. In short, she is not your common or garden privileged career politician.  Now 53, Dawn joined me to talk about what drives her, putting her mission down on paper for her new book A Purposeful Life and how being diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago caused a total rethink. We also discussed menopause, learning to be still in the moment, why she has no time for women who pull the ladder up behind them and the power of a lime green suit If you enjoyed this episode you might also like the episodes featuring Nicola Sturgeon and Sabrina Pace-Humphreys. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Purposeful Life by Dawn Butler, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today has made history – more than once. Dawn Butler, MP for Brent Central was only the third Black woman elected to parliament, when she became an MP in 2005, aged 37. She was the first Black female whip and then the first Black woman to stand at the dispatch box four years later. You might know her, though, as the person who was ejected from the House of Commons for saying what so many people were thinking and using her parliamentary privilege to call Boris Johnson a liar. 


But before all that Dawn was a computer programmer - no small achievement for a black woman who grew up in the 70s. She also worked in a job centre and then for the GMB union. In short, she is not your common or garden privileged career politician. 


Now 53, Dawn joined me to talk about what drives her, putting her mission down on paper for her new book A Purposeful Life and how being diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago caused a total rethink. We also discussed menopause, learning to be still in the moment, why she has no time for women who pull the ladder up behind them and the power of a lime green suit


If you enjoyed this episode you might also like the episodes featuring Nicola Sturgeon and Sabrina Pace-Humphreys.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Purposeful Life by Dawn Butler, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2716 no Miki Berenyi on freeing yourself from the anxiety of youth https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest is the singer-songwriter Miki Berenyi. If you were a teenager in the late 80s or early 90s with even vaguely alternative taste you can’t have missed Miki and her band, Lush. Miki’s distinctive look and bright red hair was an icon for anyone who didn’t quite fit in. When the band split, Miki went on to build a new career as a - wait for it - magazine sub-editor. A job that on the face of it could hardly be more different than the rock’n’roll glamour of life on the road. Holidays! Maternity leave! Leaving at 6! But once you’ve drunk the Kool Aid, there’s no going back and now 56 Miki still plays and tours with her band Piroshka. I met Miki in her north London kitchen to talk - and talk and talk! Believe me, this conversation goes EVERYWHERE! From revisiting her teenage diaries for her memoir, Fingers Crossed, to breaking free of the wrong kind of woman narrative and how the macho music industry made her feel “over the hill” at 30. We also discussed, the double standards around ageing and the joy of freeing yourself from the anxiety of youth. Note: Miki refers to someone called Nora a few times in this episode. Nora was her paternal grandmother. If you liked this episode, you might enjoy my interviews with Martha Wainwright and Tracey Thorn. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Fingers Crossed by Miki Berenyi and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 15 Aug 2023 00:00:16 -0000 Miki Berenyi on freeing yourself from the anxiety of youth full 12 147 sam baker The former lead singer of post-punk band Lush on the double standards of ageing, the macho music industry and coming to terms with her f*cked up family Today’s guest is the singer-songwriter Miki Berenyi. If you were a teenager in the late 80s or early 90s with even vaguely alternative taste you can’t have missed Miki and her band, Lush. Miki’s distinctive look and bright red hair was an icon for anyone who didn’t quite fit in. When the band split, Miki went on to build a new career as a - wait for it - magazine sub-editor. A job that on the face of it could hardly be more different than the rock’n’roll glamour of life on the road. Holidays! Maternity leave! Leaving at 6! But once you’ve drunk the Kool Aid, there’s no going back and now 56 Miki still plays and tours with her band Piroshka. I met Miki in her north London kitchen to talk - and talk and talk! Believe me, this conversation goes EVERYWHERE! From revisiting her teenage diaries for her memoir, Fingers Crossed, to breaking free of the wrong kind of woman narrative and how the macho music industry made her feel “over the hill” at 30. We also discussed, the double standards around ageing and the joy of freeing yourself from the anxiety of youth. Note: Miki refers to someone called Nora a few times in this episode. Nora was her paternal grandmother. If you liked this episode, you might enjoy my interviews with Martha Wainwright and Tracey Thorn. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Fingers Crossed by Miki Berenyi and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is the singer-songwriter Miki Berenyi. If you were a teenager in the late 80s or early 90s with even vaguely alternative taste you can’t have missed Miki and her band, Lush. Miki’s distinctive look and bright red hair was an icon for anyone who didn’t quite fit in. When the band split, Miki went on to build a new career as a - wait for it - magazine sub-editor. A job that on the face of it could hardly be more different than the rock’n’roll glamour of life on the road. Holidays! Maternity leave! Leaving at 6!


But once you’ve drunk the Kool Aid, there’s no going back and now 56 Miki still plays and tours with her band Piroshka.


I met Miki in her north London kitchen to talk - and talk and talk! Believe me, this conversation goes EVERYWHERE! From revisiting her teenage diaries for her memoir, Fingers Crossed, to breaking free of the wrong kind of woman narrative and how the macho music industry made her feel “over the hill” at 30. We also discussed, the double standards around ageing and the joy of freeing yourself from the anxiety of youth.


Note: Miki refers to someone called Nora a few times in this episode. Nora was her paternal grandmother.


If you liked this episode, you might enjoy my interviews with Martha Wainwright and Tracey Thorn.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Fingers Crossed by Miki Berenyi and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3972 no Leila Slimani: It's time women started telling each other the truth https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the prize winning author, Leila Slimani. Leila was the first Moroccan woman to win France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt for her spine-tingling novel Lullaby. She has since written three more novels, including Watch Us Dance, the second in a Moroccan trilogy loosely based on her own family history, and two works of non fiction including The Scent of Flowers At Night, about art and motherhood and daughterhood. Leila was born in Rabat in Morocco and moved to Paris at 17, where she stayed until lockdown drove her out of the city. As it did so many people. She and her family now live in Lisbon. Leila joined me to talk about growing up across cultures and building her own identity, How women’s lives have changed across generations - and how they haven’t ... - and the mystery of how your life ends up exactly like your parents, no matter what you do to avoid it! We also discussed how she worked out what sort of woman she wanted to be, how to teach your daughters not to be afraid, the power of I don’t know, and why she really - REALLY - just wants a break! I’m guessing you’ll know how that feels... If you enjoyed this episode you might also like the episodes featuring Elif Shafak and Isabel Allende. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Scent of Flowers at Night and Watch Us Dance by Leila Slimani, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 08 Aug 2023 00:00:33 -0000 Leila Slimani: It's time women started telling each other the truth full 12 146 sam baker The award-winning novelist talks building your own identity, how to teach your daughters not to be afraid and the power in saying "I don't know" My guest today is the prize winning author, Leila Slimani. Leila was the first Moroccan woman to win France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt for her spine-tingling novel Lullaby. She has since written three more novels, including Watch Us Dance, the second in a Moroccan trilogy loosely based on her own family history, and two works of non fiction including The Scent of Flowers At Night, about art and motherhood and daughterhood. Leila was born in Rabat in Morocco and moved to Paris at 17, where she stayed until lockdown drove her out of the city. As it did so many people. She and her family now live in Lisbon. Leila joined me to talk about growing up across cultures and building her own identity, How women’s lives have changed across generations - and how they haven’t ... - and the mystery of how your life ends up exactly like your parents, no matter what you do to avoid it! We also discussed how she worked out what sort of woman she wanted to be, how to teach your daughters not to be afraid, the power of I don’t know, and why she really - REALLY - just wants a break! I’m guessing you’ll know how that feels... If you enjoyed this episode you might also like the episodes featuring Elif Shafak and Isabel Allende. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Scent of Flowers at Night and Watch Us Dance by Leila Slimani, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is the prize winning author, Leila Slimani. Leila was the first Moroccan woman to win France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt for her spine-tingling novel Lullaby. She has since written three more novels, including Watch Us Dance, the second in a Moroccan trilogy loosely based on her own family history, and two works of non fiction including The Scent of Flowers At Night, about art and motherhood and daughterhood.


Leila was born in Rabat in Morocco and moved to Paris at 17, where she stayed until lockdown drove her out of the city. As it did so many people. She and her family now live in Lisbon.


Leila joined me to talk about growing up across cultures and building her own identity, How women’s lives have changed across generations - and how they haven’t ... - and the mystery of how your life ends up exactly like your parents, no matter what you do to avoid it! We also discussed how she worked out what sort of woman she wanted to be, how to teach your daughters not to be afraid, the power of I don’t know, and why she really - REALLY - just wants a break! I’m guessing you’ll know how that feels...


If you enjoyed this episode you might also like the episodes featuring Elif Shafak and Isabel Allende.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Scent of Flowers at Night and Watch Us Dance by Leila Slimani, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3222 no Andi Osho: I'm 50, get used to it! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Welcome to season 12 of The Shift! Season 12! How did that happen?! My guest today is the actor hyphen screenwriter hyphen comedian hyphen novelist - all the hyphens! - Andi Osho. You might recognise her from Line of Duty or Blue Lights or Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You or Death in Paradise or Shazam! or Good Omens or Sex Education or or or! And as if that’s not enough, in her previous incarnation as a standup comedian, Andi won the Funny Women Award. Well, now she’s turned her hand to fiction. Her new book, Tough Crowd, is a laugh out loud romantic comedy about a subject very close to my heart: what it means to be a step-parent - or sparent as she so brilliantly dubs it. And, crucially, how to survive it. Andi joined me to talk about being a teenage dork, how getting back in touch with her estranged dad gave her renewed respect for her mum and giving herself permission to be creative. She also told me about checking in with your heart, why it’s OK to mourn your younger self and how she realised she didn’t want kids but she did want a family. We also, of course, talk about the challenge of taking on someone else’s kids. I think this is the first time we’ve discussed this, which is ironic, in the circs. If you enjoyed this episode. You might also like the episode with Salena Godden, author of the book Andi recommended. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Tough Crowd by Andi Osho and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:36 -0000 Andi Osho: I'm 50, get used to it! full 12 145 sam baker The actor/screenwriter/comedian/novelist is not about to apologise to anyone who thinks she's "too much" Welcome to season 12 of The Shift! Season 12! How did that happen?! My guest today is the actor hyphen screenwriter hyphen comedian hyphen novelist - all the hyphens! - Andi Osho. You might recognise her from Line of Duty or Blue Lights or Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You or Death in Paradise or Shazam! or Good Omens or Sex Education or or or! And as if that’s not enough, in her previous incarnation as a standup comedian, Andi won the Funny Women Award. Well, now she’s turned her hand to fiction. Her new book, Tough Crowd, is a laugh out loud romantic comedy about a subject very close to my heart: what it means to be a step-parent - or sparent as she so brilliantly dubs it. And, crucially, how to survive it. Andi joined me to talk about being a teenage dork, how getting back in touch with her estranged dad gave her renewed respect for her mum and giving herself permission to be creative. She also told me about checking in with your heart, why it’s OK to mourn your younger self and how she realised she didn’t want kids but she did want a family. We also, of course, talk about the challenge of taking on someone else’s kids. I think this is the first time we’ve discussed this, which is ironic, in the circs. If you enjoyed this episode. You might also like the episode with Salena Godden, author of the book Andi recommended. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Tough Crowd by Andi Osho and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Welcome to season 12 of The Shift! Season 12! How did that happen?!


My guest today is the actor hyphen screenwriter hyphen comedian hyphen novelist - all the hyphens! - Andi Osho.


You might recognise her from Line of Duty or Blue Lights or Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You or Death in Paradise or Shazam! or Good Omens or Sex Education or or or! And as if that’s not enough, in her previous incarnation as a standup comedian, Andi won the Funny Women Award. Well, now she’s turned her hand to fiction. Her new book, Tough Crowd, is a laugh out loud romantic comedy about a subject very close to my heart: what it means to be a step-parent - or sparent as she so brilliantly dubs it. And, crucially, how to survive it.


Andi joined me to talk about being a teenage dork, how getting back in touch with her estranged dad gave her renewed respect for her mum and giving herself permission to be creative. She also told me about checking in with your heart, why it’s OK to mourn your younger self and how she realised she didn’t want kids but she did want a family. We also, of course, talk about the challenge of taking on someone else’s kids. I think this is the first time we’ve discussed this, which is ironic, in the circs.


If you enjoyed this episode. You might also like the episode with Salena Godden, author of the book Andi recommended.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Tough Crowd by Andi Osho and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3294 no Annie Macmanus: why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Back in season 4, I spoke to Annie Macmanus just as she was about to make the big leap from mega-DJ to... something entirely new. It's fascinating to see how much of what we talked about has since come to pass. My guest this week is a business woman, broadcaster, curator, tastemaker and DJ. She headlines festivals, hosts one of BBC Radio 1’s flagship shows, was Europe’s biggest female DJ and has her own hit podcast Changes with Annie Macmanus. And now, as if that wasn’t e-bloody-nough (bc let’s not forget the two kids), Annie has written her first novel, Mother Mother. Oh and she’s cool. And nice. (In the best possible way. Not in the I’m too lazy to think of a proper adjective kind of way.) Over the next 45 minutes, Annie talks about the unexpected impact of turning 40, growing up with her fans and why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with. Although this was recorded before she resigned from her job hosting Radio 1's flagship show, she’s candid about saying goodbye to DJing and how it feels to start again professionally, why she’s a control-fan and how she learnt to be comfortable in her own skin. Plus she gives me a lesson in radical no-ness! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 25 Jul 2023 00:00:46 -0000 Annie Macmanus: why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 11 144 sam baker The Changes podcast host and DJ is shaking up the way the music industry treats women over 40 Back in season 4, I spoke to Annie Macmanus just as she was about to make the big leap from mega-DJ to... something entirely new. It's fascinating to see how much of what we talked about has since come to pass. My guest this week is a business woman, broadcaster, curator, tastemaker and DJ. She headlines festivals, hosts one of BBC Radio 1’s flagship shows, was Europe’s biggest female DJ and has her own hit podcast Changes with Annie Macmanus. And now, as if that wasn’t e-bloody-nough (bc let’s not forget the two kids), Annie has written her first novel, Mother Mother. Oh and she’s cool. And nice. (In the best possible way. Not in the I’m too lazy to think of a proper adjective kind of way.) Over the next 45 minutes, Annie talks about the unexpected impact of turning 40, growing up with her fans and why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with. Although this was recorded before she resigned from her job hosting Radio 1's flagship show, she’s candid about saying goodbye to DJing and how it feels to start again professionally, why she’s a control-fan and how she learnt to be comfortable in her own skin. Plus she gives me a lesson in radical no-ness! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Back in season 4, I spoke to Annie Macmanus just as she was about to make the big leap from mega-DJ to... something entirely new. It's fascinating to see how much of what we talked about has since come to pass.


My guest this week is a business woman, broadcaster, curator, tastemaker and DJ. She headlines festivals, hosts one of BBC Radio 1’s flagship shows, was Europe’s biggest female DJ and has her own hit podcast Changes with Annie Macmanus. And now, as if that wasn’t e-bloody-nough (bc let’s not forget the two kids), Annie has written her first novel, Mother Mother. Oh and she’s cool. And nice. (In the best possible way. Not in the I’m too lazy to think of a proper adjective kind of way.)


Over the next 45 minutes, Annie talks about the unexpected impact of turning 40, growing up with her fans and why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with. Although this was recorded before she resigned from her job hosting Radio 1's flagship show, she’s candid about saying goodbye to DJing and how it feels to start again professionally, why she’s a control-fan and how she learnt to be comfortable in her own skin. Plus she gives me a lesson in radical no-ness!


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2548 no Emma Freud on mothering millennials and refusing to lie about her age - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Back at the very beginning, when The Shift was still a hair-brained idea, I sat in Emma Freud's kitchen chatting about being old birds. It ended up being the final episode of the first series. Here it is again. Where to start with this week’s guest? Now 58, Emma Freud is a broadcaster, presenter, columnist and fund-raiser, for want of a better way of putting the incredible work she and her partner Richard Curtis do with Comic Relief. And she’s got four kids. And a bazillion pets (listen on for kittens!). And she lives in my Pinterest board. And she’s not afraid to call a spade a spade. Lots of spades, in fact. In a no-holds barred conversation, Emma talks frankly about reshaping Comic Relief for a new generation, how being the mother of one of the country’s most outspoken millennials, Scarlett Curtis, has changed her attitudes to just about everything, the contradictions of ageing (will dye, won’t Botox) and why she will never ever deny her age.  Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Find out more about Comic Relief here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:34 -0000 Emma Freud on mothering millennials and refusing to lie about her age - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 11 143 sam baker Plus Comic Relief, hair dye, kittens and Prawn Cocktail skips Back at the very beginning, when The Shift was still a hair-brained idea, I sat in Emma Freud's kitchen chatting about being old birds. It ended up being the final episode of the first series. Here it is again. Where to start with this week’s guest? Now 58, Emma Freud is a broadcaster, presenter, columnist and fund-raiser, for want of a better way of putting the incredible work she and her partner Richard Curtis do with Comic Relief. And she’s got four kids. And a bazillion pets (listen on for kittens!). And she lives in my Pinterest board. And she’s not afraid to call a spade a spade. Lots of spades, in fact. In a no-holds barred conversation, Emma talks frankly about reshaping Comic Relief for a new generation, how being the mother of one of the country’s most outspoken millennials, Scarlett Curtis, has changed her attitudes to just about everything, the contradictions of ageing (will dye, won’t Botox) and why she will never ever deny her age.  Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Find out more about Comic Relief here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Back at the very beginning, when The Shift was still a hair-brained idea, I sat in Emma Freud's kitchen chatting about being old birds. It ended up being the final episode of the first series. Here it is again.


Where to start with this week’s guest? Now 58, Emma Freud is a broadcaster, presenter, columnist and fund-raiser, for want of a better way of putting the incredible work she and her partner Richard Curtis do with Comic Relief. And she’s got four kids. And a bazillion pets (listen on for kittens!). And she lives in my Pinterest board. And she’s not afraid to call a spade a spade. Lots of spades, in fact.


In a no-holds barred conversation, Emma talks frankly about reshaping Comic Relief for a new generation, how being the mother of one of the country’s most outspoken millennials, Scarlett Curtis, has changed her attitudes to just about everything, the contradictions of ageing (will dye, won’t Botox) and why she will never ever deny her age. 


Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Find out more about Comic Relief here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2946 no Alison Bechdel on her search for inner and outer strength - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week we're revisiting cartoonist and creator of the Bechdel test, Alison Bechdel. This episode first ran back in season 4. My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoir about coming out and her father’s death, became a bestseller and was turned into an award-winning musical. Her new autobiographical graphic novel, The Secret To Superhuman Strength is a funny-not funny exploration of her own search for inner and outer strength through the lens of 60 years of fitness fads. Alison and I go on a “rambling stroll” through the six decades of her life as we chat about everything from tarot to very much not being a team player. Alison talks candidly about escaping self-consciousness, coming to terms with ageing, why men are scared of women who can do push ups and why she’s forever nine years old. And together we come up with a Bechdel test for women over 40. Challenge you to come up with a movie that passes it. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Secret To Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 11 Jul 2023 00:00:21 -0000 Alison Bechdel on her search for inner and outer strength - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 11 142 sam baker A rambling stroll through six decades of the cartoonists life - from tarot to not being a team player. Plus we came up with a new Bechdel test for women over 40... This week we're revisiting cartoonist and creator of the Bechdel test, Alison Bechdel. This episode first ran back in season 4. My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoir about coming out and her father’s death, became a bestseller and was turned into an award-winning musical. Her new autobiographical graphic novel, The Secret To Superhuman Strength is a funny-not funny exploration of her own search for inner and outer strength through the lens of 60 years of fitness fads. Alison and I go on a “rambling stroll” through the six decades of her life as we chat about everything from tarot to very much not being a team player. Alison talks candidly about escaping self-consciousness, coming to terms with ageing, why men are scared of women who can do push ups and why she’s forever nine years old. And together we come up with a Bechdel test for women over 40. Challenge you to come up with a movie that passes it. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Secret To Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week we're revisiting cartoonist and creator of the Bechdel test, Alison Bechdel. This episode first ran back in season 4.


My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoir about coming out and her father’s death, became a bestseller and was turned into an award-winning musical. Her new autobiographical graphic novel, The Secret To Superhuman Strength is a funny-not funny exploration of her own search for inner and outer strength through the lens of 60 years of fitness fads.


Alison and I go on a “rambling stroll” through the six decades of her life as we chat about everything from tarot to very much not being a team player. Alison talks candidly about escaping self-consciousness, coming to terms with ageing, why men are scared of women who can do push ups and why she’s forever nine years old.


And together we come up with a Bechdel test for women over 40. Challenge you to come up with a movie that passes it.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Secret To Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2385 no Barbara Blake Hannah on feeling new at 80 - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week we're revisiting the legendary Jamaican journalist Barbara Blake Hannah. I spoke to Barbara at the start of last year and she blew me away. What. A. Woman. My guest today is the Jamaican author, journalist, film maker and (no exaggeration) living legend Barbara Blake Hannah. Already an experienced journalist when she arrived in London in 1964, Barbara was shocked to discover her achievements counted for nothing because of the colour of her skin. But she made headlines anyway, in 1968, when she became the first Black TV journalist in the UK. She lasted nine months before being dismissed - almost certainly as a result of a racist backlash, in which her employers sided with the racists… It was several years before another black journalist appeared in a news role on British screens. Without Barbara, arguably, there would have been no Moira Stuart or Trevor Macdonald. Now 80, Barbara has led a pioneering life, so it’s a joy to celebrate it with the republication of her groundbreaking 1982 memoir, Growing Out - Black Hair And Black Pride in The Swinging Sixties, as part of Bernardine Evaristo’s Black Britain Writing Back series. From her home in Kingston, Jamaica, which she shares with her son, Barbara told me what she learnt from being at the sharp end of racism, why the Black Lives Matter movement gives her hope, feeling new again at 80 and how she learnt to love herself as a Black woman. She also talks about the power and politics of hair and how she has the skin of a 12 year old! Plus she introduced me to my new mantra: time is longer than rope.  • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Growing Out, Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging Sixties by Barbara Blake Hannah and all the other books in Bernardine Evaristo's Black Britain Writing Back series. You can also get the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 04 Jul 2023 00:00:51 -0000 Barbara Blake Hannah on feeling new at 80 - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 11 141 sam baker The groundbreaking Jamaican journalist talks racism, the politics of hair, having the skin of a 12 year old and why she believes in miracles and This week we're revisiting the legendary Jamaican journalist Barbara Blake Hannah. I spoke to Barbara at the start of last year and she blew me away. What. A. Woman. My guest today is the Jamaican author, journalist, film maker and (no exaggeration) living legend Barbara Blake Hannah. Already an experienced journalist when she arrived in London in 1964, Barbara was shocked to discover her achievements counted for nothing because of the colour of her skin. But she made headlines anyway, in 1968, when she became the first Black TV journalist in the UK. She lasted nine months before being dismissed - almost certainly as a result of a racist backlash, in which her employers sided with the racists… It was several years before another black journalist appeared in a news role on British screens. Without Barbara, arguably, there would have been no Moira Stuart or Trevor Macdonald. Now 80, Barbara has led a pioneering life, so it’s a joy to celebrate it with the republication of her groundbreaking 1982 memoir, Growing Out - Black Hair And Black Pride in The Swinging Sixties, as part of Bernardine Evaristo’s Black Britain Writing Back series. From her home in Kingston, Jamaica, which she shares with her son, Barbara told me what she learnt from being at the sharp end of racism, why the Black Lives Matter movement gives her hope, feeling new again at 80 and how she learnt to love herself as a Black woman. She also talks about the power and politics of hair and how she has the skin of a 12 year old! Plus she introduced me to my new mantra: time is longer than rope.  • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Growing Out, Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging Sixties by Barbara Blake Hannah and all the other books in Bernardine Evaristo's Black Britain Writing Back series. You can also get the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week we're revisiting the legendary Jamaican journalist Barbara Blake Hannah. I spoke to Barbara at the start of last year and she blew me away. What. A. Woman.


My guest today is the Jamaican author, journalist, film maker and (no exaggeration) living legend Barbara Blake Hannah.


Already an experienced journalist when she arrived in London in 1964, Barbara was shocked to discover her achievements counted for nothing because of the colour of her skin. But she made headlines anyway, in 1968, when she became the first Black TV journalist in the UK. She lasted nine months before being dismissed - almost certainly as a result of a racist backlash, in which her employers sided with the racists… It was several years before another black journalist appeared in a news role on British screens. Without Barbara, arguably, there would have been no Moira Stuart or Trevor Macdonald.


Now 80, Barbara has led a pioneering life, so it’s a joy to celebrate it with the republication of her groundbreaking 1982 memoir, Growing Out - Black Hair And Black Pride in The Swinging Sixties, as part of Bernardine Evaristo’s Black Britain Writing Back series.


From her home in Kingston, Jamaica, which she shares with her son, Barbara told me what she learnt from being at the sharp end of racism, why the Black Lives Matter movement gives her hope, feeling new again at 80 and how she learnt to love herself as a Black woman. She also talks about the power and politics of hair and how she has the skin of a 12 year old! Plus she introduced me to my new mantra: time is longer than rope. 


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Growing Out, Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging Sixties by Barbara Blake Hannah and all the other books in Bernardine Evaristo's Black Britain Writing Back series. You can also get the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2893 no Tracey Thorn has got it all going on at 60 - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ While we take our summer hiatus we're revisiting some classic episodes of The Shift with Sam Baker. Since I recorded this interview with Tracey back at the start of 2021, she and her partner Ben Watt have released a new Everything But The Girl album, Fuse, that's rocketed them back into the charts. Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children.  Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is my favourite yet. Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!). You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and My Rock'n'Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 27 Jun 2023 00:00:58 -0000 Tracey Thorn has got it all going on at 60 - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 11 140 sam baker The singer-songwriter on success, power, the constant slog of being a woman in a man's world and how she decided to go statement grey While we take our summer hiatus we're revisiting some classic episodes of The Shift with Sam Baker. Since I recorded this interview with Tracey back at the start of 2021, she and her partner Ben Watt have released a new Everything But The Girl album, Fuse, that's rocketed them back into the charts. Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children.  Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is my favourite yet. Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!). You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and My Rock'n'Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices While we take our summer hiatus we're revisiting some classic episodes of The Shift with Sam Baker. Since I recorded this interview with Tracey back at the start of 2021, she and her partner Ben Watt have released a new Everything But The Girl album, Fuse, that's rocketed them back into the charts.


Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children. 

Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is my favourite yet.


Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!).


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and My Rock'n'Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2597 no Jo Whiley on menopause, finding your fashion mojo and... gardening - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ To celebrate the DJ's 27th year of presenting Glastonbury on the BBC, we revisit one of the very first episodes of The Shift podcast, back in 2020, with Jo Whiley Career crises are tough at the best of times, but imagine being in the midst of menopause – hot flushes, anxiety, brain fog, the lot – and finding your thirty year career is crashing down around your ears. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, the brilliant DJ and broadcaster Jo Whiley when she was given the job of co-hosting BBC radio 2’s drive time slot with Simon Mayo. She talks honestly about coming through the most turbulent year of her career, regaining her confidence, learning to listen to your heart not your detractors, going outside your comfort zone, empty nest syndrome, why she’s obsessed with fitness and why “age appropriate” dressing can do one.  * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, and exclusive bonus episodes, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker, is out now in paperback and available to buy here. • Hear Jo on BBC Radio 2 Monday-Thursday 8-10pm and see her hosting Glastonbury on the BBC all weekend – 22-26 June. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 20 Jun 2023 00:00:52 -0000 Jo Whiley on menopause, finding your fashion mojo and... gardening - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 11 139 sam baker To celebrate the DJ's 27th year of presenting Glastonbury on the BBC, we revisit one of the very first episodes of The Shift podcast with Jo Whiley To celebrate the DJ's 27th year of presenting Glastonbury on the BBC, we revisit one of the very first episodes of The Shift podcast, back in 2020, with Jo Whiley Career crises are tough at the best of times, but imagine being in the midst of menopause – hot flushes, anxiety, brain fog, the lot – and finding your thirty year career is crashing down around your ears. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, the brilliant DJ and broadcaster Jo Whiley when she was given the job of co-hosting BBC radio 2’s drive time slot with Simon Mayo. She talks honestly about coming through the most turbulent year of her career, regaining her confidence, learning to listen to your heart not your detractors, going outside your comfort zone, empty nest syndrome, why she’s obsessed with fitness and why “age appropriate” dressing can do one.  * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, and exclusive bonus episodes, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker, is out now in paperback and available to buy here. • Hear Jo on BBC Radio 2 Monday-Thursday 8-10pm and see her hosting Glastonbury on the BBC all weekend – 22-26 June. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To celebrate the DJ's 27th year of presenting Glastonbury on the BBC, we revisit one of the very first episodes of The Shift podcast, back in 2020, with Jo Whiley


Career crises are tough at the best of times, but imagine being in the midst of menopause – hot flushes, anxiety, brain fog, the lot – and finding your thirty year career is crashing down around your ears. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, the brilliant DJ and broadcaster Jo Whiley when she was given the job of co-hosting BBC radio 2’s drive time slot with Simon Mayo. She talks honestly about coming through the most turbulent year of her career, regaining her confidence, learning to listen to your heart not your detractors, going outside your comfort zone, empty nest syndrome, why she’s obsessed with fitness and why “age appropriate” dressing can do one. 


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, and exclusive bonus episodes, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


• The book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker, is out now in paperback and available to buy here.


• Hear Jo on BBC Radio 2 Monday-Thursday 8-10pm and see her hosting Glastonbury on the BBC all weekend – 22-26 June.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2914 no BONUS EPISODE: Barbara Kingsolver on why life gets better with every passing decade https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ For this bonus episode of The Shift, I’m delighted to welcome a very special guest: the award-winning author of ten bestselling novels, Barbara Kingsolver.  Every so often, a book comes along that you want to press into the hands of everyone you meet. For me, Demon Copperhead, is one of those books. A reimagining of the Dickens classic, David Copperfield, translated to the Appalachian mountains in the midst of the opioid crisis that has gripped the area. It’s funny, it’s furious and its hero Demon is a character you will never ever forget.  I’m not the only one who thinks so. Earlier this year Barbara was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and now she’s become the first person ever to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice (she won over a decade ago for her novel, The Lacuna). A couple of weeks ago, Barbara foolishly let me and my little mic into her Edinburgh hotel room to tell me how growing up weird, bookish and poor shaped her and how she discovered she was a so-called hillbilly. We also discussed being an introvert in an extrovert world, finding love second time around, not winning the jackpot in the mothering department and why life gets better with every decade – and at 68 and the top of her game, she's living proof. She also shares her killer packing tips and, I have to say, if you ever wanted to do a three week holiday with just a carry-on, Barbara is your woman! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Thu, 15 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0000 BONUS EPISODE: Barbara Kingsolver on why life gets better with every passing decade bonus 11 138 sam baker The Pulitzer Prize winner talks poverty, mothering, ageing, finding your identity – and packing! For this bonus episode of The Shift, I’m delighted to welcome a very special guest: the award-winning author of ten bestselling novels, Barbara Kingsolver.  Every so often, a book comes along that you want to press into the hands of everyone you meet. For me, Demon Copperhead, is one of those books. A reimagining of the Dickens classic, David Copperfield, translated to the Appalachian mountains in the midst of the opioid crisis that has gripped the area. It’s funny, it’s furious and its hero Demon is a character you will never ever forget.  I’m not the only one who thinks so. Earlier this year Barbara was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and now she’s become the first person ever to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice (she won over a decade ago for her novel, The Lacuna). A couple of weeks ago, Barbara foolishly let me and my little mic into her Edinburgh hotel room to tell me how growing up weird, bookish and poor shaped her and how she discovered she was a so-called hillbilly. We also discussed being an introvert in an extrovert world, finding love second time around, not winning the jackpot in the mothering department and why life gets better with every decade – and at 68 and the top of her game, she's living proof. She also shares her killer packing tips and, I have to say, if you ever wanted to do a three week holiday with just a carry-on, Barbara is your woman! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices For this bonus episode of The Shift, I’m delighted to welcome a very special guest: the award-winning author of ten bestselling novels, Barbara Kingsolver. 


Every so often, a book comes along that you want to press into the hands of everyone you meet. For me, Demon Copperhead, is one of those books. A reimagining of the Dickens classic, David Copperfield, translated to the Appalachian mountains in the midst of the opioid crisis that has gripped the area. It’s funny, it’s furious and its hero Demon is a character you will never ever forget. 


I’m not the only one who thinks so. Earlier this year Barbara was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and now she’s become the first person ever to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice (she won over a decade ago for her novel, The Lacuna).


A couple of weeks ago, Barbara foolishly let me and my little mic into her Edinburgh hotel room to tell me how growing up weird, bookish and poor shaped her and how she discovered she was a so-called hillbilly. We also discussed being an introvert in an extrovert world, finding love second time around, not winning the jackpot in the mothering department and why life gets better with every decade – and at 68 and the top of her game, she's living proof.


She also shares her killer packing tips and, I have to say, if you ever wanted to do a three week holiday with just a carry-on, Barbara is your woman!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3195 no Lennie Goodings on ageism, bringing your A-game and the women who've shaped her https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ If 18-year-old Sam was here now, today’s episode would be a real pinch-me moment. Back in the mid-80s, I was a student in Birmingham when I first stumbled upon the dark green spine that was the hallmark of a newish publisher called Virago. It started with one book in particular – The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. Reading that book changed my life, as I don’t doubt many Virago books have done for many people over the years. Virago launched 50 years ago this month and, for much of that time, my guest, Lennie Goodings, was at the heart of things. Lennie joined virago in 1978 as part-time office slave. Rose to Publisher and is now Chair. Lennie has published a host of influential writers including Atwood, Angela Carter, Sarah Waters, Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde and many more. She has also, latterly, become a much needed advocate for the rights of older women in the workplace. I met Lennie at home in North London to talk about 50 years of feminism and publishing books by and for women, the moment she realised her life didn’t have to be defined by who she married and where she got her drive to make a difference. We also discussed the older women who’ve shaped her, the importance of bringing your A-game and why ageism is the next frontline. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Bite of the Apple by Lennie Goodings and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 13 Jun 2023 00:00:47 -0000 Lennie Goodings on ageism, bringing your A-game and the women who've shaped her full 11 137 sam baker As Virago books celebrates its 50th anniversary, its chair reflects on life at the forefront of 50 years of feminism If 18-year-old Sam was here now, today’s episode would be a real pinch-me moment. Back in the mid-80s, I was a student in Birmingham when I first stumbled upon the dark green spine that was the hallmark of a newish publisher called Virago. It started with one book in particular – The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. Reading that book changed my life, as I don’t doubt many Virago books have done for many people over the years. Virago launched 50 years ago this month and, for much of that time, my guest, Lennie Goodings, was at the heart of things. Lennie joined virago in 1978 as part-time office slave. Rose to Publisher and is now Chair. Lennie has published a host of influential writers including Atwood, Angela Carter, Sarah Waters, Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde and many more. She has also, latterly, become a much needed advocate for the rights of older women in the workplace. I met Lennie at home in North London to talk about 50 years of feminism and publishing books by and for women, the moment she realised her life didn’t have to be defined by who she married and where she got her drive to make a difference. We also discussed the older women who’ve shaped her, the importance of bringing your A-game and why ageism is the next frontline. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Bite of the Apple by Lennie Goodings and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices If 18-year-old Sam was here now, today’s episode would be a real pinch-me moment. Back in the mid-80s, I was a student in Birmingham when I first stumbled upon the dark green spine that was the hallmark of a newish publisher called Virago. It started with one book in particular – The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. Reading that book changed my life, as I don’t doubt many Virago books have done for many people over the years.


Virago launched 50 years ago this month and, for much of that time, my guest, Lennie Goodings, was at the heart of things. Lennie joined virago in 1978 as part-time office slave. Rose to Publisher and is now Chair. Lennie has published a host of influential writers including Atwood, Angela Carter, Sarah Waters, Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde and many more. She has also, latterly, become a much needed advocate for the rights of older women in the workplace.


I met Lennie at home in North London to talk about 50 years of feminism and publishing books by and for women, the moment she realised her life didn’t have to be defined by who she married and where she got her drive to make a difference. We also discussed the older women who’ve shaped her, the importance of bringing your A-game and why ageism is the next frontline.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Bite of the Apple by Lennie Goodings and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3129 no Aasmah Mir on how she finally dislodged the pebble in her throat https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the award-winning broadcaster Aasmah Mir. Born and brought up in Glasgow, of Pakistani Heritage, Aasmah started in newspapers before moving to the BBC, where she worked for twenty years - most famously as co-host of Saturday Live. She joined Times Radio three years ago, as cohost of the Breakfast Show and is a two-time winner of a Sony Gold Award, kind of like a radio Oscar. She’s also been named audio presenter of the year at the broadcasting press guild awards AND, she won celebrity mastermind. we’re talking brainiac! But before all this, Aasmah was a teenage loner, the third of four children, growing up between two cultures in the 1970s and 80s. A childhood that could not have been more different than her mother, Almas, growing up in the 1950s in Pakistan. It is those two childhoods that are the subject of Aasmah’s moving memoir, A Pebble In The Throat, which interweaves Aasmah’s childhood and teenage years with those of her mother. On a trip to Scotland, Aasmah came and hung out in my kitchen to discuss writing a book with her mother, how the racism of her childhood shaped her, learning to be visible, deciding to end her marriage and rebuilding life after divorce. We also discussed her "unexpected daughter”, menopause, her monster to-do list and how she finally dislodged the pebble in her throat * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Pebble In The Throat by Aasmah Mir and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:00:52 -0000 Aasmah Mir on how she finally dislodged the pebble in her throat full 11 136 sam baker The broadcaster talks growing up brown, being a "geriatric mum", rebuilding her life after divorce – and taking the wrong dose of HRT! My guest today is the award-winning broadcaster Aasmah Mir. Born and brought up in Glasgow, of Pakistani Heritage, Aasmah started in newspapers before moving to the BBC, where she worked for twenty years - most famously as co-host of Saturday Live. She joined Times Radio three years ago, as cohost of the Breakfast Show and is a two-time winner of a Sony Gold Award, kind of like a radio Oscar. She’s also been named audio presenter of the year at the broadcasting press guild awards AND, she won celebrity mastermind. we’re talking brainiac! But before all this, Aasmah was a teenage loner, the third of four children, growing up between two cultures in the 1970s and 80s. A childhood that could not have been more different than her mother, Almas, growing up in the 1950s in Pakistan. It is those two childhoods that are the subject of Aasmah’s moving memoir, A Pebble In The Throat, which interweaves Aasmah’s childhood and teenage years with those of her mother. On a trip to Scotland, Aasmah came and hung out in my kitchen to discuss writing a book with her mother, how the racism of her childhood shaped her, learning to be visible, deciding to end her marriage and rebuilding life after divorce. We also discussed her "unexpected daughter”, menopause, her monster to-do list and how she finally dislodged the pebble in her throat * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Pebble In The Throat by Aasmah Mir and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the award-winning broadcaster Aasmah Mir. Born and brought up in Glasgow, of Pakistani Heritage, Aasmah started in newspapers before moving to the BBC, where she worked for twenty years - most famously as co-host of Saturday Live. She joined Times Radio three years ago, as cohost of the Breakfast Show and is a two-time winner of a Sony Gold Award, kind of like a radio Oscar. She’s also been named audio presenter of the year at the broadcasting press guild awards AND, she won celebrity mastermind. we’re talking brainiac!


But before all this, Aasmah was a teenage loner, the third of four children, growing up between two cultures in the 1970s and 80s. A childhood that could not have been more different than her mother, Almas, growing up in the 1950s in Pakistan. It is those two childhoods that are the subject of Aasmah’s moving memoir, A Pebble In The Throat, which interweaves Aasmah’s childhood and teenage years with those of her mother.


On a trip to Scotland, Aasmah came and hung out in my kitchen to discuss writing a book with her mother, how the racism of her childhood shaped her, learning to be visible, deciding to end her marriage and rebuilding life after divorce. We also discussed her "unexpected daughter”, menopause, her monster to-do list and how she finally dislodged the pebble in her throat


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Pebble In The Throat by Aasmah Mir and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3480 no Tanya Sarne on losing Ghost, surviving rehab and living life to the full https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I’m pretty sure there isn’t a woman who was alive in the 90s who didn’t own one of this designer's dresses (or at least one heavily inspired by her from the high street). From the moment they hit the shops, the bias cut slip dress became ubiquitous and it still is. And for that we have to thank Tanya Sarne, the founder of Ghost. Personally I still have five of her dresses and I’m neither a dress girl nor a sentimental clothes hoarder. Those frocks are keepers.  Tanya was a single mum of two in her thirties and on benefits when she founded Ghost. Divorced and grieving the death of her mum, she thought she was unemployable, until she took one look at the lack of well-priced, multifunctional, comfortable, feminine clothes which went in the washing machine and didn’t need ironing, and resolved to put that right. She borrowed two thousand pounds and fuelled by fury and, frankly, necessity, the brand that changed a thousand wardrobes was born. Now, 78 and still beyond fabulous, Tanya joined me to talk about her memoir, Free Spirit, the snobbery of the fashion industry and the sexual harassment you “just had to put up with” in the 60s and 70s. We also discussed her alcoholism, the pain of losing her beloved business, the joy of marrying a younger man, her horrific menopause and why she longs to go back on HRT. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Free Spirit by Tanya Sarne and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 30 May 2023 00:00:54 -0000 Tanya Sarne on losing Ghost, surviving rehab and living life to the full full 11 135 sam baker And why the legendary designer would give (almost) anything to go back on HRT! I’m pretty sure there isn’t a woman who was alive in the 90s who didn’t own one of this designer's dresses (or at least one heavily inspired by her from the high street). From the moment they hit the shops, the bias cut slip dress became ubiquitous and it still is. And for that we have to thank Tanya Sarne, the founder of Ghost. Personally I still have five of her dresses and I’m neither a dress girl nor a sentimental clothes hoarder. Those frocks are keepers.  Tanya was a single mum of two in her thirties and on benefits when she founded Ghost. Divorced and grieving the death of her mum, she thought she was unemployable, until she took one look at the lack of well-priced, multifunctional, comfortable, feminine clothes which went in the washing machine and didn’t need ironing, and resolved to put that right. She borrowed two thousand pounds and fuelled by fury and, frankly, necessity, the brand that changed a thousand wardrobes was born. Now, 78 and still beyond fabulous, Tanya joined me to talk about her memoir, Free Spirit, the snobbery of the fashion industry and the sexual harassment you “just had to put up with” in the 60s and 70s. We also discussed her alcoholism, the pain of losing her beloved business, the joy of marrying a younger man, her horrific menopause and why she longs to go back on HRT. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Free Spirit by Tanya Sarne and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I’m pretty sure there isn’t a woman who was alive in the 90s who didn’t own one of this designer's dresses (or at least one heavily inspired by her from the high street). From the moment they hit the shops, the bias cut slip dress became ubiquitous and it still is. And for that we have to thank Tanya Sarne, the founder of Ghost. Personally I still have five of her dresses and I’m neither a dress girl nor a sentimental clothes hoarder. Those frocks are keepers. 


Tanya was a single mum of two in her thirties and on benefits when she founded Ghost. Divorced and grieving the death of her mum, she thought she was unemployable, until she took one look at the lack of well-priced, multifunctional, comfortable, feminine clothes which went in the washing machine and didn’t need ironing, and resolved to put that right. She borrowed two thousand pounds and fuelled by fury and, frankly, necessity, the brand that changed a thousand wardrobes was born.


Now, 78 and still beyond fabulous, Tanya joined me to talk about her memoir, Free Spirit, the snobbery of the fashion industry and the sexual harassment you “just had to put up with” in the 60s and 70s. We also discussed her alcoholism, the pain of losing her beloved business, the joy of marrying a younger man, her horrific menopause and why she longs to go back on HRT.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Free Spirit by Tanya Sarne and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2917 no Josie Long on why she hopes she'll still be doing standup at 80 (old lady arms and all!) https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest is the comedian Josie Long. Josie started early – and I mean EARLY. She has been performing standup since she was 14, and by 17 won the BBC New comedy award. She was the first woman to be nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award three times and is co-founder of the education charity, Arts Emergency. Josie is also a regular on those terrifying panel shows where you just know you’d think of the smart thing to say when you were on the bus home (if at all!) has written for TV, radio and stage and has now turned her hand to short stories with Because I Don’t Know What You Mean And What You Don’t, a funny, dark, poignant (and occasionally jaded!) look at life Josie and I are both Scottish emigres, so we met up in her publishers atmospheric 16th century office in Edinburgh’s old town to talk about everything from house prices to climate change, how hormones and ADHD affect pregnancy and perimenopause (clue, it’s not great), breaking free of diet culture, living in a two comedian household and why she hopes she’ll still be performing stand up at 80. Oh and she shares her secret past as a fake tarot reader! AND IF ANYONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT HOW ADHD AFFECTS PERIMENOPAUSE PLEASE MESSAGE ME ON INSTAGRAM @THEOTHERSAMBAKER! See Josie on tour - find out more at linktr.ee/josielongtour. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Because I Don't Know What You Mean And What You Don't by Josie Long and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 23 May 2023 00:00:19 -0000 Josie Long on why she hopes she'll still be doing standup at 80 (old lady arms and all!) full 11 134 sam baker Plus the comedian talks hormones, ADHD, motherhood, breaking free of diet culture and living in a two-comedian household Today’s guest is the comedian Josie Long. Josie started early – and I mean EARLY. She has been performing standup since she was 14, and by 17 won the BBC New comedy award. She was the first woman to be nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award three times and is co-founder of the education charity, Arts Emergency. Josie is also a regular on those terrifying panel shows where you just know you’d think of the smart thing to say when you were on the bus home (if at all!) has written for TV, radio and stage and has now turned her hand to short stories with Because I Don’t Know What You Mean And What You Don’t, a funny, dark, poignant (and occasionally jaded!) look at life Josie and I are both Scottish emigres, so we met up in her publishers atmospheric 16th century office in Edinburgh’s old town to talk about everything from house prices to climate change, how hormones and ADHD affect pregnancy and perimenopause (clue, it’s not great), breaking free of diet culture, living in a two comedian household and why she hopes she’ll still be performing stand up at 80. Oh and she shares her secret past as a fake tarot reader! AND IF ANYONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT HOW ADHD AFFECTS PERIMENOPAUSE PLEASE MESSAGE ME ON INSTAGRAM @THEOTHERSAMBAKER! See Josie on tour - find out more at linktr.ee/josielongtour. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Because I Don't Know What You Mean And What You Don't by Josie Long and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s guest is the comedian Josie Long. Josie started early – and I mean EARLY. She has been performing standup since she was 14, and by 17 won the BBC New comedy award. She was the first woman to be nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award three times and is co-founder of the education charity, Arts Emergency.


Josie is also a regular on those terrifying panel shows where you just know you’d think of the smart thing to say when you were on the bus home (if at all!) has written for TV, radio and stage and has now turned her hand to short stories with Because I Don’t Know What You Mean And What You Don’t, a funny, dark, poignant (and occasionally jaded!) look at life


Josie and I are both Scottish emigres, so we met up in her publishers atmospheric 16th century office in Edinburgh’s old town to talk about everything from house prices to climate change, how hormones and ADHD affect pregnancy and perimenopause (clue, it’s not great), breaking free of diet culture, living in a two comedian household and why she hopes she’ll still be performing stand up at 80. Oh and she shares her secret past as a fake tarot reader!


AND IF ANYONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT HOW ADHD AFFECTS PERIMENOPAUSE PLEASE MESSAGE ME ON INSTAGRAM @THEOTHERSAMBAKER!


See Josie on tour - find out more at linktr.ee/josielongtour.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Because I Don't Know What You Mean And What You Don't by Josie Long and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3162 no Joanna Cannon on why it took her 50 years to learn it's OK to be her https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest for Mental Health Awareness Week 2023 is mental health campaigner, psychiatrist and bestselling novelist Joanna Cannon. Jo left school at 15 only returning to complete her A levels when she decided to train as a doctor in her late 30s. She specialised in psychiatry before leaving medicine to write in her mid-40s. (How many life shifts can one woman handle!?) But Jo’s passion for psychiatry, her patients and the way their stories changed her has stayed with her. Which is why she has compiled Will You Read This Please, a unique collection of stories of 12 mental health patients in the hope of shining a light on the stigma and isolation that still impact those living with mental illness. Joanna joined me to from her home in the peak district, where she was born and still lives, to talk about the long family history of mental illness that formed her lifelong fascination with psychiatry, training as a doctor in midlife and the grim reality of working in the NHS. We also discussed why your date of birth is irrelevant, why you don’t have to have loads of friends to live a meaningful life, being a bad feminist and how red lipstick helped her change her attitude to life. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Will You Read This Please and A Tidy Ending by Joanna Cannon, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 16 May 2023 00:00:40 -0000 Joanna Cannon on why it took her 50 years to learn it's OK to be her full 11 133 sam baker The mental health advocate discusses the family history of mental illness that's shaped her My guest for Mental Health Awareness Week 2023 is mental health campaigner, psychiatrist and bestselling novelist Joanna Cannon. Jo left school at 15 only returning to complete her A levels when she decided to train as a doctor in her late 30s. She specialised in psychiatry before leaving medicine to write in her mid-40s. (How many life shifts can one woman handle!?) But Jo’s passion for psychiatry, her patients and the way their stories changed her has stayed with her. Which is why she has compiled Will You Read This Please, a unique collection of stories of 12 mental health patients in the hope of shining a light on the stigma and isolation that still impact those living with mental illness. Joanna joined me to from her home in the peak district, where she was born and still lives, to talk about the long family history of mental illness that formed her lifelong fascination with psychiatry, training as a doctor in midlife and the grim reality of working in the NHS. We also discussed why your date of birth is irrelevant, why you don’t have to have loads of friends to live a meaningful life, being a bad feminist and how red lipstick helped her change her attitude to life. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Will You Read This Please and A Tidy Ending by Joanna Cannon, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest for Mental Health Awareness Week 2023 is mental health campaigner, psychiatrist and bestselling novelist Joanna Cannon.


Jo left school at 15 only returning to complete her A levels when she decided to train as a doctor in her late 30s. She specialised in psychiatry before leaving medicine to write in her mid-40s. (How many life shifts can one woman handle!?) But Jo’s passion for psychiatry, her patients and the way their stories changed her has stayed with her. Which is why she has compiled Will You Read This Please, a unique collection of stories of 12 mental health patients in the hope of shining a light on the stigma and isolation that still impact those living with mental illness.


Joanna joined me to from her home in the peak district, where she was born and still lives, to talk about the long family history of mental illness that formed her lifelong fascination with psychiatry, training as a doctor in midlife and the grim reality of working in the NHS. We also discussed why your date of birth is irrelevant, why you don’t have to have loads of friends to live a meaningful life, being a bad feminist and how red lipstick helped her change her attitude to life.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Will You Read This Please and A Tidy Ending by Joanna Cannon, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3215 no Ruby Wax on building an emotional toolkit for the second half of your life https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ OK, I admit it, I’m a bit in awe, because today’s guest is someone I’ve wanted to get on The Shift for the longest time. You might know Ruby Wax as a successful comedian and presenter, one of the funniest women of her generation. Or you might know her as a mental health campaigner and best-selling author. One thing’s for sure, she has been using humour to make the rest of us feel better for decades. Having suffered depression her whole life, Ruby had a breakdown after losing her job on the BBC in her 50s (hold that thought!). Determined not to “go down with the career ship” she took herself off to Oxford university where she got a masters degree in mindfulness based cognitive therapy, was subsequently awarded an OBE for services to mental health and has written several bestselling books about our brains - and hers.  Then, last year, 12 years after her last bout of depression, she discovered she wasn’t actually as well as she thought she was… Cue the inspiration for a new book, and tour. Ruby and I met in an office overlooking the Thames the day after a big birthday (which we will not be talking about!!) to discuss why depression is the wrong word for mental illness and the journeys to find meaning that saw her end up on a journey to a 6 week stay in a mental clinic. We also talked about building a new emotional toolkit for the second half of your life, the secret to her 35 year marriage and why we need to stop talking ageing and start talking evolving. There’s also hair dye, mindfulness, a Carrie Fisher love-in, jewellery and toe nails. It’s all going on in this episode! Falling Upward by Richard Rohr, the book Ruby talks about in this episode, is available here. You can catch Ruby on a UK wide tour, starting in September, tickets are available now via LiveNation.co.uk * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was by Ruby Wax and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 May 2023 00:00:00 -0000 Ruby Wax on building an emotional toolkit for the second half of your life full 11 132 sam baker The mental health campaigner and comedian talks why depression is the wrong word, reinvention, evolution – and hair dye OK, I admit it, I’m a bit in awe, because today’s guest is someone I’ve wanted to get on The Shift for the longest time. You might know Ruby Wax as a successful comedian and presenter, one of the funniest women of her generation. Or you might know her as a mental health campaigner and best-selling author. One thing’s for sure, she has been using humour to make the rest of us feel better for decades. Having suffered depression her whole life, Ruby had a breakdown after losing her job on the BBC in her 50s (hold that thought!). Determined not to “go down with the career ship” she took herself off to Oxford university where she got a masters degree in mindfulness based cognitive therapy, was subsequently awarded an OBE for services to mental health and has written several bestselling books about our brains - and hers.  Then, last year, 12 years after her last bout of depression, she discovered she wasn’t actually as well as she thought she was… Cue the inspiration for a new book, and tour. Ruby and I met in an office overlooking the Thames the day after a big birthday (which we will not be talking about!!) to discuss why depression is the wrong word for mental illness and the journeys to find meaning that saw her end up on a journey to a 6 week stay in a mental clinic. We also talked about building a new emotional toolkit for the second half of your life, the secret to her 35 year marriage and why we need to stop talking ageing and start talking evolving. There’s also hair dye, mindfulness, a Carrie Fisher love-in, jewellery and toe nails. It’s all going on in this episode! Falling Upward by Richard Rohr, the book Ruby talks about in this episode, is available here. You can catch Ruby on a UK wide tour, starting in September, tickets are available now via LiveNation.co.uk * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was by Ruby Wax and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices OK, I admit it, I’m a bit in awe, because today’s guest is someone I’ve wanted to get on The Shift for the longest time. You might know Ruby Wax as a successful comedian and presenter, one of the funniest women of her generation. Or you might know her as a mental health campaigner and best-selling author. One thing’s for sure, she has been using humour to make the rest of us feel better for decades.


Having suffered depression her whole life, Ruby had a breakdown after losing her job on the BBC in her 50s (hold that thought!). Determined not to “go down with the career ship” she took herself off to Oxford university where she got a masters degree in mindfulness based cognitive therapy, was subsequently awarded an OBE for services to mental health and has written several bestselling books about our brains - and hers. 


Then, last year, 12 years after her last bout of depression, she discovered she wasn’t actually as well as she thought she was… Cue the inspiration for a new book, and tour.


Ruby and I met in an office overlooking the Thames the day after a big birthday (which we will not be talking about!!) to discuss why depression is the wrong word for mental illness and the journeys to find meaning that saw her end up on a journey to a 6 week stay in a mental clinic.


We also talked about building a new emotional toolkit for the second half of your life, the secret to her 35 year marriage and why we need to stop talking ageing and start talking evolving. There’s also hair dye, mindfulness, a Carrie Fisher love-in, jewellery and toe nails. It’s all going on in this episode!


Falling Upward by Richard Rohr, the book Ruby talks about in this episode, is available here.


You can catch Ruby on a UK wide tour, starting in September, tickets are available now via LiveNation.co.uk


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was by Ruby Wax and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3087 no Melanie Sykes on her autism diagnosis at 51 and being her own person https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ How does it feel to walk into a room and know that everyone already thinks they know all there is to know about you. That’s the position today’s guest, Melanie Sykes has found herself in repeatedly over the last thirty years. After starting out modelling and then moving into TV and radio presenting, Melanie decided she’d well and truly had enough in her 40s, and stepped back from broadcasting to reclaim her own narrative. She launched her magazine Frank in 2016 and has now followed that up with a book, Illuminated: Autism and all the things I’ve left unsaid. In it she discusses the good, the bad and the often ugly of a life lived under the camera’s glare, and of being, as she puts it, "too young and too famous for comfort." I met Melanie in a studio in North London to talk about discovering her creativity in her 40s, the relief of being diagnosed with autism and ADHD at 51 and what she learnt from her subsequent breakdown. Melanie talks candidly about the way the media has portrayed her, being sapiosexual, taking a year out from sex, why it's rare to find a man of her own age with as much energy as her and she won’t be settling any time soon. As you’ll hear, after a lifetime in the male gaze, nobody’s telling Melanie’s story but her. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Illuminated: Autism and all the things I've left unsaid by Melanie Sykes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 02 May 2023 00:00:53 -0000 Melanie Sykes on her autism diagnosis at 51 and being her own person full 11 131 sam baker After a lifetime lived in the male gaze, she's seizing her own narrative – and how How does it feel to walk into a room and know that everyone already thinks they know all there is to know about you. That’s the position today’s guest, Melanie Sykes has found herself in repeatedly over the last thirty years. After starting out modelling and then moving into TV and radio presenting, Melanie decided she’d well and truly had enough in her 40s, and stepped back from broadcasting to reclaim her own narrative. She launched her magazine Frank in 2016 and has now followed that up with a book, Illuminated: Autism and all the things I’ve left unsaid. In it she discusses the good, the bad and the often ugly of a life lived under the camera’s glare, and of being, as she puts it, "too young and too famous for comfort." I met Melanie in a studio in North London to talk about discovering her creativity in her 40s, the relief of being diagnosed with autism and ADHD at 51 and what she learnt from her subsequent breakdown. Melanie talks candidly about the way the media has portrayed her, being sapiosexual, taking a year out from sex, why it's rare to find a man of her own age with as much energy as her and she won’t be settling any time soon. As you’ll hear, after a lifetime in the male gaze, nobody’s telling Melanie’s story but her. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Illuminated: Autism and all the things I've left unsaid by Melanie Sykes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How does it feel to walk into a room and know that everyone already thinks they know all there is to know about you. That’s the position today’s guest, Melanie Sykes has found herself in repeatedly over the last thirty years.


After starting out modelling and then moving into TV and radio presenting, Melanie decided she’d well and truly had enough in her 40s, and stepped back from broadcasting to reclaim her own narrative. She launched her magazine Frank in 2016 and has now followed that up with a book, Illuminated: Autism and all the things I’ve left unsaid. In it she discusses the good, the bad and the often ugly of a life lived under the camera’s glare, and of being, as she puts it, "too young and too famous for comfort."


I met Melanie in a studio in North London to talk about discovering her creativity in her 40s, the relief of being diagnosed with autism and ADHD at 51 and what she learnt from her subsequent breakdown.


Melanie talks candidly about the way the media has portrayed her, being sapiosexual, taking a year out from sex, why it's rare to find a man of her own age with as much energy as her and she won’t be settling any time soon. As you’ll hear, after a lifetime in the male gaze, nobody’s telling Melanie’s story but her.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Illuminated: Autism and all the things I've left unsaid by Melanie Sykes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3178 yes Natasha Carthew on class, poverty and refusing to stay in her lane https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week's guest is the rural poverty campaigner Natasha Carthew. Natasha was born and brought up in Cornwall, in the 19th century fishing and farming village of Downderry where the Carthews had been resident from the very start. Natasha has spent her life noisily campaigning to give working class writers a voice. Where some might tire of banging their heads against the closed door of the affluent middle classes in general and the London media scene in particular, Natasha has been relentless. And now, finally FINALLY her efforts are being heard. Loud and clear. She founded the acclaimed Working Class Writers Festival in Bristol in 2021 and has written nine books, but the one that’s destined to make her truly impossible to ignore is her furious new memoir, Undercurrent, A Cornish memoir of Poverty Nature and Resilience. Natasha joined me from Cornwall to talk about her lifelong refusal to stay in her lane, growing up gay in the 80s, learning to harness her uncontrollable rage in her 30s and how it felt to return to the hometown she left at 19 to write her memoir. We also discussed her passion for wild writing, the calming power of nature and Why sometimes getting fuckity is the only way. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Undercurrent by Natasha Carthew and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 25 Apr 2023 00:00:26 -0000 Natasha Carthew on class, poverty and refusing to stay in her lane full 11 130 sam baker Growing up the only gay in the village in the 80s and finally learning to harness her rage This week's guest is the rural poverty campaigner Natasha Carthew. Natasha was born and brought up in Cornwall, in the 19th century fishing and farming village of Downderry where the Carthews had been resident from the very start. Natasha has spent her life noisily campaigning to give working class writers a voice. Where some might tire of banging their heads against the closed door of the affluent middle classes in general and the London media scene in particular, Natasha has been relentless. And now, finally FINALLY her efforts are being heard. Loud and clear. She founded the acclaimed Working Class Writers Festival in Bristol in 2021 and has written nine books, but the one that’s destined to make her truly impossible to ignore is her furious new memoir, Undercurrent, A Cornish memoir of Poverty Nature and Resilience. Natasha joined me from Cornwall to talk about her lifelong refusal to stay in her lane, growing up gay in the 80s, learning to harness her uncontrollable rage in her 30s and how it felt to return to the hometown she left at 19 to write her memoir. We also discussed her passion for wild writing, the calming power of nature and Why sometimes getting fuckity is the only way. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Undercurrent by Natasha Carthew and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week's guest is the rural poverty campaigner Natasha Carthew. Natasha was born and brought up in Cornwall, in the 19th century fishing and farming village of Downderry where the Carthews had been resident from the very start.


Natasha has spent her life noisily campaigning to give working class writers a voice. Where some might tire of banging their heads against the closed door of the affluent middle classes in general and the London media scene in particular, Natasha has been relentless. And now, finally FINALLY her efforts are being heard. Loud and clear.


She founded the acclaimed Working Class Writers Festival in Bristol in 2021 and has written nine books, but the one that’s destined to make her truly impossible to ignore is her furious new memoir, Undercurrent, A Cornish memoir of Poverty Nature and Resilience.


Natasha joined me from Cornwall to talk about her lifelong refusal to stay in her lane, growing up gay in the 80s, learning to harness her uncontrollable rage in her 30s and how it felt to return to the hometown she left at 19 to write her memoir. We also discussed her passion for wild writing, the calming power of nature and Why sometimes getting fuckity is the only way.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Undercurrent by Natasha Carthew and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2525 no Marina Benjamin on emotional labour & the caring conundrum https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I first encountered today’s guest, Marina Benjamin, when I was researching The Shift book and stumbled across her memoir, The Middlepause. An insightful look at what middle age means today, it was prompted by Marina’s own sudden menopause after a hysterectomy. The sense of dislocation she described was the first time I’d ever seen the way I felt put down in black and white. She followed it up with Insomnia (clue’s in the name) and has now completed her loose midlife trilogy with A Little Give a stunning book about the “unsung, unseen, undone work women do” - and what happens when we tire of being a human rehab centre for everyone around us. I inhaled this book, dog-earing page after page and internally yelling YES! and I’m pretty sure you will too. Marina joined me to talk about emotional labour, why “cleaner guilt” doesn’t seem to affect men (strange that!), time poverty and wresting control of the to-do ticker tape. We also discussed why women’s manual work is invisible and men’s is a skill, how to get maximum benefit from your feminist inner critic, the two way pain of caring for elderly parents and why you should always ALWAYS run towards yourself. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Little Give by Marina Benjamin and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 18 Apr 2023 00:00:27 -0000 Marina Benjamin on emotional labour & the caring conundrum full 11 129 sam baker How it really feels to care for a (demanding) elderly parent – at the expense of pretty much everything else I first encountered today’s guest, Marina Benjamin, when I was researching The Shift book and stumbled across her memoir, The Middlepause. An insightful look at what middle age means today, it was prompted by Marina’s own sudden menopause after a hysterectomy. The sense of dislocation she described was the first time I’d ever seen the way I felt put down in black and white. She followed it up with Insomnia (clue’s in the name) and has now completed her loose midlife trilogy with A Little Give a stunning book about the “unsung, unseen, undone work women do” - and what happens when we tire of being a human rehab centre for everyone around us. I inhaled this book, dog-earing page after page and internally yelling YES! and I’m pretty sure you will too. Marina joined me to talk about emotional labour, why “cleaner guilt” doesn’t seem to affect men (strange that!), time poverty and wresting control of the to-do ticker tape. We also discussed why women’s manual work is invisible and men’s is a skill, how to get maximum benefit from your feminist inner critic, the two way pain of caring for elderly parents and why you should always ALWAYS run towards yourself. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Little Give by Marina Benjamin and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I first encountered today’s guest, Marina Benjamin, when I was researching The Shift book and stumbled across her memoir, The Middlepause. An insightful look at what middle age means today, it was prompted by Marina’s own sudden menopause after a hysterectomy. The sense of dislocation she described was the first time I’d ever seen the way I felt put down in black and white.


She followed it up with Insomnia (clue’s in the name) and has now completed her loose midlife trilogy with A Little Give a stunning book about the “unsung, unseen, undone work women do” - and what happens when we tire of being a human rehab centre for everyone around us.


I inhaled this book, dog-earing page after page and internally yelling YES! and I’m pretty sure you will too.


Marina joined me to talk about emotional labour, why “cleaner guilt” doesn’t seem to affect men (strange that!), time poverty and wresting control of the to-do ticker tape. We also discussed why women’s manual work is invisible and men’s is a skill, how to get maximum benefit from your feminist inner critic, the two way pain of caring for elderly parents and why you should always ALWAYS run towards yourself.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Little Give by Marina Benjamin and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2550 no Curtis Sittenfeld rejects the idea that ageing is somehow bad or shameful https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the bestselling author of American Wife and Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld. I first came across Curtis when both our debut novels were named “ones to watch” by Time Magazine. They turned out to be right about one of us. It wasn’t me! Since that first novel, Prep, hit the big time, Curtis has written six more novels and two short story collections. The most famous of which is the transatlantic bestseller American Wife, a fictionalised look at the life of Laura Bush, wife of George W Bush that ponders the question of whether she would have voted for him! Her latest novel, Romantic Comedy is a total departure and absolutely the tonic we need right now. It asks, pertinently, how come hot accomplished women persistently marry average blokes, but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. And what if… it did?! Curtis joined me from her home in a very snowy Minneapolis to talk about how men constantly punch above their weight, why rom-coms are having a comeback and how she found her funny. We also discussed writing out your emotions, why old is not a synonym for bad and how weird shit has happened to everyone by the time they reach their 40s. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Romantic Comedy By Curtis Sittenfeld and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:00:56 -0000 Curtis Sittenfeld rejects the idea that ageing is somehow bad or shameful full 11 128 sam baker The bestselling author of American Wife talks romcoms, why men expect to punch above their weight and writing out your emotions My guest today is the bestselling author of American Wife and Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld. I first came across Curtis when both our debut novels were named “ones to watch” by Time Magazine. They turned out to be right about one of us. It wasn’t me! Since that first novel, Prep, hit the big time, Curtis has written six more novels and two short story collections. The most famous of which is the transatlantic bestseller American Wife, a fictionalised look at the life of Laura Bush, wife of George W Bush that ponders the question of whether she would have voted for him! Her latest novel, Romantic Comedy is a total departure and absolutely the tonic we need right now. It asks, pertinently, how come hot accomplished women persistently marry average blokes, but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. And what if… it did?! Curtis joined me from her home in a very snowy Minneapolis to talk about how men constantly punch above their weight, why rom-coms are having a comeback and how she found her funny. We also discussed writing out your emotions, why old is not a synonym for bad and how weird shit has happened to everyone by the time they reach their 40s. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Romantic Comedy By Curtis Sittenfeld and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the bestselling author of American Wife and Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld. I first came across Curtis when both our debut novels were named “ones to watch” by Time Magazine. They turned out to be right about one of us. It wasn’t me!


Since that first novel, Prep, hit the big time, Curtis has written six more novels and two short story collections. The most famous of which is the transatlantic bestseller American Wife, a fictionalised look at the life of Laura Bush, wife of George W Bush that ponders the question of whether she would have voted for him!


Her latest novel, Romantic Comedy is a total departure and absolutely the tonic we need right now. It asks, pertinently, how come hot accomplished women persistently marry average blokes, but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. And what if… it did?!


Curtis joined me from her home in a very snowy Minneapolis to talk about how men constantly punch above their weight, why rom-coms are having a comeback and how she found her funny. We also discussed writing out your emotions, why old is not a synonym for bad and how weird shit has happened to everyone by the time they reach their 40s.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Romantic Comedy By Curtis Sittenfeld and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2742 no Sarah Knight on finding the courage to make change and why selfish isn't a four letter word https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest is the anti-guru behind the massive No F*cks Given franchise, Sarah Knight. What started life with the Marie Kondo pastiche, The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving A F*ck, now comprises 7 guides and three journals which have sold three million copies and a TED talk that’s notched up ten million views.  But Sarah wasn’t always the queen of giving zero f*cks. Scroll back to her mid-30s and you’d have found her having a panic attack in the Manhattan office where she worked. So started ten years of anxiety and depression, a massive leap into the freelance unknown (which let’s face it, worked out pretty well!) and a 1500 mile geographical from Brooklyn to the Caribbean, where she now lives. Sarah joined me from her home in the Dominican Republic (grrrr) to talk about her new book, Grow The F*ck Up, how sometimes it takes getting what you want to realise you don’t want it, Why we often need permission to make a change and having the courage to recognise you really don’t have enough left in the tank. Sarah also told me how she learnt to give fewer but better fucks, what to do if you’re married to a “big f*cking baby”, why selfish shouldn’t be a four letter word and she gives us a masterclass in learning to say no. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Grow The F*ck Up by Sarah Knight and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 04 Apr 2023 00:00:52 -0000 Sarah Knight on finding the courage to make change and why selfish isn't a four letter word full 11 127 sam baker The anti-guru behind the zero-f*cks franchise reveals the f*cks she DOES give Today’s guest is the anti-guru behind the massive No F*cks Given franchise, Sarah Knight. What started life with the Marie Kondo pastiche, The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving A F*ck, now comprises 7 guides and three journals which have sold three million copies and a TED talk that’s notched up ten million views.  But Sarah wasn’t always the queen of giving zero f*cks. Scroll back to her mid-30s and you’d have found her having a panic attack in the Manhattan office where she worked. So started ten years of anxiety and depression, a massive leap into the freelance unknown (which let’s face it, worked out pretty well!) and a 1500 mile geographical from Brooklyn to the Caribbean, where she now lives. Sarah joined me from her home in the Dominican Republic (grrrr) to talk about her new book, Grow The F*ck Up, how sometimes it takes getting what you want to realise you don’t want it, Why we often need permission to make a change and having the courage to recognise you really don’t have enough left in the tank. Sarah also told me how she learnt to give fewer but better fucks, what to do if you’re married to a “big f*cking baby”, why selfish shouldn’t be a four letter word and she gives us a masterclass in learning to say no. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Grow The F*ck Up by Sarah Knight and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is the anti-guru behind the massive No F*cks Given franchise, Sarah Knight. What started life with the Marie Kondo pastiche, The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving A F*ck, now comprises 7 guides and three journals which have sold three million copies and a TED talk that’s notched up ten million views. 


But Sarah wasn’t always the queen of giving zero f*cks. Scroll back to her mid-30s and you’d have found her having a panic attack in the Manhattan office where she worked. So started ten years of anxiety and depression, a massive leap into the freelance unknown (which let’s face it, worked out pretty well!) and a 1500 mile geographical from Brooklyn to the Caribbean, where she now lives.


Sarah joined me from her home in the Dominican Republic (grrrr) to talk about her new book, Grow The F*ck Up, how sometimes it takes getting what you want to realise you don’t want it, Why we often need permission to make a change and having the courage to recognise you really don’t have enough left in the tank. Sarah also told me how she learnt to give fewer but better fucks, what to do if you’re married to a “big f*cking baby”, why selfish shouldn’t be a four letter word and she gives us a masterclass in learning to say no.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Grow The F*ck Up by Sarah Knight and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3195 yes Anita B on why the beauty industry wants us to fear ageing https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest, Anita Bhagwandas, is that rare thing, a beauty journalist who’s prepared to call out the beauty industry. Anita B, as she's known, is currently a beauty columnist on the Guardian. But throughout her career she has worked on some of the biggest names in women’s magazines and consulted for some of the most famous brands. It’s not exactly the CV of someone you’d expect to see campaigning to break free of prevailing beauty standards. But Anita’s new book, Ugly, does just that, by examining how women are trapped by the way we’re supposed to look, regarded as lesser if our face doesn’t fit the norm. If we’re not white with caucasian features and hair, if we’re not size 10, if we’re not 25. Anita joined me to talk about the first time she felt “wrong”, growing up in a world of Barbie and how her perverse inner masochist led her to end up working in the very industry that made her feel not good enough. Plus she takes us on a whistle stop tour of anti-ageing beauty advertising, tells us why otherwise smart women fall for the promise of “glow” (by which I mean me! And or probably you!) and why middle age is such an utterly pointless term. If you want to see off beauty anxiety, start right here!  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Ugly by Anita Bhagwandas and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00:17 -0000 Anita B on why the beauty industry wants us to fear ageing full 11 126 sam baker The Guardian beauty columnist on growing up surrounded by Barbies and why she's fighting back against prevailing beauty standards Today’s guest, Anita Bhagwandas, is that rare thing, a beauty journalist who’s prepared to call out the beauty industry. Anita B, as she's known, is currently a beauty columnist on the Guardian. But throughout her career she has worked on some of the biggest names in women’s magazines and consulted for some of the most famous brands. It’s not exactly the CV of someone you’d expect to see campaigning to break free of prevailing beauty standards. But Anita’s new book, Ugly, does just that, by examining how women are trapped by the way we’re supposed to look, regarded as lesser if our face doesn’t fit the norm. If we’re not white with caucasian features and hair, if we’re not size 10, if we’re not 25. Anita joined me to talk about the first time she felt “wrong”, growing up in a world of Barbie and how her perverse inner masochist led her to end up working in the very industry that made her feel not good enough. Plus she takes us on a whistle stop tour of anti-ageing beauty advertising, tells us why otherwise smart women fall for the promise of “glow” (by which I mean me! And or probably you!) and why middle age is such an utterly pointless term. If you want to see off beauty anxiety, start right here!  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Ugly by Anita Bhagwandas and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest, Anita Bhagwandas, is that rare thing, a beauty journalist who’s prepared to call out the beauty industry.


Anita B, as she's known, is currently a beauty columnist on the Guardian. But throughout her career she has worked on some of the biggest names in women’s magazines and consulted for some of the most famous brands. It’s not exactly the CV of someone you’d expect to see campaigning to break free of prevailing beauty standards.


But Anita’s new book, Ugly, does just that, by examining how women are trapped by the way we’re supposed to look, regarded as lesser if our face doesn’t fit the norm. If we’re not white with caucasian features and hair, if we’re not size 10, if we’re not 25.


Anita joined me to talk about the first time she felt “wrong”, growing up in a world of Barbie and how her perverse inner masochist led her to end up working in the very industry that made her feel not good enough. Plus she takes us on a whistle stop tour of anti-ageing beauty advertising, tells us why otherwise smart women fall for the promise of “glow” (by which I mean me! And or probably you!) and why middle age is such an utterly pointless term. If you want to see off beauty anxiety, start right here! 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Ugly by Anita Bhagwandas and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3007 no Anna Murphy shares her take-no-prisoners approach to growing older https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest is one of the most stylish women I know, but I also know that she won’t mind me saying, it wasn’t always that way. Now Fashion Director of The Times, I first met Anna Murphy when we were both regular stalwarts of the second row at the biannual ready to wear fashion shows. She was then editor of the Telegraph magazine Stella and I was editor of Red, both magazines deemed not quite fashion enough by the fashion industry. I certainly dressed not to be seen, I think it would be fair to say the same of her. Oh how things change. Somewhere between 41 and 51 Anna went from anonymously chic editor to colourful fashion industry doyenne with cascading grey curls and a wardrobe that manages to be both outré (there’s a fashion word for you) AND wearable. You go quietly into middle age if you want to, but she’s not having any of it. Anna joined me in a brief pause between Paris shows to talk about her take-no-prisoners approach to ageing, how going grey was the most visible thing she’s ever done and how she learnt to dress to match. She also shared her philosophy of “why not try it”, her one-word-trick to sorting your midlife personal style and why she wouldn’t have surgery if you paid her. Oh, and the lifechanging power of yoga! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Destination Fabulous by Anna Murphy and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. Find out more about: Living Proof hair products; Boucleme's hair towel; and the Hayou method. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you're already a member, did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 21 Mar 2023 01:00:32 -0000 Anna Murphy shares her take-no-prisoners approach to growing older full 11 125 sam baker The Fashion Director of The Times talks going grey, her one-word-trick to sorting your midlife personal style and why she wouldn’t have surgery if you paid her Today’s guest is one of the most stylish women I know, but I also know that she won’t mind me saying, it wasn’t always that way. Now Fashion Director of The Times, I first met Anna Murphy when we were both regular stalwarts of the second row at the biannual ready to wear fashion shows. She was then editor of the Telegraph magazine Stella and I was editor of Red, both magazines deemed not quite fashion enough by the fashion industry. I certainly dressed not to be seen, I think it would be fair to say the same of her. Oh how things change. Somewhere between 41 and 51 Anna went from anonymously chic editor to colourful fashion industry doyenne with cascading grey curls and a wardrobe that manages to be both outré (there’s a fashion word for you) AND wearable. You go quietly into middle age if you want to, but she’s not having any of it. Anna joined me in a brief pause between Paris shows to talk about her take-no-prisoners approach to ageing, how going grey was the most visible thing she’s ever done and how she learnt to dress to match. She also shared her philosophy of “why not try it”, her one-word-trick to sorting your midlife personal style and why she wouldn’t have surgery if you paid her. Oh, and the lifechanging power of yoga! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Destination Fabulous by Anna Murphy and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. Find out more about: Living Proof hair products; Boucleme's hair towel; and the Hayou method. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you're already a member, did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is one of the most stylish women I know, but I also know that she won’t mind me saying, it wasn’t always that way. Now Fashion Director of The Times, I first met Anna Murphy when we were both regular stalwarts of the second row at the biannual ready to wear fashion shows. She was then editor of the Telegraph magazine Stella and I was editor of Red, both magazines deemed not quite fashion enough by the fashion industry. I certainly dressed not to be seen, I think it would be fair to say the same of her. Oh how things change.


Somewhere between 41 and 51 Anna went from anonymously chic editor to colourful fashion industry doyenne with cascading grey curls and a wardrobe that manages to be both outré (there’s a fashion word for you) AND wearable. You go quietly into middle age if you want to, but she’s not having any of it.


Anna joined me in a brief pause between Paris shows to talk about her take-no-prisoners approach to ageing, how going grey was the most visible thing she’s ever done and how she learnt to dress to match. She also shared her philosophy of “why not try it”, her one-word-trick to sorting your midlife personal style and why she wouldn’t have surgery if you paid her. Oh, and the lifechanging power of yoga!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Destination Fabulous by Anna Murphy and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


Find out more about: Living Proof hair products; Boucleme's hair towel; and the Hayou method.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you're already a member, did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3112 no Dani Shapiro on family secrets and coming into your full potential at 60 https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ My guest today is the bestselling writer Dani Shapiro. Dani is best known for the memoirs that made her name. Startlingly honest works of self-investigation like Slow Motion, in which she examines the questionable decisions her younger self made (let’s face it, whose younger self didn’t?). And the book that catapulted her to the top of the bestseller lists, Inheritance.  In Inheritance, Dani explored the impact of taking a DNA test - just for fun! - in her mid 50s only to discover that her beloved dad was not actually her biological father. That book led to the top 10 podcast, Family Secrets featuring guests who have uncovered life altering secrets. It was unlocking those family secrets that enabled Dani to write her first novel in 15 years, Signal Fires, a bestseller since the day it was published in the states last year and praised by, my fave Jamie Lee Curtis, amongst others. It looks at what happens when one tragic mistake changes a whole family’s lives. Dani joined me from the East coast of America to discuss how it feels to discover that you are your family’s secret, her allergy to Empty Nest Syndrome and why there should be a handbook for middle age. We talked about coming into your full potential at 60, "losing your looks" when you’ve been told they’re your currency and learning to count ordinary blessings. Listen to Family Secrets here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 14 Mar 2023 01:00:00 -0000 Dani Shapiro on family secrets and coming into your full potential at 60 full 11 124 sam baker The podcaster and bestselling author tells us about being your own family's secret, why she's allergic to "Empty Nest Syndrome" and learning to count your ordinary blessings My guest today is the bestselling writer Dani Shapiro. Dani is best known for the memoirs that made her name. Startlingly honest works of self-investigation like Slow Motion, in which she examines the questionable decisions her younger self made (let’s face it, whose younger self didn’t?). And the book that catapulted her to the top of the bestseller lists, Inheritance.  In Inheritance, Dani explored the impact of taking a DNA test - just for fun! - in her mid 50s only to discover that her beloved dad was not actually her biological father. That book led to the top 10 podcast, Family Secrets featuring guests who have uncovered life altering secrets. It was unlocking those family secrets that enabled Dani to write her first novel in 15 years, Signal Fires, a bestseller since the day it was published in the states last year and praised by, my fave Jamie Lee Curtis, amongst others. It looks at what happens when one tragic mistake changes a whole family’s lives. Dani joined me from the East coast of America to discuss how it feels to discover that you are your family’s secret, her allergy to Empty Nest Syndrome and why there should be a handbook for middle age. We talked about coming into your full potential at 60, "losing your looks" when you’ve been told they’re your currency and learning to count ordinary blessings. Listen to Family Secrets here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the bestselling writer Dani Shapiro. Dani is best known for the memoirs that made her name. Startlingly honest works of self-investigation like Slow Motion, in which she examines the questionable decisions her younger self made (let’s face it, whose younger self didn’t?). And the book that catapulted her to the top of the bestseller lists, Inheritance. 


In Inheritance, Dani explored the impact of taking a DNA test - just for fun! - in her mid 50s only to discover that her beloved dad was not actually her biological father. That book led to the top 10 podcast, Family Secrets featuring guests who have uncovered life altering secrets.


It was unlocking those family secrets that enabled Dani to write her first novel in 15 years, Signal Fires, a bestseller since the day it was published in the states last year and praised by, my fave Jamie Lee Curtis, amongst others. It looks at what happens when one tragic mistake changes a whole family’s lives.


Dani joined me from the East coast of America to discuss how it feels to discover that you are your family’s secret, her allergy to Empty Nest Syndrome and why there should be a handbook for middle age. We talked about coming into your full potential at 60, "losing your looks" when you’ve been told they’re your currency and learning to count ordinary blessings.


Listen to Family Secrets here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3186 no Katherine May on burnout and why we all need a little more wonder in our lives https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ We’ve all had those moments in our lives when everything feels… darker, colder, a little (or a lot) less hopeful. Those emotional winters were perfectly encapsulated by today’s guest, Katherine May in her transatlantic bestseller, Wintering, the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. Her new book is another soothing antidote for the way we live now, Enchantment, Reawakening wonder in an exhausted age. I don’t know if it’s the aftermath of the pandemic, our always on culture, or just… life, but this spoke to me in exactly the way Wintering did. So, that’s a thumbs up from me. Katherine joined me from her home by her beloved seaside (hence the seagulls!) to talk about her midlife autism diagnosis, why she believes we’re living through the burnout decade and how to wrest back control of our lives from our work. She told me about entering perimenopause at 29 but still being absolutely livid in her mid-40s, how she’s fully over “white male gurus” and why she wants to open up the conversation about meaning. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Enchantment by Katherine May and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 07 Mar 2023 01:00:00 -0000 Katherine May on burnout and why we all need a little more wonder in our lives full 11 123 sam baker The Wintering author talks white male gurus, meaning making, midlife autism and the importance of finding someone who 'loves you in comfortable shoes" We’ve all had those moments in our lives when everything feels… darker, colder, a little (or a lot) less hopeful. Those emotional winters were perfectly encapsulated by today’s guest, Katherine May in her transatlantic bestseller, Wintering, the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. Her new book is another soothing antidote for the way we live now, Enchantment, Reawakening wonder in an exhausted age. I don’t know if it’s the aftermath of the pandemic, our always on culture, or just… life, but this spoke to me in exactly the way Wintering did. So, that’s a thumbs up from me. Katherine joined me from her home by her beloved seaside (hence the seagulls!) to talk about her midlife autism diagnosis, why she believes we’re living through the burnout decade and how to wrest back control of our lives from our work. She told me about entering perimenopause at 29 but still being absolutely livid in her mid-40s, how she’s fully over “white male gurus” and why she wants to open up the conversation about meaning. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Enchantment by Katherine May and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices We’ve all had those moments in our lives when everything feels… darker, colder, a little (or a lot) less hopeful. Those emotional winters were perfectly encapsulated by today’s guest, Katherine May in her transatlantic bestseller, Wintering, the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. Her new book is another soothing antidote for the way we live now, Enchantment, Reawakening wonder in an exhausted age.


I don’t know if it’s the aftermath of the pandemic, our always on culture, or just… life, but this spoke to me in exactly the way Wintering did. So, that’s a thumbs up from me.


Katherine joined me from her home by her beloved seaside (hence the seagulls!) to talk about her midlife autism diagnosis, why she believes we’re living through the burnout decade and how to wrest back control of our lives from our work. She told me about entering perimenopause at 29 but still being absolutely livid in her mid-40s, how she’s fully over “white male gurus” and why she wants to open up the conversation about meaning.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Enchantment by Katherine May and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.



Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2767 no Martha Wainwright on music, motherhood and finding love in your 40s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I first met todays guest, Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, when I interviewed her in Glasgow a few weeks ago. We got talking about the nuts and bolts of midlife in the green room and I was thrilled when she agreed to continue the conversation on The Shift. One of our foremost singer songwriters, Martha has released seven critically acclaimed albums. The latest of which, Love Will Be Reborn, is on repeat on my personal playlist. She’s also - let’s just get this out of the way now - the daughter of “folk royalty” Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister of singer Rufus Wainwright. In short, she comes from a family of very distinct voices, which made finding her own a particular challenge. Martha joined me from her home in Montreal to discuss her extraordinarily frank memoir, the aptly titled Stories I Might regret telling you. This conversation goes to all the places: the struggle to make motherhood and the music industry mix, surviving her grim divorce, finding new love with a good man, leaning into your looks, and the agony of being unable to conceive in her 40s. Martha is as candid as her songwriting. Oh and she gave us a guided tour of her enormous vagina painting! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 28 Feb 2023 01:00:57 -0000 Martha Wainwright on music, motherhood and finding love in your 40s full 11 122 sam baker The singer-songwriter talks candidly about divorce, failing to conceive, leaning into her looks and more I first met todays guest, Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, when I interviewed her in Glasgow a few weeks ago. We got talking about the nuts and bolts of midlife in the green room and I was thrilled when she agreed to continue the conversation on The Shift. One of our foremost singer songwriters, Martha has released seven critically acclaimed albums. The latest of which, Love Will Be Reborn, is on repeat on my personal playlist. She’s also - let’s just get this out of the way now - the daughter of “folk royalty” Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister of singer Rufus Wainwright. In short, she comes from a family of very distinct voices, which made finding her own a particular challenge. Martha joined me from her home in Montreal to discuss her extraordinarily frank memoir, the aptly titled Stories I Might regret telling you. This conversation goes to all the places: the struggle to make motherhood and the music industry mix, surviving her grim divorce, finding new love with a good man, leaning into your looks, and the agony of being unable to conceive in her 40s. Martha is as candid as her songwriting. Oh and she gave us a guided tour of her enormous vagina painting! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I first met todays guest, Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, when I interviewed her in Glasgow a few weeks ago. We got talking about the nuts and bolts of midlife in the green room and I was thrilled when she agreed to continue the conversation on The Shift.


One of our foremost singer songwriters, Martha has released seven critically acclaimed albums. The latest of which, Love Will Be Reborn, is on repeat on my personal playlist.


She’s also - let’s just get this out of the way now - the daughter of “folk royalty” Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister of singer Rufus Wainwright. In short, she comes from a family of very distinct voices, which made finding her own a particular challenge.


Martha joined me from her home in Montreal to discuss her extraordinarily frank memoir, the aptly titled Stories I Might regret telling you. This conversation goes to all the places: the struggle to make motherhood and the music industry mix, surviving her grim divorce, finding new love with a good man, leaning into your looks, and the agony of being unable to conceive in her 40s. Martha is as candid as her songwriting. Oh and she gave us a guided tour of her enormous vagina painting!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3026 no Carolyn Hays on parenting a transgender child https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This episode is a first for me: it’s the first time I’ve interviewed someone without knowing who they are. Because today’s guest, Carolyn Hays, is a bestselling novelist who has chosen to publish her new book under a pseudonym to protect her family’s privacy. That book is one of the most powerful memoirs I’ve read in a long time. A Girlhood is a moving, compassionate, thought-provoking letter to Carolyn’s now-teenage transgender daughter, who was considered a boy at birth, but insisted she was a girl as soon as she could talk. This is a story of motherhood, authenticity, identity and learning to be true to yourself. It’s a story about transphobia: a subject that’s become a powder keg in recent years. And, above all, it’s a story about understanding and how other people can change us. Carolyn joined me from her home on the East Coast of America to share the reality of being a parent supporting a trans child, the seismic impact of Child Protection turning up on your doorstep and how the fear of losing custody led the family to move across America to a state where they hoped their youngest daughter would be accepted. I want to thank Carolyn for her candour and I hope you’ll find this conversation as eye-opening as I did. In the light of the recent murder of trans teenager Brianna Ghey, it feels more important than ever. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Girlhood: A Letter To My Transgender Daughter and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. This Body I wore by Diana Goetsch is available from Amazon. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 21 Feb 2023 01:00:03 -0000 Carolyn Hays on parenting a transgender child full 11 121 sam baker A story of motherhood, authenticity, identity and how people can change us This episode is a first for me: it’s the first time I’ve interviewed someone without knowing who they are. Because today’s guest, Carolyn Hays, is a bestselling novelist who has chosen to publish her new book under a pseudonym to protect her family’s privacy. That book is one of the most powerful memoirs I’ve read in a long time. A Girlhood is a moving, compassionate, thought-provoking letter to Carolyn’s now-teenage transgender daughter, who was considered a boy at birth, but insisted she was a girl as soon as she could talk. This is a story of motherhood, authenticity, identity and learning to be true to yourself. It’s a story about transphobia: a subject that’s become a powder keg in recent years. And, above all, it’s a story about understanding and how other people can change us. Carolyn joined me from her home on the East Coast of America to share the reality of being a parent supporting a trans child, the seismic impact of Child Protection turning up on your doorstep and how the fear of losing custody led the family to move across America to a state where they hoped their youngest daughter would be accepted. I want to thank Carolyn for her candour and I hope you’ll find this conversation as eye-opening as I did. In the light of the recent murder of trans teenager Brianna Ghey, it feels more important than ever. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Girlhood: A Letter To My Transgender Daughter and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. This Body I wore by Diana Goetsch is available from Amazon. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This episode is a first for me: it’s the first time I’ve interviewed someone without knowing who they are. Because today’s guest, Carolyn Hays, is a bestselling novelist who has chosen to publish her new book under a pseudonym to protect her family’s privacy. That book is one of the most powerful memoirs I’ve read in a long time. A Girlhood is a moving, compassionate, thought-provoking letter to Carolyn’s now-teenage transgender daughter, who was considered a boy at birth, but insisted she was a girl as soon as she could talk.


This is a story of motherhood, authenticity, identity and learning to be true to yourself. It’s a story about transphobia: a subject that’s become a powder keg in recent years. And, above all, it’s a story about understanding and how other people can change us.


Carolyn joined me from her home on the East Coast of America to share the reality of being a parent supporting a trans child, the seismic impact of Child Protection turning up on your doorstep and how the fear of losing custody led the family to move across America to a state where they hoped their youngest daughter would be accepted.


I want to thank Carolyn for her candour and I hope you’ll find this conversation as eye-opening as I did. In the light of the recent murder of trans teenager Brianna Ghey, it feels more important than ever.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Girlhood: A Letter To My Transgender Daughter and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. This Body I wore by Diana Goetsch is available from Amazon.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3342 no Charlene White on fighting the bias that still exists against older women https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I’ve been trying to get today’s guest into The Shift hot seat for the longest time - after a mixture of long covid (me) and impromptu trips to the jungle (Her!), we’ve finally made it.  Charlene White has been a journalist for over 20 years. She was the first black woman to present the ITV News At Ten (in 2014… I know, right?), and is that rare thing a news journalist who actually sounds like a human being when she presents. Charlene has featured on the Black Powerlist countless times, co-presents Loose Women and has a column in the i-paper. She also, of course, starred in last year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. Charlene joined me to talk facing your fears, the tyranny of the ticking clock and surviving the onslaught of small kids in your 40s. She told me about having to grow up fast to care for her siblings when her mum got cancer, the power of lifelong friendship and the enraging way "serious media" looks down on anything loved by women. We also talked about our yoyo weight, learning to work the red carpet in her 40s and why she wouldn’t have had the first clue about menopause if not for her Loose Women gang.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 14 Feb 2023 01:00:05 -0000 Charlene White on fighting the bias that still exists against older women full 11 120 sam baker The Loose Women host and news presenter talks the tyranny of the ticking clock, the power of lifelong friendship and the enraging way the media looks down on anything beloved by women I’ve been trying to get today’s guest into The Shift hot seat for the longest time - after a mixture of long covid (me) and impromptu trips to the jungle (Her!), we’ve finally made it.  Charlene White has been a journalist for over 20 years. She was the first black woman to present the ITV News At Ten (in 2014… I know, right?), and is that rare thing a news journalist who actually sounds like a human being when she presents. Charlene has featured on the Black Powerlist countless times, co-presents Loose Women and has a column in the i-paper. She also, of course, starred in last year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. Charlene joined me to talk facing your fears, the tyranny of the ticking clock and surviving the onslaught of small kids in your 40s. She told me about having to grow up fast to care for her siblings when her mum got cancer, the power of lifelong friendship and the enraging way "serious media" looks down on anything loved by women. We also talked about our yoyo weight, learning to work the red carpet in her 40s and why she wouldn’t have had the first clue about menopause if not for her Loose Women gang.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I’ve been trying to get today’s guest into The Shift hot seat for the longest time - after a mixture of long covid (me) and impromptu trips to the jungle (Her!), we’ve finally made it. 


Charlene White has been a journalist for over 20 years. She was the first black woman to present the ITV News At Ten (in 2014… I know, right?), and is that rare thing a news journalist who actually sounds like a human being when she presents. Charlene has featured on the Black Powerlist countless times, co-presents Loose Women and has a column in the i-paper. She also, of course, starred in last year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.


Charlene joined me to talk facing your fears, the tyranny of the ticking clock and surviving the onslaught of small kids in your 40s. She told me about having to grow up fast to care for her siblings when her mum got cancer, the power of lifelong friendship and the enraging way "serious media" looks down on anything loved by women. We also talked about our yoyo weight, learning to work the red carpet in her 40s and why she wouldn’t have had the first clue about menopause if not for her Loose Women gang. 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3386 no Jojo Moyes on the total liberation of being in your 50s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I’m delighted to welcome back my good friend Jojo Moyes. Jojo was one of the very first people I interviewed for the pod back when it was just a random idea. Like all good friends do, she had my back! For that and many other things, I owe her. As I’m pretty sure you already know, Jojo is the global bestselling novelist of Me Before You, and 16 other novels. I think! She’s sold 51million copies globally and several of her books have been turned into hit movies, including Me before you, for which she wrote the screenplay. Her latest, Someone Else’s Shoes, will definitely be joining them. It’s an action packed, emotionally astute, laugh out loud look at what happens when two very different women accidentally pick up each other’s gym bags. It tells the good, the bad and the ugly about middle age, it’s a love letter to female friendship and an ode to the totemic power of shoes. I met with Jojo for a very long overdue catch up. We talked the liberation of being in our 50s, growing into your looks in middle age and surviving the midlife maelstrom of divorce, kids leaving home, parental death, perimenopause and workaholism! She talked candidly about the mental health crisis that made her put the brakes on her career, and she wouldn’t have got through it without her female friends. Oh, and guess what? She’s a secret petrolhead! Who knew?! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Someone Else's Shoes by Jojo Moyes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 07 Feb 2023 01:00:43 -0000 Jojo Moyes on the total liberation of being in your 50s full 11 119 sam baker The bestselling author of Me Before You is back and more candid than ever about divorce, mental health, menopause and more I’m delighted to welcome back my good friend Jojo Moyes. Jojo was one of the very first people I interviewed for the pod back when it was just a random idea. Like all good friends do, she had my back! For that and many other things, I owe her. As I’m pretty sure you already know, Jojo is the global bestselling novelist of Me Before You, and 16 other novels. I think! She’s sold 51million copies globally and several of her books have been turned into hit movies, including Me before you, for which she wrote the screenplay. Her latest, Someone Else’s Shoes, will definitely be joining them. It’s an action packed, emotionally astute, laugh out loud look at what happens when two very different women accidentally pick up each other’s gym bags. It tells the good, the bad and the ugly about middle age, it’s a love letter to female friendship and an ode to the totemic power of shoes. I met with Jojo for a very long overdue catch up. We talked the liberation of being in our 50s, growing into your looks in middle age and surviving the midlife maelstrom of divorce, kids leaving home, parental death, perimenopause and workaholism! She talked candidly about the mental health crisis that made her put the brakes on her career, and she wouldn’t have got through it without her female friends. Oh, and guess what? She’s a secret petrolhead! Who knew?! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Someone Else's Shoes by Jojo Moyes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I’m delighted to welcome back my good friend Jojo Moyes. Jojo was one of the very first people I interviewed for the pod back when it was just a random idea. Like all good friends do, she had my back! For that and many other things, I owe her.


As I’m pretty sure you already know, Jojo is the global bestselling novelist of Me Before You, and 16 other novels. I think! She’s sold 51million copies globally and several of her books have been turned into hit movies, including Me before you, for which she wrote the screenplay.


Her latest, Someone Else’s Shoes, will definitely be joining them. It’s an action packed, emotionally astute, laugh out loud look at what happens when two very different women accidentally pick up each other’s gym bags. It tells the good, the bad and the ugly about middle age, it’s a love letter to female friendship and an ode to the totemic power of shoes.


I met with Jojo for a very long overdue catch up. We talked the liberation of being in our 50s, growing into your looks in middle age and surviving the midlife maelstrom of divorce, kids leaving home, parental death, perimenopause and workaholism! She talked candidly about the mental health crisis that made her put the brakes on her career, and she wouldn’t have got through it without her female friends. Oh, and guess what? She’s a secret petrolhead! Who knew?!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Someone Else's Shoes by Jojo Moyes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3155 no Cariad Lloyd on what she's learnt from 25 years in The Grief Club https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Hello and welcome back to The Shift. Somehow we're onto our 11th season and I'm thrilled to start 2023 with podcasting legend, the creator of Griefcast herself, Cariad Lloyd. If you’ve been unfortunate enough to join what she calls The Grief Club, chances are you’ve already encountered Cariad, through her conversation-changing, taboo-busting, award-winning podcast Griefcast. A much-needed place to talk about the many messy faces of grief. Now in her 40s, Cariad lost her dad, Peter, to pancreatic cancer when she was just 15. In the late 90s, nobody talked about death, let alone what it was like to join "the dead dad club" in your mid-teens. Now she’s written a funny, frank book about her experience, You Are Not Alone: a new way to grieve.  Cariad is also a comedian, actor, improviser and writer who has appeared on Peep Show, Have I got News For You and QI amongst others. So whilst this episode is moving, illuminating and thought-provoking, it is far from sad. I promise. Cariad joined me to talk grief (of course), how pregnancy, therapy and approaching 40 collided, doing "grief maths", why thinking about the future makes her twitchy and how she feels about approaching the age her dad died. We also compared our inner goths and she advised me on how to ask your partner if they want to be buried or scattered! You can listen to Griefcast wherever you get your podcasts. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. The Death Book is available from Victoria Health. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 31 Jan 2023 01:00:29 -0000 Cariad Lloyd on what she's learnt from 25 years in The Grief Club full 11 118 sam baker The comedian and creator of Griefcast talks granddads, grief maths, being a goth and why it's time to ask your partner if they want to be buried or scattered! Hello and welcome back to The Shift. Somehow we're onto our 11th season and I'm thrilled to start 2023 with podcasting legend, the creator of Griefcast herself, Cariad Lloyd. If you’ve been unfortunate enough to join what she calls The Grief Club, chances are you’ve already encountered Cariad, through her conversation-changing, taboo-busting, award-winning podcast Griefcast. A much-needed place to talk about the many messy faces of grief. Now in her 40s, Cariad lost her dad, Peter, to pancreatic cancer when she was just 15. In the late 90s, nobody talked about death, let alone what it was like to join "the dead dad club" in your mid-teens. Now she’s written a funny, frank book about her experience, You Are Not Alone: a new way to grieve.  Cariad is also a comedian, actor, improviser and writer who has appeared on Peep Show, Have I got News For You and QI amongst others. So whilst this episode is moving, illuminating and thought-provoking, it is far from sad. I promise. Cariad joined me to talk grief (of course), how pregnancy, therapy and approaching 40 collided, doing "grief maths", why thinking about the future makes her twitchy and how she feels about approaching the age her dad died. We also compared our inner goths and she advised me on how to ask your partner if they want to be buried or scattered! You can listen to Griefcast wherever you get your podcasts. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. The Death Book is available from Victoria Health. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hello and welcome back to The Shift. Somehow we're onto our 11th season and I'm thrilled to start 2023 with podcasting legend, the creator of Griefcast herself, Cariad Lloyd.


If you’ve been unfortunate enough to join what she calls The Grief Club, chances are you’ve already encountered Cariad, through her conversation-changing, taboo-busting, award-winning podcast Griefcast. A much-needed place to talk about the many messy faces of grief.


Now in her 40s, Cariad lost her dad, Peter, to pancreatic cancer when she was just 15. In the late 90s, nobody talked about death, let alone what it was like to join "the dead dad club" in your mid-teens. Now she’s written a funny, frank book about her experience, You Are Not Alone: a new way to grieve. 


Cariad is also a comedian, actor, improviser and writer who has appeared on Peep Show, Have I got News For You and QI amongst others. So whilst this episode is moving, illuminating and thought-provoking, it is far from sad. I promise.


Cariad joined me to talk grief (of course), how pregnancy, therapy and approaching 40 collided, doing "grief maths", why thinking about the future makes her twitchy and how she feels about approaching the age her dad died. We also compared our inner goths and she advised me on how to ask your partner if they want to be buried or scattered!


You can listen to Griefcast wherever you get your podcasts.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. The Death Book is available from Victoria Health.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3393 no Clover Stroud on sex, sisterhood & looking forward to menopause - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Over the Christmas period and into the new year, I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet-favourite episodes of 2022. This week is the utterly fearless Clover Stroud. This episode first aired last March. ---- It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last. But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46.  The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief. Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Red Of My Blood and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 24 Jan 2023 01:00:31 -0000 Clover Stroud on sex, sisterhood & looking forward to menopause - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 10 117 sam baker The fearless writer on losing her sister and finding a new person to be Over the Christmas period and into the new year, I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet-favourite episodes of 2022. This week is the utterly fearless Clover Stroud. This episode first aired last March. ---- It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last. But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46.  The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief. Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Red Of My Blood and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Over the Christmas period and into the new year, I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet-favourite episodes of 2022. This week is the utterly fearless Clover Stroud. This episode first aired last March.


----


It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last.


But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46. 


The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief.


Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Red Of My Blood and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3332 no Kit de Waal on race, class – and her exceedingly cool hair! - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week is the brilliantly outspoken author Kit de Waal. This episode first aired in July. --- Today’s guest is the award-winning writer, Kit De Waal. Until she was 21, Kit had never read a book voluntarily. But once she started there was no stopping her. Kit started writing in her mid-40s and published her award-winning debut, My Name Is Leon, at 56. Since then she has used her success to work tirelessly to promote the voices of working class writers. Using some of her advance to set up the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Fellowship (aka the Fat Chance scholarship!) and editing Common People, an anthology of working class writing. Now she’s turned her attention to her own childhood. Her memoir, Without Warning And Only Sometimes, is the story of growing up in poverty, one of five children with a Black father and Irish mother who brought them up Jehovah’s Witness… Kit joined me from possibly the most envy-inducing workroom I’ve ever ogled via zoom (and I’ve ogled a few!) to talk being single and reclaiming your own space at 60. We discussed race, class, privilege, the impact of a childhood spent not stepping on the cracks and why she hates that “fucking overused word resilience”. Plus why she’s not interested in a man on the downward slide, being a Tuesday friend and her exceedingly cool hair * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Without Warning And Only Sometimes by Kit de Waal and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 17 Jan 2023 01:00:02 -0000 Kit de Waal on race, class – and her exceedingly cool hair! - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 10 116 sam baker The bestselling author of My Name Is Leon tells us what it's really like being single at 60 (hello Tuesday friend!) and why she's not interested in a man on the downward slide! Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week is the brilliantly outspoken author Kit de Waal. This episode first aired in July. --- Today’s guest is the award-winning writer, Kit De Waal. Until she was 21, Kit had never read a book voluntarily. But once she started there was no stopping her. Kit started writing in her mid-40s and published her award-winning debut, My Name Is Leon, at 56. Since then she has used her success to work tirelessly to promote the voices of working class writers. Using some of her advance to set up the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Fellowship (aka the Fat Chance scholarship!) and editing Common People, an anthology of working class writing. Now she’s turned her attention to her own childhood. Her memoir, Without Warning And Only Sometimes, is the story of growing up in poverty, one of five children with a Black father and Irish mother who brought them up Jehovah’s Witness… Kit joined me from possibly the most envy-inducing workroom I’ve ever ogled via zoom (and I’ve ogled a few!) to talk being single and reclaiming your own space at 60. We discussed race, class, privilege, the impact of a childhood spent not stepping on the cracks and why she hates that “fucking overused word resilience”. Plus why she’s not interested in a man on the downward slide, being a Tuesday friend and her exceedingly cool hair * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Without Warning And Only Sometimes by Kit de Waal and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week is the brilliantly outspoken author Kit de Waal. This episode first aired in July.

---

Today’s guest is the award-winning writer, Kit De Waal. Until she was 21, Kit had never read a book voluntarily. But once she started there was no stopping her. Kit started writing in her mid-40s and published her award-winning debut, My Name Is Leon, at 56. Since then she has used her success to work tirelessly to promote the voices of working class writers. Using some of her advance to set up the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Fellowship (aka the Fat Chance scholarship!) and editing Common People, an anthology of working class writing.


Now she’s turned her attention to her own childhood. Her memoir, Without Warning And Only Sometimes, is the story of growing up in poverty, one of five children with a Black father and Irish mother who brought them up Jehovah’s Witness…


Kit joined me from possibly the most envy-inducing workroom I’ve ever ogled via zoom (and I’ve ogled a few!) to talk being single and reclaiming your own space at 60. We discussed race, class, privilege, the impact of a childhood spent not stepping on the cracks and why she hates that “fucking overused word resilience”. Plus why she’s not interested in a man on the downward slide, being a Tuesday friend and her exceedingly cool hair


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Without Warning And Only Sometimes by Kit de Waal and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3478 no Kat Farmer has the answer to all your "my wardrobe hates me" dilemmas - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week, let stylist and Instagrammer Kat Farmer motivate your wardrobe overhaul. This episode first aired in March. --- Totally lost sight of your personal style? Feel like your clothes hate you? Whether it’s the result of two years in and out of lockdown, emerging from the motherhood tunnel or the advent of menopause, many of us no longer have a clue how to get dressed. Enter this week’s guest: Kat Farmer, better known by her instagram handle @doesmybumlook40 - best friend to every woman with nothing to wear for who they want to be today. But scroll back a decade and Kat wasn’t a style savvy influencer with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, she was a mum of three small children, in her late thirties, who had completely lost her way. Kat’s now written a book - Get Changed, finding the new you through fashion - a typically friendly and low-key guide to just that. TBH I was hoping that when I spoke to Kat I’d also get a free wardrobe detox - bloody covid! Instead, we ended up on zoom talking everything from reinventing your career to why clothes are the key to our identity, how the fashion industry is finally wising up to older women and why her rule of three will put an end to all your shopping mistakes. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Get Changed by Kat Farmer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 10 Jan 2023 01:00:29 -0000 Kat Farmer has the answer to all your "my wardrobe hates me" dilemmas - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 10 115 sam baker The woman better known as @doesmybumlook40 on rediscovering your identity through fashion and why she’ll never be seen dead in a fun-lining Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week, let stylist and Instagrammer Kat Farmer motivate your wardrobe overhaul. This episode first aired in March. --- Totally lost sight of your personal style? Feel like your clothes hate you? Whether it’s the result of two years in and out of lockdown, emerging from the motherhood tunnel or the advent of menopause, many of us no longer have a clue how to get dressed. Enter this week’s guest: Kat Farmer, better known by her instagram handle @doesmybumlook40 - best friend to every woman with nothing to wear for who they want to be today. But scroll back a decade and Kat wasn’t a style savvy influencer with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, she was a mum of three small children, in her late thirties, who had completely lost her way. Kat’s now written a book - Get Changed, finding the new you through fashion - a typically friendly and low-key guide to just that. TBH I was hoping that when I spoke to Kat I’d also get a free wardrobe detox - bloody covid! Instead, we ended up on zoom talking everything from reinventing your career to why clothes are the key to our identity, how the fashion industry is finally wising up to older women and why her rule of three will put an end to all your shopping mistakes. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Get Changed by Kat Farmer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week, let stylist and Instagrammer Kat Farmer motivate your wardrobe overhaul. This episode first aired in March.

---

Totally lost sight of your personal style? Feel like your clothes hate you? Whether it’s the result of two years in and out of lockdown, emerging from the motherhood tunnel or the advent of menopause, many of us no longer have a clue how to get dressed.


Enter this week’s guest: Kat Farmer, better known by her instagram handle @doesmybumlook40 - best friend to every woman with nothing to wear for who they want to be today.


But scroll back a decade and Kat wasn’t a style savvy influencer with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, she was a mum of three small children, in her late thirties, who had completely lost her way.


Kat’s now written a book - Get Changed, finding the new you through fashion - a typically friendly and low-key guide to just that.


TBH I was hoping that when I spoke to Kat I’d also get a free wardrobe detox - bloody covid! Instead, we ended up on zoom talking everything from reinventing your career to why clothes are the key to our identity, how the fashion industry is finally wising up to older women and why her rule of three will put an end to all your shopping mistakes.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Get Changed by Kat Farmer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3162 no Poorna Bell on the unexpected power in being 40 - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week's, journalist, power-lifter and body image and mental health activist, Poorna Bell, is just the tonic if you're having a January moment. This episode first aired in July. --- By her own admission, today’s guest, award winning journalist Poorna Bell, wasn’t looking forward to 40. She feared, as society had taught her, that it might be the beginning of the end. And so, she set out to prove herself wrong.  Poorna has written two memoirs about grief and mental health in the wake of her husband, Rob’s death by suicide. And followed those up with Stronger, an inspiring reevaluation of women’s strength interwoven with her own discovery of power lifting (I kid you not. This woman could bench press Johnny Depp - but I fear she’d have to join the queue.) It’s no surprise that Poorna has become an advocate for diversity, mental health and body image.  Now she’s turned her hand to fiction. Her debut novel, In Case Of Emergency is a warm, funny, immensely entertaining story of friendship, sisterhood, being single in a couples world and a brown woman in a white world. Poorna joined me to talk about taking back power, finding her strength and how fitness changed her. Why she’s all in favour of marriage but has no plans to get back on the relationship escalator, why ageing is her superpower, finding clarity post-40, her search for midlife role models as a brown woman and embracing being a 40something goddess. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including IN CASE OF EMERGENCY by Poorna Bell, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. podchaser token: 0XeeihrspYQYlmZOFLzt Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 03 Jan 2023 01:00:26 -0000 Poorna Bell on the unexpected power in being 40 - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 10 114 sam baker Body acceptance, setting your boundaries and building a roadmap for life after 4 Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week's, journalist, power-lifter and body image and mental health activist, Poorna Bell, is just the tonic if you're having a January moment. This episode first aired in July. --- By her own admission, today’s guest, award winning journalist Poorna Bell, wasn’t looking forward to 40. She feared, as society had taught her, that it might be the beginning of the end. And so, she set out to prove herself wrong.  Poorna has written two memoirs about grief and mental health in the wake of her husband, Rob’s death by suicide. And followed those up with Stronger, an inspiring reevaluation of women’s strength interwoven with her own discovery of power lifting (I kid you not. This woman could bench press Johnny Depp - but I fear she’d have to join the queue.) It’s no surprise that Poorna has become an advocate for diversity, mental health and body image.  Now she’s turned her hand to fiction. Her debut novel, In Case Of Emergency is a warm, funny, immensely entertaining story of friendship, sisterhood, being single in a couples world and a brown woman in a white world. Poorna joined me to talk about taking back power, finding her strength and how fitness changed her. Why she’s all in favour of marriage but has no plans to get back on the relationship escalator, why ageing is her superpower, finding clarity post-40, her search for midlife role models as a brown woman and embracing being a 40something goddess. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including IN CASE OF EMERGENCY by Poorna Bell, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. podchaser token: 0XeeihrspYQYlmZOFLzt Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week's, journalist, power-lifter and body image and mental health activist, Poorna Bell, is just the tonic if you're having a January moment. This episode first aired in July.

---

By her own admission, today’s guest, award winning journalist Poorna Bell, wasn’t looking forward to 40. She feared, as society had taught her, that it might be the beginning of the end. And so, she set out to prove herself wrong. 


Poorna has written two memoirs about grief and mental health in the wake of her husband, Rob’s death by suicide. And followed those up with Stronger, an inspiring reevaluation of women’s strength interwoven with her own discovery of power lifting (I kid you not. This woman could bench press Johnny Depp - but I fear she’d have to join the queue.) It’s no surprise that Poorna has become an advocate for diversity, mental health and body image. 


Now she’s turned her hand to fiction. Her debut novel, In Case Of Emergency is a warm, funny, immensely entertaining story of friendship, sisterhood, being single in a couples world and a brown woman in a white world.


Poorna joined me to talk about taking back power, finding her strength and how fitness changed her. Why she’s all in favour of marriage but has no plans to get back on the relationship escalator, why ageing is her superpower, finding clarity post-40, her search for midlife role models as a brown woman and embracing being a 40something goddess.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including IN CASE OF EMERGENCY by Poorna Bell, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


podchaser token: 0XeeihrspYQYlmZOFLzt


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3643 no Sheila Hancock on the class ceiling and the "strong woman" problem - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week is acting legend, national treasure (she hates that) and my old bird role model Sheila Hancock. This episode first aired in June. --- Today’s guest is nothing less than an acting legend. Although she probably wouldn’t have any truck with that. Dame Sheila Hancock is that rare thing – a successful actor with working class roots, an 89 year old who’s still beating off offers with a stick and a woman who refuses to be afraid to speak her mind. Sheila has done EVERYTHING from Shakespeare to sitcoms. A member of the National Theatre Company, she was the first woman to direct at the Olivier Theatre in her 50s and has been nominated for 6 Olivier Awards, written two novels and a loose trilogy of memoirs (the second of which was about her marriage to Morse and Sweeney legend, John Thaw). The third is Old Rage, which started out as a book about the wisdom and fulfilment of old age ended up…. not! Ninety next year, Sheila is taking less prisoners than ever. She joined me from her living room to talk education and inequality, corruption, climate change and Brexit, suffering from the empathy “disease” and why being seen as a strong woman is a double-edged sword. She also told me what it was like being a working class woman in TV in the 1970s, how she learnt the consequences of speaking out the hard way and why she’s no longer bothering to conceal her rage. Sheila Hancock for PM! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including OLD RAGE by Sheila Hancock, Sheila's book recommendation, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Thu, 29 Dec 2022 01:00:27 -0000 Sheila Hancock on the class ceiling and the "strong woman" problem - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 10 113 sam baker It's time to meet your old bird role model! Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week is acting legend, national treasure (she hates that) and my old bird role model Sheila Hancock. This episode first aired in June. --- Today’s guest is nothing less than an acting legend. Although she probably wouldn’t have any truck with that. Dame Sheila Hancock is that rare thing – a successful actor with working class roots, an 89 year old who’s still beating off offers with a stick and a woman who refuses to be afraid to speak her mind. Sheila has done EVERYTHING from Shakespeare to sitcoms. A member of the National Theatre Company, she was the first woman to direct at the Olivier Theatre in her 50s and has been nominated for 6 Olivier Awards, written two novels and a loose trilogy of memoirs (the second of which was about her marriage to Morse and Sweeney legend, John Thaw). The third is Old Rage, which started out as a book about the wisdom and fulfilment of old age ended up…. not! Ninety next year, Sheila is taking less prisoners than ever. She joined me from her living room to talk education and inequality, corruption, climate change and Brexit, suffering from the empathy “disease” and why being seen as a strong woman is a double-edged sword. She also told me what it was like being a working class woman in TV in the 1970s, how she learnt the consequences of speaking out the hard way and why she’s no longer bothering to conceal her rage. Sheila Hancock for PM! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including OLD RAGE by Sheila Hancock, Sheila's book recommendation, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week is acting legend, national treasure (she hates that) and my old bird role model Sheila Hancock. This episode first aired in June.

---

Today’s guest is nothing less than an acting legend. Although she probably wouldn’t have any truck with that. Dame Sheila Hancock is that rare thing – a successful actor with working class roots, an 89 year old who’s still beating off offers with a stick and a woman who refuses to be afraid to speak her mind.


Sheila has done EVERYTHING from Shakespeare to sitcoms. A member of the National Theatre Company, she was the first woman to direct at the Olivier Theatre in her 50s and has been nominated for 6 Olivier Awards, written two novels and a loose trilogy of memoirs (the second of which was about her marriage to Morse and Sweeney legend, John Thaw). The third is Old Rage, which started out as a book about the wisdom and fulfilment of old age ended up…. not!


Ninety next year, Sheila is taking less prisoners than ever. She joined me from her living room to talk education and inequality, corruption, climate change and Brexit, suffering from the empathy “disease” and why being seen as a strong woman is a double-edged sword. She also told me what it was like being a working class woman in TV in the 1970s, how she learnt the consequences of speaking out the hard way and why she’s no longer bothering to conceal her rage. Sheila Hancock for PM!


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including OLD RAGE by Sheila Hancock, Sheila's book recommendation, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3239 no Abi Morgan on rebuilding just about everything in your 50s - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. First up is screenwriter Abi Morgan. This episode first aired in March. --- Today’s guest is a woman I’ve admired for the longest time: stage and screenwriter Abi Morgan. Throughout her thirty year career Abi has written some of our most memorable drama: Shame, Sex Traffic, The Queen, Iron Lady, The Hour (for which she won an Emmy), Suffragette and, most recently, the BBCone hit, The Split. In her work, female characters took centre stage long before that became the fashionable thing to do. But now, Abi has been forced to take centre stage herself. Four years ago, she returned home one lunchtime to find her partner of 20 years, Jakob, collapsed on the bathroom floor. It was the start of a sequence of events that would upend their family forever. And it’s the subject of perhaps the most extraordinary memoir I have ever read - This is Not a Pity memoir. And it isn’t. It’s about love, trauma and ultimately - weirdly! - about hope. And just in case you haven't heard me wanging on about it, it is, without doubt, my non-fiction book of 2022. Abi joined me to talk candidly about the cataclysmic impact of Jake’s illness, the long - and ongoing - journey to rebuild their family and how, in the midst of all that, she coped with her own breast cancer diagnosis. She also told me about being a lone woman in a world of white men in leather jackets, budging up to make room at the table and why she’s done with being “user-friendly”. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including This Is Not A Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 27 Dec 2022 01:00:58 -0000 Abi Morgan on rebuilding just about everything in your 50s - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 10 112 sam baker The award-winning screenwriter of The Split tells how she coped when her husband no longer recognised her Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. First up is screenwriter Abi Morgan. This episode first aired in March. --- Today’s guest is a woman I’ve admired for the longest time: stage and screenwriter Abi Morgan. Throughout her thirty year career Abi has written some of our most memorable drama: Shame, Sex Traffic, The Queen, Iron Lady, The Hour (for which she won an Emmy), Suffragette and, most recently, the BBCone hit, The Split. In her work, female characters took centre stage long before that became the fashionable thing to do. But now, Abi has been forced to take centre stage herself. Four years ago, she returned home one lunchtime to find her partner of 20 years, Jakob, collapsed on the bathroom floor. It was the start of a sequence of events that would upend their family forever. And it’s the subject of perhaps the most extraordinary memoir I have ever read - This is Not a Pity memoir. And it isn’t. It’s about love, trauma and ultimately - weirdly! - about hope. And just in case you haven't heard me wanging on about it, it is, without doubt, my non-fiction book of 2022. Abi joined me to talk candidly about the cataclysmic impact of Jake’s illness, the long - and ongoing - journey to rebuild their family and how, in the midst of all that, she coped with her own breast cancer diagnosis. She also told me about being a lone woman in a world of white men in leather jackets, budging up to make room at the table and why she’s done with being “user-friendly”. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including This Is Not A Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Over the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. First up is screenwriter Abi Morgan. This episode first aired in March.

---

Today’s guest is a woman I’ve admired for the longest time: stage and screenwriter Abi Morgan. Throughout her thirty year career Abi has written some of our most memorable drama: Shame, Sex Traffic, The Queen, Iron Lady, The Hour (for which she won an Emmy), Suffragette and, most recently, the BBCone hit, The Split. In her work, female characters took centre stage long before that became the fashionable thing to do.


But now, Abi has been forced to take centre stage herself. Four years ago, she returned home one lunchtime to find her partner of 20 years, Jakob, collapsed on the bathroom floor. It was the start of a sequence of events that would upend their family forever. And it’s the subject of perhaps the most extraordinary memoir I have ever read - This is Not a Pity memoir. And it isn’t. It’s about love, trauma and ultimately - weirdly! - about hope. And just in case you haven't heard me wanging on about it, it is, without doubt, my non-fiction book of 2022.


Abi joined me to talk candidly about the cataclysmic impact of Jake’s illness, the long - and ongoing - journey to rebuild their family and how, in the midst of all that, she coped with her own breast cancer diagnosis. She also told me about being a lone woman in a world of white men in leather jackets, budging up to make room at the table and why she’s done with being “user-friendly”.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including This Is Not A Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3080 no The Shift LIVE: Ruth Jones on daughterhood, menopause and being Nanny Ruth https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ In the run up to Christmas I'll be dropping two special live episodes recorded live at the Birmingham Literature Festival earlier this autumn. The second conversation is with one of the funniest, warmest women you’re ever likely to encounter: Ruth Jones.  TBH Ruth needs little introduction. The co-writer and star of Stella and the BAFTA award winning Gavin and Stacey, she is also the bestselling author of three Sunday Times bestsellers: Never Greener (which was also WHSmith Fiction book of the year), Us Three and now, Love Untold.  Warm, open-hearted and generous, Love Untold sees Ruth turn her attention to motherhood and daughterhood as we meet four generations of the women of the Meredith family: Grace, Alys, Elin and Beca and encounter the minefield of complications that form the mother-daughter bond - love, hate and everything in between. You will laugh, you will cry, you will wince and above all you will recognise the feelings that Ruth evokes in the four women. Ruth joined me in front of a live audience at the Birmingham Rep to talk about the complex mother-daughter relationship, why so few people talk about daughterhood, the power and importance of cross-generational understanding and the impossibility of living up to a fantasy life. She also opened up about menopause, HRT, her irrational fear of turning 40 and her favourite new role.... that of Nanny Ruth! This episode includes an exclusive reading from Love Untold by Ruth. And Ruth's book recommendations for Christmas reading. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Love Untold by Ruth Jones and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Thu, 22 Dec 2022 01:00:02 -0000 The Shift LIVE: Ruth Jones on daughterhood, menopause and being Nanny Ruth bonus 10 111 sam baker The Gavin & Stacey star has a whole new role to embrace In the run up to Christmas I'll be dropping two special live episodes recorded live at the Birmingham Literature Festival earlier this autumn. The second conversation is with one of the funniest, warmest women you’re ever likely to encounter: Ruth Jones.  TBH Ruth needs little introduction. The co-writer and star of Stella and the BAFTA award winning Gavin and Stacey, she is also the bestselling author of three Sunday Times bestsellers: Never Greener (which was also WHSmith Fiction book of the year), Us Three and now, Love Untold.  Warm, open-hearted and generous, Love Untold sees Ruth turn her attention to motherhood and daughterhood as we meet four generations of the women of the Meredith family: Grace, Alys, Elin and Beca and encounter the minefield of complications that form the mother-daughter bond - love, hate and everything in between. You will laugh, you will cry, you will wince and above all you will recognise the feelings that Ruth evokes in the four women. Ruth joined me in front of a live audience at the Birmingham Rep to talk about the complex mother-daughter relationship, why so few people talk about daughterhood, the power and importance of cross-generational understanding and the impossibility of living up to a fantasy life. She also opened up about menopause, HRT, her irrational fear of turning 40 and her favourite new role.... that of Nanny Ruth! This episode includes an exclusive reading from Love Untold by Ruth. And Ruth's book recommendations for Christmas reading. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Love Untold by Ruth Jones and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In the run up to Christmas I'll be dropping two special live episodes recorded live at the Birmingham Literature Festival earlier this autumn. The second conversation is with one of the funniest, warmest women you’re ever likely to encounter: Ruth Jones. 


TBH Ruth needs little introduction. The co-writer and star of Stella and the BAFTA award winning Gavin and Stacey, she is also the bestselling author of three Sunday Times bestsellers: Never Greener (which was also WHSmith Fiction book of the year), Us Three and now, Love Untold. 


Warm, open-hearted and generous, Love Untold sees Ruth turn her attention to motherhood and daughterhood as we meet four generations of the women of the Meredith family: Grace, Alys, Elin and Beca and encounter the minefield of complications that form the mother-daughter bond - love, hate and everything in between. You will laugh, you will cry, you will wince and above all you will recognise the feelings that Ruth evokes in the four women.


Ruth joined me in front of a live audience at the Birmingham Rep to talk about the complex mother-daughter relationship, why so few people talk about daughterhood, the power and importance of cross-generational understanding and the impossibility of living up to a fantasy life. She also opened up about menopause, HRT, her irrational fear of turning 40 and her favourite new role.... that of Nanny Ruth!


This episode includes an exclusive reading from Love Untold by Ruth. And Ruth's book recommendations for Christmas reading.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Love Untold by Ruth Jones and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3033 no The Shift LIVE: Elif Shafak on intersectionality, identity and finding the courage to come out in her 40s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ In the run up to Christmas I'll be dropping two special live episodes recorded live at the Birmingham Literature Festival earlier this autumn. The first conversation is with one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed: the activist, author and academic, Elif Shafak. The author of 19 books, including the novels Ten minutes 38 seconds in this strange world which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and her latest, The Island Of Missing Trees which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, amongst many others. Elif is an advocate for women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of expression. The bestselling female novelist in Turkey, Elif has been unable to return to her homeland for several years, since she was charged with insulting Turkishness based on the behaviour of her characters in her bestselling The Bastard of Istanbul. Elif joined me in front of a live audience at the Birmingham Rep to talk about the changing face of protest and the inspirational young women on the frontline, why we need to be aware not just of the glass ceiling but the glass walls that keep us apart, intersectionality and the alarming backlash against women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. She also talked about feeling like an outsider, getting the courage to come out in her 40s, learning self-compassion and how she's evolved as she's aged. This is Elif's second time on The Shift with Sam Baker. You can hear the first here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. Elif's recommendation, Poetry Unbound by Padraig O'Tauma is available from amazon. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 20 Dec 2022 01:00:45 -0000 The Shift LIVE: Elif Shafak on intersectionality, identity and finding the courage to come out in her 40s bonus 10 110 sam baker The author and activist finds inspiration in the actions of young women and explains why it's not the glass ceiling we need to worry about, it's glass WALLS... In the run up to Christmas I'll be dropping two special live episodes recorded live at the Birmingham Literature Festival earlier this autumn. The first conversation is with one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed: the activist, author and academic, Elif Shafak. The author of 19 books, including the novels Ten minutes 38 seconds in this strange world which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and her latest, The Island Of Missing Trees which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, amongst many others. Elif is an advocate for women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of expression. The bestselling female novelist in Turkey, Elif has been unable to return to her homeland for several years, since she was charged with insulting Turkishness based on the behaviour of her characters in her bestselling The Bastard of Istanbul. Elif joined me in front of a live audience at the Birmingham Rep to talk about the changing face of protest and the inspirational young women on the frontline, why we need to be aware not just of the glass ceiling but the glass walls that keep us apart, intersectionality and the alarming backlash against women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. She also talked about feeling like an outsider, getting the courage to come out in her 40s, learning self-compassion and how she's evolved as she's aged. This is Elif's second time on The Shift with Sam Baker. You can hear the first here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. Elif's recommendation, Poetry Unbound by Padraig O'Tauma is available from amazon. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In the run up to Christmas I'll be dropping two special live episodes recorded live at the Birmingham Literature Festival earlier this autumn. The first conversation is with one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed: the activist, author and academic, Elif Shafak.


The author of 19 books, including the novels Ten minutes 38 seconds in this strange world which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and her latest, The Island Of Missing Trees which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, amongst many others. Elif is an advocate for women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of expression.


The bestselling female novelist in Turkey, Elif has been unable to return to her homeland for several years, since she was charged with insulting Turkishness based on the behaviour of her characters in her bestselling The Bastard of Istanbul.


Elif joined me in front of a live audience at the Birmingham Rep to talk about the changing face of protest and the inspirational young women on the frontline, why we need to be aware not just of the glass ceiling but the glass walls that keep us apart, intersectionality and the alarming backlash against women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. She also talked about feeling like an outsider, getting the courage to come out in her 40s, learning self-compassion and how she's evolved as she's aged.


This is Elif's second time on The Shift with Sam Baker. You can hear the first here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. Elif's recommendation, Poetry Unbound by Padraig O'Tauma is available from amazon.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2700 no Nadiya Hussain on becoming the independent woman her nan was afraid of https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Somehow, it's the end of season 10! How did that even happen? And I'm so thrilled to end the season with this week's guest. I’ve fangirled Nadiya Hussain ever since she gave her groundbreaking speech on Bake Off “I’m never going to put boundaries on myself ever again. I’m never gonna say I can’t do it. I’m never gonna say maybe. I’m never gonna say I don’t think I can. I can and I will.” Cue millions of women and girls air punching on the sofa. Nadiya has been breaking boundaries ever since. As well as presenting several TV series, Nadiya is now the author of 8 cookery books including her latest, Nadiya’s Everyday Baking, a novel and a moving memoir, aptly titled Finding My Voice. Nadiya has well and truly found her voice and I could not be more thrilled she chose to use it on The Shift. Nadiya joined me from a room of her very own (and as you will hear, that is no small thing), to talk learning to take up space (even in her own home), the moment she realised being a boy opens doors that don’t even exist for girls, and changing the shame narrative. She also told me about out-earning every single man in her family, becoming the independent woman her nan was scared of and her life changing mantra… elbows out! (Try it, it works!) * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Nadiya's Everyday Baking and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 13 Dec 2022 01:00:31 -0000 Nadiya Hussain on becoming the independent woman her nan was afraid of full 10 109 sam baker The Bake Off winner and national treasure talks finding her voice (and using it to say PERIOD), changing the narrative and out-earning every single man in her family Somehow, it's the end of season 10! How did that even happen? And I'm so thrilled to end the season with this week's guest. I’ve fangirled Nadiya Hussain ever since she gave her groundbreaking speech on Bake Off “I’m never going to put boundaries on myself ever again. I’m never gonna say I can’t do it. I’m never gonna say maybe. I’m never gonna say I don’t think I can. I can and I will.” Cue millions of women and girls air punching on the sofa. Nadiya has been breaking boundaries ever since. As well as presenting several TV series, Nadiya is now the author of 8 cookery books including her latest, Nadiya’s Everyday Baking, a novel and a moving memoir, aptly titled Finding My Voice. Nadiya has well and truly found her voice and I could not be more thrilled she chose to use it on The Shift. Nadiya joined me from a room of her very own (and as you will hear, that is no small thing), to talk learning to take up space (even in her own home), the moment she realised being a boy opens doors that don’t even exist for girls, and changing the shame narrative. She also told me about out-earning every single man in her family, becoming the independent woman her nan was scared of and her life changing mantra… elbows out! (Try it, it works!) * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Nadiya's Everyday Baking and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Somehow, it's the end of season 10! How did that even happen? And I'm so thrilled to end the season with this week's guest. I’ve fangirled Nadiya Hussain ever since she gave her groundbreaking speech on Bake Off “I’m never going to put boundaries on myself ever again. I’m never gonna say I can’t do it. I’m never gonna say maybe. I’m never gonna say I don’t think I can. I can and I will.” Cue millions of women and girls air punching on the sofa.


Nadiya has been breaking boundaries ever since. As well as presenting several TV series, Nadiya is now the author of 8 cookery books including her latest, Nadiya’s Everyday Baking, a novel and a moving memoir, aptly titled Finding My Voice.


Nadiya has well and truly found her voice and I could not be more thrilled she chose to use it on The Shift.


Nadiya joined me from a room of her very own (and as you will hear, that is no small thing), to talk learning to take up space (even in her own home), the moment she realised being a boy opens doors that don’t even exist for girls, and changing the shame narrative. She also told me about out-earning every single man in her family, becoming the independent woman her nan was scared of and her life changing mantra… elbows out! (Try it, it works!)


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Nadiya's Everyday Baking and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3117 no Kaye Adams on ambition, insecurity and surviving Strictly https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the journalist and broadcaster Kaye Adams. Kaye is the host of BBC Radio Scotland’s morning show and a longstanding panellist on ITV’s Loose Women, amongst other things. But if you’re a fellow Strictly addict, you maybe more likely to know her from her sadly brief but memorable stint in the current series where she partnered Kai… more of that later. A journalist by training, Kaye is also the co-author of Still hot: 42 brilliantly honest menopause stories in which she and a host of women share their very different menopause experiences; and the co-host of the podcast, How To be 60 which she started because she found the prospect of turning 60, well, terrifying. Kaye joined me from her home in Glasgow to talk being an age-denier, coming out as menopausal and the time she lost her ability to feel joy (but didn’t realise that was a symptom of peri menopause). We also discussed making peace with ambition, being a confident person with a shedload of insecurities and how Strictly taught her she never wants to subject herself to reality TV judgement again. She also opened up about her parents death and the hearing loss that makes her feel old.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Still Hot by Kaye Adams and Vicky Allan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 06 Dec 2022 01:00:54 -0000 Kaye Adams on ambition, insecurity and surviving Strictly full 10 108 sam baker The broadcaster and Loose Women regular opens up about her parents' death, being an age denier, menopausal ignorance and why it's time to talk about life after 60 My guest today is the journalist and broadcaster Kaye Adams. Kaye is the host of BBC Radio Scotland’s morning show and a longstanding panellist on ITV’s Loose Women, amongst other things. But if you’re a fellow Strictly addict, you maybe more likely to know her from her sadly brief but memorable stint in the current series where she partnered Kai… more of that later. A journalist by training, Kaye is also the co-author of Still hot: 42 brilliantly honest menopause stories in which she and a host of women share their very different menopause experiences; and the co-host of the podcast, How To be 60 which she started because she found the prospect of turning 60, well, terrifying. Kaye joined me from her home in Glasgow to talk being an age-denier, coming out as menopausal and the time she lost her ability to feel joy (but didn’t realise that was a symptom of peri menopause). We also discussed making peace with ambition, being a confident person with a shedload of insecurities and how Strictly taught her she never wants to subject herself to reality TV judgement again. She also opened up about her parents death and the hearing loss that makes her feel old.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Still Hot by Kaye Adams and Vicky Allan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the journalist and broadcaster Kaye Adams. Kaye is the host of BBC Radio Scotland’s morning show and a longstanding panellist on ITV’s Loose Women, amongst other things. But if you’re a fellow Strictly addict, you maybe more likely to know her from her sadly brief but memorable stint in the current series where she partnered Kai… more of that later.


A journalist by training, Kaye is also the co-author of Still hot: 42 brilliantly honest menopause stories in which she and a host of women share their very different menopause experiences; and the co-host of the podcast, How To be 60 which she started because she found the prospect of turning 60, well, terrifying.


Kaye joined me from her home in Glasgow to talk being an age-denier, coming out as menopausal and the time she lost her ability to feel joy (but didn’t realise that was a symptom of peri menopause). We also discussed making peace with ambition, being a confident person with a shedload of insecurities and how Strictly taught her she never wants to subject herself to reality TV judgement again. She also opened up about her parents death and the hearing loss that makes her feel old. 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Still Hot by Kaye Adams and Vicky Allan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3069 no Sali Hughes on the positive power of being a grown up https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest has a talent for tapping into what people are thinking, not to mention an enviable BS radar. Since we first met almost 15 years ago, Sali Hughes has become a leading journalist and presenter. Her beauty column for the Guardian is responsible for the contents of a million makeup bags and she has just turned her YouTube series In the bathroom with into a podcast, Beyond The Bathroom. In 2018 she co-founded the award-winning charity Beauty Banks, with Jo Jones, providing essential toiletries to people living in poverty. Arguably we have never needed that charity more than we do right now. Sali's new book, Everything Is Washable* is what you’d get if Nora Ephron took on Mrs Beeton. An empathetic, no-nonsense guide to navigating almost everything modern life has to throw at us. From stain removal to how and when to have maintenance sex by way of egg poaching, freezer defrosting and fitted sheet folding! Sali joined me to discuss how being homeless in her teens created her obsession with home, the power of making women feel can-do and why you should never EVER give up your own bank account. We also talked learning to parent when you haven’t been parented and healthcare privilege. Plus she had PLENTY to say about the way brands (mis)represent perimenopausal women… If you'd like to make a donation to Beauty Banks you can do so by donating physical products online or at Superdrug Beauty spots. You can also donate money directly via text or online. For more information on how to donate please visit https://www.beautybanks.org.uk/donate * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Everything is Washable* by Sali Hughes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 29 Nov 2022 01:00:05 -0000 Sali Hughes on the positive power of being a grown up full 10 107 sam baker And why it's about time companies really got their heads around menopausal women Today’s guest has a talent for tapping into what people are thinking, not to mention an enviable BS radar. Since we first met almost 15 years ago, Sali Hughes has become a leading journalist and presenter. Her beauty column for the Guardian is responsible for the contents of a million makeup bags and she has just turned her YouTube series In the bathroom with into a podcast, Beyond The Bathroom. In 2018 she co-founded the award-winning charity Beauty Banks, with Jo Jones, providing essential toiletries to people living in poverty. Arguably we have never needed that charity more than we do right now. Sali's new book, Everything Is Washable* is what you’d get if Nora Ephron took on Mrs Beeton. An empathetic, no-nonsense guide to navigating almost everything modern life has to throw at us. From stain removal to how and when to have maintenance sex by way of egg poaching, freezer defrosting and fitted sheet folding! Sali joined me to discuss how being homeless in her teens created her obsession with home, the power of making women feel can-do and why you should never EVER give up your own bank account. We also talked learning to parent when you haven’t been parented and healthcare privilege. Plus she had PLENTY to say about the way brands (mis)represent perimenopausal women… If you'd like to make a donation to Beauty Banks you can do so by donating physical products online or at Superdrug Beauty spots. You can also donate money directly via text or online. For more information on how to donate please visit https://www.beautybanks.org.uk/donate * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Everything is Washable* by Sali Hughes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest has a talent for tapping into what people are thinking, not to mention an enviable BS radar. Since we first met almost 15 years ago, Sali Hughes has become a leading journalist and presenter. Her beauty column for the Guardian is responsible for the contents of a million makeup bags and she has just turned her YouTube series In the bathroom with into a podcast, Beyond The Bathroom. In 2018 she co-founded the award-winning charity Beauty Banks, with Jo Jones, providing essential toiletries to people living in poverty. Arguably we have never needed that charity more than we do right now.


Sali's new book, Everything Is Washable* is what you’d get if Nora Ephron took on Mrs Beeton. An empathetic, no-nonsense guide to navigating almost everything modern life has to throw at us. From stain removal to how and when to have maintenance sex by way of egg poaching, freezer defrosting and fitted sheet folding!


Sali joined me to discuss how being homeless in her teens created her obsession with home, the power of making women feel can-do and why you should never EVER give up your own bank account. We also talked learning to parent when you haven’t been parented and healthcare privilege. Plus she had PLENTY to say about the way brands (mis)represent perimenopausal women…


If you'd like to make a donation to Beauty Banks you can do so by donating physical products online or at Superdrug Beauty spots. You can also donate money directly via text or online. For more information on how to donate please visit https://www.beautybanks.org.uk/donate


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Everything is Washable* by Sali Hughes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3287 no Milly Johnson on grafting, greetings cards and life in the "sandwich" zone https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the dose of salts that is Milly Johnson. Milly started writing books in her late 30s when the birth of her first son showed her the direction she’d been struggling to find. Now on her 20th novel, Together, Again, self-described northern bird Milly has sold over 2 and a half million books and won the Romantic Novelists association Outstanding achievement award.  But you’d never know it, because Milly - along with hundreds of other highly successful women - writes books that are considered fluff, lesser, not serious and consequently the literary establishment turns its nose up at her. And her readers. Well, as you will hear, “the queen of feelgood fiction” is not putting up with any of that nonsense. Or anything else for that matter! Milly joined me from her home in Barnsley, where she’s lived her whole life, to talk about being a single mum, life as a sandwich woman and the benefits(ish) of having been ‘kicked around the ring a few times!” We also discussed grafting, how writing greetings cards shaped her approach to fiction, the importance of making readers feel seen and why a comfort zone is just a cosy prison. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Together, Again and The Woman In The Middle by Milly Johnson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 22 Nov 2022 01:00:03 -0000 Milly Johnson on grafting, greetings cards and life in the "sandwich" zone full 10 106 sam baker The "queen of feelgood fiction" talks surviving as a single mum, how her books benefitted from being "kicked around the ring a few times" and why a comfort zone is just a cosy prison My guest today is the dose of salts that is Milly Johnson. Milly started writing books in her late 30s when the birth of her first son showed her the direction she’d been struggling to find. Now on her 20th novel, Together, Again, self-described northern bird Milly has sold over 2 and a half million books and won the Romantic Novelists association Outstanding achievement award.  But you’d never know it, because Milly - along with hundreds of other highly successful women - writes books that are considered fluff, lesser, not serious and consequently the literary establishment turns its nose up at her. And her readers. Well, as you will hear, “the queen of feelgood fiction” is not putting up with any of that nonsense. Or anything else for that matter! Milly joined me from her home in Barnsley, where she’s lived her whole life, to talk about being a single mum, life as a sandwich woman and the benefits(ish) of having been ‘kicked around the ring a few times!” We also discussed grafting, how writing greetings cards shaped her approach to fiction, the importance of making readers feel seen and why a comfort zone is just a cosy prison. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Together, Again and The Woman In The Middle by Milly Johnson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the dose of salts that is Milly Johnson. Milly started writing books in her late 30s when the birth of her first son showed her the direction she’d been struggling to find. Now on her 20th novel, Together, Again, self-described northern bird Milly has sold over 2 and a half million books and won the Romantic Novelists association Outstanding achievement award. 


But you’d never know it, because Milly - along with hundreds of other highly successful women - writes books that are considered fluff, lesser, not serious and consequently the literary establishment turns its nose up at her. And her readers.


Well, as you will hear, “the queen of feelgood fiction” is not putting up with any of that nonsense. Or anything else for that matter!


Milly joined me from her home in Barnsley, where she’s lived her whole life, to talk about being a single mum, life as a sandwich woman and the benefits(ish) of having been ‘kicked around the ring a few times!” We also discussed grafting, how writing greetings cards shaped her approach to fiction, the importance of making readers feel seen and why a comfort zone is just a cosy prison.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Together, Again and The Woman In The Middle by Milly Johnson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2767 no Caryn Franklin on how being a carer in her thirties changed her attitude to ageing https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest is my personal hero, Caryn Franklin. Caryn started her career in the 80s as a fashion editor before moving into TV where she presented, amongst other things, BBC’s The Clothes Show. Always outspoken, Caryn has spent four decades being a thorn in the fashion industry’s side. Championing diversity of all forms LONG before it became the cool thing to do.  She cofounded All Walks Beyond The Catwalk to promote body equality in fashion, chaired Fashion Targets Breast Cancer and was awarded an MBE for her services to fashion. Now she’s written Skewed, with Professor Keon West, to examine how media bias distorts our views of others. To bring it back down to my usual level, She is also the owner of my fantasy hair! Caryn joined me by popular demand (she’s one of the most frequently requested guests) to talk 40 years of fighting for diversity, Why the fashion industry is still so bloody bad at catering for older women and why clothes should be a superpower. She also shared her experiencing of being a carer to her first daughter’s father in her 30s and how that changed the way she felt about ageing, how going grey nearly cost her her job and how HRT gave her her life back.  * You can buy Skewed by Caryn Franklin and Professor Keon West from audible. All the books mentioned in this podcast are available at Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 15 Nov 2022 01:00:13 -0000 Caryn Franklin on how being a carer in her thirties changed her attitude to ageing full 10 105 sam baker The fashion expert and diversity campaigner also talked ageism, going grey, how HRT gave her her life back and what we can learn from Gen Z Today’s guest is my personal hero, Caryn Franklin. Caryn started her career in the 80s as a fashion editor before moving into TV where she presented, amongst other things, BBC’s The Clothes Show. Always outspoken, Caryn has spent four decades being a thorn in the fashion industry’s side. Championing diversity of all forms LONG before it became the cool thing to do.  She cofounded All Walks Beyond The Catwalk to promote body equality in fashion, chaired Fashion Targets Breast Cancer and was awarded an MBE for her services to fashion. Now she’s written Skewed, with Professor Keon West, to examine how media bias distorts our views of others. To bring it back down to my usual level, She is also the owner of my fantasy hair! Caryn joined me by popular demand (she’s one of the most frequently requested guests) to talk 40 years of fighting for diversity, Why the fashion industry is still so bloody bad at catering for older women and why clothes should be a superpower. She also shared her experiencing of being a carer to her first daughter’s father in her 30s and how that changed the way she felt about ageing, how going grey nearly cost her her job and how HRT gave her her life back.  * You can buy Skewed by Caryn Franklin and Professor Keon West from audible. All the books mentioned in this podcast are available at Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is my personal hero, Caryn Franklin. Caryn started her career in the 80s as a fashion editor before moving into TV where she presented, amongst other things, BBC’s The Clothes Show. Always outspoken, Caryn has spent four decades being a thorn in the fashion industry’s side. Championing diversity of all forms LONG before it became the cool thing to do. 


She cofounded All Walks Beyond The Catwalk to promote body equality in fashion, chaired Fashion Targets Breast Cancer and was awarded an MBE for her services to fashion. Now she’s written Skewed, with Professor Keon West, to examine how media bias distorts our views of others.


To bring it back down to my usual level, She is also the owner of my fantasy hair!


Caryn joined me by popular demand (she’s one of the most frequently requested guests) to talk 40 years of fighting for diversity, Why the fashion industry is still so bloody bad at catering for older women and why clothes should be a superpower. She also shared her experiencing of being a carer to her first daughter’s father in her 30s and how that changed the way she felt about ageing, how going grey nearly cost her her job and how HRT gave her her life back. 


* You can buy Skewed by Caryn Franklin and Professor Keon West from audible. All the books mentioned in this podcast are available at Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3336 no Marina Hyde on gaining confidence and growing older riskily https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today has been lauded as “the most lethal, screamingly funny truth-teller of our time”. Guardian columnist Marina Hyde has made her name as the master of the takedown. Through the political shit-storm of recent years (or should that be weeks?!) she has taken a scalpel laced with laughing gas to the establishment and made us weep (in a good way, usually) in the face of the coming apocalypse and earned two Political Commentator Of The Year Awards. Now those columns have been turned into a book, What Just Happened? A rampage through the heroes, villains, chancers, tossers and shysters that have made the last decade what it is. Like all of Hyde’s writing it’s howlingly funny and terrifyingly true. But how do you get to be a “lethal truth teller”? Marina joined me to talk about lucking into journalism (like me, she learnt to type and started as a temp), thriving not surviving in male-dominated environments and why the pram in the hall turned out to be her superpower. She also told me why she wishes she’d taken more risks, why white wine is her nemesis and why she’ll be forever grateful to the menopause movement. [this episode was recorded before the UK political scene got even more chaotic than normal!] * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including What Just Happened?! by Marina Hyde and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 08 Nov 2022 01:00:44 -0000 Marina Hyde on gaining confidence and growing older riskily full 10 104 sam baker The Guardian columnist on taking a scalpel to the establishment, lucking into journalism and why "the pram in the hall" activated her superpower My guest today has been lauded as “the most lethal, screamingly funny truth-teller of our time”. Guardian columnist Marina Hyde has made her name as the master of the takedown. Through the political shit-storm of recent years (or should that be weeks?!) she has taken a scalpel laced with laughing gas to the establishment and made us weep (in a good way, usually) in the face of the coming apocalypse and earned two Political Commentator Of The Year Awards. Now those columns have been turned into a book, What Just Happened? A rampage through the heroes, villains, chancers, tossers and shysters that have made the last decade what it is. Like all of Hyde’s writing it’s howlingly funny and terrifyingly true. But how do you get to be a “lethal truth teller”? Marina joined me to talk about lucking into journalism (like me, she learnt to type and started as a temp), thriving not surviving in male-dominated environments and why the pram in the hall turned out to be her superpower. She also told me why she wishes she’d taken more risks, why white wine is her nemesis and why she’ll be forever grateful to the menopause movement. [this episode was recorded before the UK political scene got even more chaotic than normal!] * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including What Just Happened?! by Marina Hyde and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today has been lauded as “the most lethal, screamingly funny truth-teller of our time”. Guardian columnist Marina Hyde has made her name as the master of the takedown. Through the political shit-storm of recent years (or should that be weeks?!) she has taken a scalpel laced with laughing gas to the establishment and made us weep (in a good way, usually) in the face of the coming apocalypse and earned two Political Commentator Of The Year Awards. Now those columns have been turned into a book, What Just Happened? A rampage through the heroes, villains, chancers, tossers and shysters that have made the last decade what it is. Like all of Hyde’s writing it’s howlingly funny and terrifyingly true.


But how do you get to be a “lethal truth teller”? Marina joined me to talk about lucking into journalism (like me, she learnt to type and started as a temp), thriving not surviving in male-dominated environments and why the pram in the hall turned out to be her superpower. She also told me why she wishes she’d taken more risks, why white wine is her nemesis and why she’ll be forever grateful to the menopause movement.


[this episode was recorded before the UK political scene got even more chaotic than normal!]


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including What Just Happened?! by Marina Hyde and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2961 no Dawn O'Porter on cats, kaftans and kicking the need to be liked https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today has packed a helluva lot into her 43 years. Dawn O’Porter started her career in TV production, before finding her way in front of the camera to host a series of attention-grabbing documentaries on everything from polygamy to Dirty Dancing. By the time she hit her 30s, like many women, Dawn was moving faster and faster to stand still. By the time she was married (to the actor Chris O’Dowd) with the first of her two sons, running a vintage fashion label and the refugee charity now known as Choose Love - AND writing books - she realised something had to give! In this case, that was Dawn herself. She is now a full-time author of eight books including the Richard and Judy pick So Lucky and her latest, Cat Lady - a funny and frank look at the boxes we squeeze ourselves into to try to fit other people’s expectations. Dawn joined me from her home in LA to discuss the cats-in-the-bedroom conundrum, what she learnt from launching and losing a business, why the need to be liked is exhausting and how ageing helped her recognise her own value. We also talked Botox, whether perimenopause makes you smell strange and why she’ll never stop advocating for kaftans!  Hankering after a Cat Lady jumper like Dawn's? Visit Joanieclothing.com. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Cat Lady by Dawn O'Porter and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 01 Nov 2022 01:00:44 -0000 Dawn O'Porter on cats, kaftans and kicking the need to be liked full 10 103 sam baker We also discussed Botox, why ageing helps you recognise your own value and whether perimenopause makes you smell... odd My guest today has packed a helluva lot into her 43 years. Dawn O’Porter started her career in TV production, before finding her way in front of the camera to host a series of attention-grabbing documentaries on everything from polygamy to Dirty Dancing. By the time she hit her 30s, like many women, Dawn was moving faster and faster to stand still. By the time she was married (to the actor Chris O’Dowd) with the first of her two sons, running a vintage fashion label and the refugee charity now known as Choose Love - AND writing books - she realised something had to give! In this case, that was Dawn herself. She is now a full-time author of eight books including the Richard and Judy pick So Lucky and her latest, Cat Lady - a funny and frank look at the boxes we squeeze ourselves into to try to fit other people’s expectations. Dawn joined me from her home in LA to discuss the cats-in-the-bedroom conundrum, what she learnt from launching and losing a business, why the need to be liked is exhausting and how ageing helped her recognise her own value. We also talked Botox, whether perimenopause makes you smell strange and why she’ll never stop advocating for kaftans!  Hankering after a Cat Lady jumper like Dawn's? Visit Joanieclothing.com. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Cat Lady by Dawn O'Porter and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today has packed a helluva lot into her 43 years. Dawn O’Porter started her career in TV production, before finding her way in front of the camera to host a series of attention-grabbing documentaries on everything from polygamy to Dirty Dancing. By the time she hit her 30s, like many women, Dawn was moving faster and faster to stand still. By the time she was married (to the actor Chris O’Dowd) with the first of her two sons, running a vintage fashion label and the refugee charity now known as Choose Love - AND writing books - she realised something had to give!


In this case, that was Dawn herself. She is now a full-time author of eight books including the Richard and Judy pick So Lucky and her latest, Cat Lady - a funny and frank look at the boxes we squeeze ourselves into to try to fit other people’s expectations.


Dawn joined me from her home in LA to discuss the cats-in-the-bedroom conundrum, what she learnt from launching and losing a business, why the need to be liked is exhausting and how ageing helped her recognise her own value. We also talked Botox, whether perimenopause makes you smell strange and why she’ll never stop advocating for kaftans! 


Hankering after a Cat Lady jumper like Dawn's? Visit Joanieclothing.com.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Cat Lady by Dawn O'Porter and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3346 yes Sharon Blackie on embracing your inner hag & the magic of menopause! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ How do I want to age? What does the rest of my life look like? Those are questions I know many of you have given A LOT of thought. Well, my guest today has some answers. Dr Sharon Blackie is a psychologist and folklorist who is passionate about reimagining the ageing process for the better. Her last book If Women Rose Rooted was an ecofeminist sleeper hit about finding your place in the world that was passed from woman to woman with the words “you MUST read this”.  Her new book, Hagitude: reimagining the second half of life, does JUST that. What, she asks, would ageing as a woman in the west be like if we embraced it. If we saw it as an adventure, not something to be dreaded, dodged, denied. At its heart is the radical idea: what if older women knew how to use the power and influence many of us don't know we have. What if we recognised our value? What if we wrote our own narratives? Sharon joined me to talk about the power of myth, embracing your inner hag and why she’d rather be the old woman in the wood than a boring old fairytale princess any day. She also told me what she learnt from THREE midlife crises, her decade of hot flushes and the joy of no longer having skin in the mating game. I found this conversation so motivating and inspiring. I hope you do too. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Hagitude and If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 25 Oct 2022 00:00:16 -0000 Sharon Blackie on embracing your inner hag & the magic of menopause! full 10 102 sam baker Welcome to a radical new approach to ageing How do I want to age? What does the rest of my life look like? Those are questions I know many of you have given A LOT of thought. Well, my guest today has some answers. Dr Sharon Blackie is a psychologist and folklorist who is passionate about reimagining the ageing process for the better. Her last book If Women Rose Rooted was an ecofeminist sleeper hit about finding your place in the world that was passed from woman to woman with the words “you MUST read this”.  Her new book, Hagitude: reimagining the second half of life, does JUST that. What, she asks, would ageing as a woman in the west be like if we embraced it. If we saw it as an adventure, not something to be dreaded, dodged, denied. At its heart is the radical idea: what if older women knew how to use the power and influence many of us don't know we have. What if we recognised our value? What if we wrote our own narratives? Sharon joined me to talk about the power of myth, embracing your inner hag and why she’d rather be the old woman in the wood than a boring old fairytale princess any day. She also told me what she learnt from THREE midlife crises, her decade of hot flushes and the joy of no longer having skin in the mating game. I found this conversation so motivating and inspiring. I hope you do too. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Hagitude and If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How do I want to age? What does the rest of my life look like? Those are questions I know many of you have given A LOT of thought. Well, my guest today has some answers.


Dr Sharon Blackie is a psychologist and folklorist who is passionate about reimagining the ageing process for the better. Her last book If Women Rose Rooted was an ecofeminist sleeper hit about finding your place in the world that was passed from woman to woman with the words “you MUST read this”. 


Her new book, Hagitude: reimagining the second half of life, does JUST that. What, she asks, would ageing as a woman in the west be like if we embraced it. If we saw it as an adventure, not something to be dreaded, dodged, denied. At its heart is the radical idea: what if older women knew how to use the power and influence many of us don't know we have. What if we recognised our value? What if we wrote our own narratives?


Sharon joined me to talk about the power of myth, embracing your inner hag and why she’d rather be the old woman in the wood than a boring old fairytale princess any day. She also told me what she learnt from THREE midlife crises, her decade of hot flushes and the joy of no longer having skin in the mating game.


I found this conversation so motivating and inspiring. I hope you do too.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Hagitude and If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2843 no Susannah Constantine on alcoholism, 'mental' menopause & finding herself in her 50s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ You might think you know all there is to know about today’s guest. Posh girl who once dated Princess Margaret’s son. Half of the early noughties style duo Trinny and Susannah. Plus a short-lived and strangely identifiable turn on Strictly as the slightly embarrassing older woman who can’t really dance. (Hands up who over-identified!)  Because that’s what the media has told us.  But look at it another way, Susannah Constantine is a novelist, writer and broadcaster with over 25 years experience. She’s a hit podcaster (My Wardrobe Malfunction is a hoot - check out the episode with Kristin Scott Thomas!) and, on the cusp of 60, she’s just written a game changing memoir that will make you think more than twice about what it really means to be a girl brought up in privilege; a girl brought up to be Ready For Absolutely Nothing. Susannah joined me from her swanky kitchen to talk extremely candidly about hitting rock bottom before she could confront her alcoholism, her complicated relationship with her mother, rediscovering her identity after it was ripped away and how she experienced a mental menopause. PLUS surviving Strictly humiliation, Dolph Lundgren and having tea with the queen. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Ready For Absolutely Nothing by Susannah Constantine and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 18 Oct 2022 00:00:18 -0000 Susannah Constantine on alcoholism, 'mental' menopause & finding herself in her 50s full 10 101 sam baker Strictly survivor, recovering alcoholic, being brought up to be nothing more than a wife – prepare to be surprised by today's guest You might think you know all there is to know about today’s guest. Posh girl who once dated Princess Margaret’s son. Half of the early noughties style duo Trinny and Susannah. Plus a short-lived and strangely identifiable turn on Strictly as the slightly embarrassing older woman who can’t really dance. (Hands up who over-identified!)  Because that’s what the media has told us.  But look at it another way, Susannah Constantine is a novelist, writer and broadcaster with over 25 years experience. She’s a hit podcaster (My Wardrobe Malfunction is a hoot - check out the episode with Kristin Scott Thomas!) and, on the cusp of 60, she’s just written a game changing memoir that will make you think more than twice about what it really means to be a girl brought up in privilege; a girl brought up to be Ready For Absolutely Nothing. Susannah joined me from her swanky kitchen to talk extremely candidly about hitting rock bottom before she could confront her alcoholism, her complicated relationship with her mother, rediscovering her identity after it was ripped away and how she experienced a mental menopause. PLUS surviving Strictly humiliation, Dolph Lundgren and having tea with the queen. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Ready For Absolutely Nothing by Susannah Constantine and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices You might think you know all there is to know about today’s guest. Posh girl who once dated Princess Margaret’s son. Half of the early noughties style duo Trinny and Susannah. Plus a short-lived and strangely identifiable turn on Strictly as the slightly embarrassing older woman who can’t really dance. (Hands up who over-identified!) 


Because that’s what the media has told us. 


But look at it another way, Susannah Constantine is a novelist, writer and broadcaster with over 25 years experience. She’s a hit podcaster (My Wardrobe Malfunction is a hoot - check out the episode with Kristin Scott Thomas!) and, on the cusp of 60, she’s just written a game changing memoir that will make you think more than twice about what it really means to be a girl brought up in privilege; a girl brought up to be Ready For Absolutely Nothing.


Susannah joined me from her swanky kitchen to talk extremely candidly about hitting rock bottom before she could confront her alcoholism, her complicated relationship with her mother, rediscovering her identity after it was ripped away and how she experienced a mental menopause. PLUS surviving Strictly humiliation, Dolph Lundgren and having tea with the queen.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Ready For Absolutely Nothing by Susannah Constantine and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2725 no Raynor Winn on walking, nature and the power of hope https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ One hundred episodes... how did that happen?! The little podcast that started on a whim and a prayer (and no, that's not a typo!) is still here and soaring. So I could not think of a more fitting guest for such a landmark episode than a woman whose life is a tribute to the power of hope... Where do you turn when everything feels hopeless? My guest today knows the answer to better than most. Nine years ago, in the space of one week, Raynor Winn lost her home, and her husband, Moth, was diagnosed with a degenerative disease. In the face of such loss, there was only one thing to do: they packed what little of their life they could carry into their backpacks, and walked. That walk - 630 miles along the South West Coast path - became the bestseller The Salt Path. It sold a million copies, spent more than 90 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller lists and changed thousands of lives - not least Raynor and Moth’s. Despite defying the medical odds, two years ago Moth’s health began to decline again. Clutching at hope, they set out for one last walk: this time 1000 miles, from Cape Wrath in the far North West of Scotland back home to Cornwall. But in walking back home, could they really walk Moth back to health a second time? Raynor joined me to talk about the book of that epic journey, Landlines, and how walking The Salt Path wiped her clean. We also discuss the power of walking, why nature has always been her safe place, putting yourself in the way of hope and how a shy girl hiding behind the sofa became a public person at 60.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Landlines by Raynor Winn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * Want to take advantage of the offer of 30-day free membership of The Shift newsletter and community? Go to https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ Offer ends 17 October 2022. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 11 Oct 2022 00:00:06 -0000 Raynor Winn on walking, nature and the power of hope full 10 100 sam baker The bestselling author of The Salt Path is back with a new book and an even longer walk – from the North of Scotland to Cornwall! One hundred episodes... how did that happen?! The little podcast that started on a whim and a prayer (and no, that's not a typo!) is still here and soaring. So I could not think of a more fitting guest for such a landmark episode than a woman whose life is a tribute to the power of hope... Where do you turn when everything feels hopeless? My guest today knows the answer to better than most. Nine years ago, in the space of one week, Raynor Winn lost her home, and her husband, Moth, was diagnosed with a degenerative disease. In the face of such loss, there was only one thing to do: they packed what little of their life they could carry into their backpacks, and walked. That walk - 630 miles along the South West Coast path - became the bestseller The Salt Path. It sold a million copies, spent more than 90 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller lists and changed thousands of lives - not least Raynor and Moth’s. Despite defying the medical odds, two years ago Moth’s health began to decline again. Clutching at hope, they set out for one last walk: this time 1000 miles, from Cape Wrath in the far North West of Scotland back home to Cornwall. But in walking back home, could they really walk Moth back to health a second time? Raynor joined me to talk about the book of that epic journey, Landlines, and how walking The Salt Path wiped her clean. We also discuss the power of walking, why nature has always been her safe place, putting yourself in the way of hope and how a shy girl hiding behind the sofa became a public person at 60.  * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Landlines by Raynor Winn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * Want to take advantage of the offer of 30-day free membership of The Shift newsletter and community? Go to https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ Offer ends 17 October 2022. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices One hundred episodes... how did that happen?! The little podcast that started on a whim and a prayer (and no, that's not a typo!) is still here and soaring. So I could not think of a more fitting guest for such a landmark episode than a woman whose life is a tribute to the power of hope...


Where do you turn when everything feels hopeless? My guest today knows the answer to better than most. Nine years ago, in the space of one week, Raynor Winn lost her home, and her husband, Moth, was diagnosed with a degenerative disease. In the face of such loss, there was only one thing to do: they packed what little of their life they could carry into their backpacks, and walked.


That walk - 630 miles along the South West Coast path - became the bestseller The Salt Path. It sold a million copies, spent more than 90 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller lists and changed thousands of lives - not least Raynor and Moth’s.


Despite defying the medical odds, two years ago Moth’s health began to decline again. Clutching at hope, they set out for one last walk: this time 1000 miles, from Cape Wrath in the far North West of Scotland back home to Cornwall. But in walking back home, could they really walk Moth back to health a second time?


Raynor joined me to talk about the book of that epic journey, Landlines, and how walking The Salt Path wiped her clean. We also discuss the power of walking, why nature has always been her safe place, putting yourself in the way of hope and how a shy girl hiding behind the sofa became a public person at 60. 


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Landlines by Raynor Winn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* Want to take advantage of the offer of 30-day free membership of The Shift newsletter and community? Go to https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ Offer ends 17 October 2022.


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3007 no Deborah Frances-White on feminism, guilt-exfoliation and being diagnosed with ADHD in her 40s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Hello and welcome to this special bonus episode of The Shift with Sam Baker. Consider it a taster for season 10, which starts next Tuesday. If you’re in your 40s or 50s (or even 30s or 60s) and feeling a bit what-next, my guest today is just the motivation you need. Seven years ago Deborah Frances-White was sitting in a bar with a comedian friend, when they came up with a crazy idea for a podcast. You might have heard of it. It’s called The Guilty Feminist! Now about to celebrate 100 million downloads, its catch phrase, I’m a feminist but… has become part of internet lingua franca and the standup comedian, podcaster, activist and screenwriter has never been busier. She’s written a bestselling book of the same name and launched a whole host of spin off podcasts under The Guilty Feminist banner. And there’s another book on the way. Deborah joined me to talk about feminism, being diagnosed with ADHD in her 40s, the way we change our behaviour in male-dominated spaces and being true to your own brilliant self (!). We also discussed that old chestnut likability, infertility and the conundrum of wanting a child but wanting the life you would have had without one too, exfoliating your guilt and the doctor who told her that post-menopause women’s skin ages in dog years! Cheers much. *Listen to The Guilty Feminist here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Guilty Feminist by Deborah Frances-White and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * Want to take advantage of the offer of 30-day free membership of The Shift newsletter and community? Go to https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ Offer ends 17 October 2022. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 04 Oct 2022 00:00:00 -0000 Deborah Frances-White on feminism, guilt-exfoliation and being diagnosed with ADHD in her 40s bonus 10 99 sam baker The Guilty Feminist on why she's done playing herself down to make men feel comfortable, making peace with not having children and, erm, menopausal skin Hello and welcome to this special bonus episode of The Shift with Sam Baker. Consider it a taster for season 10, which starts next Tuesday. If you’re in your 40s or 50s (or even 30s or 60s) and feeling a bit what-next, my guest today is just the motivation you need. Seven years ago Deborah Frances-White was sitting in a bar with a comedian friend, when they came up with a crazy idea for a podcast. You might have heard of it. It’s called The Guilty Feminist! Now about to celebrate 100 million downloads, its catch phrase, I’m a feminist but… has become part of internet lingua franca and the standup comedian, podcaster, activist and screenwriter has never been busier. She’s written a bestselling book of the same name and launched a whole host of spin off podcasts under The Guilty Feminist banner. And there’s another book on the way. Deborah joined me to talk about feminism, being diagnosed with ADHD in her 40s, the way we change our behaviour in male-dominated spaces and being true to your own brilliant self (!). We also discussed that old chestnut likability, infertility and the conundrum of wanting a child but wanting the life you would have had without one too, exfoliating your guilt and the doctor who told her that post-menopause women’s skin ages in dog years! Cheers much. *Listen to The Guilty Feminist here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Guilty Feminist by Deborah Frances-White and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * Want to take advantage of the offer of 30-day free membership of The Shift newsletter and community? Go to https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ Offer ends 17 October 2022. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hello and welcome to this special bonus episode of The Shift with Sam Baker. Consider it a taster for season 10, which starts next Tuesday.


If you’re in your 40s or 50s (or even 30s or 60s) and feeling a bit what-next, my guest today is just the motivation you need. Seven years ago Deborah Frances-White was sitting in a bar with a comedian friend, when they came up with a crazy idea for a podcast. You might have heard of it. It’s called The Guilty Feminist! Now about to celebrate 100 million downloads, its catch phrase, I’m a feminist but… has become part of internet lingua franca and the standup comedian, podcaster, activist and screenwriter has never been busier. She’s written a bestselling book of the same name and launched a whole host of spin off podcasts under The Guilty Feminist banner. And there’s another book on the way.


Deborah joined me to talk about feminism, being diagnosed with ADHD in her 40s, the way we change our behaviour in male-dominated spaces and being true to your own brilliant self (!). We also discussed that old chestnut likability, infertility and the conundrum of wanting a child but wanting the life you would have had without one too, exfoliating your guilt and the doctor who told her that post-menopause women’s skin ages in dog years! Cheers much.


*Listen to The Guilty Feminist here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Guilty Feminist by Deborah Frances-White and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* Want to take advantage of the offer of 30-day free membership of The Shift newsletter and community? Go to https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ Offer ends 17 October 2022.


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2227 no Dr Jen Gunter has things she wants you to know about the menopause - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the new season. I had long been an admirer of Dr Jen Gunter's no-bull approach to women's health before I met her eighteen months ago. She didn't disappoint! Here are the original show notes: The best way I can think of to describe this week’s guest is that she’s a women’s health vigilante. (A vagina vigilante if you will!) Dubbed twitter’s resident gynaecologist, and the nemesis of snake oil salesmen everywhere, Dr Jen Gunter is the living embodiment of “information is power”. She has made it her life’s mission to give you the information you need to make life better for you - and for your vagina.  Best known for her book The Vagina Bible, and publicly taking Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop to task for, amongst other things, flogging jade eggs. “Dear Ms Paltrow,” she wrote back in 2017, “It is the biggest load of garbage I have read on your site since vaginal steaming.” Now Jen is bringing that same, erm, direct approach to the menopause with her new book, The Menopause Manifesto. A banger of a book that tells you everything you could possibly need to know and plenty of stuff you don’t but will be glad you do. Jen is characteristically no-bull as she talks menopause, mental health, why we all need to know WTF is going on and why women need more menopausal role models. And whatever you do, don’t get her started on manufacturers who think shoving “meno” in front of a product name is a licence to print money…! Join me and Jen as we cross the crimson bridge and throw ourselves a meno partiy! Welcome to the order of menopause! • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Menopause Manifesto by Dr Jen Gunter. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 27 Sep 2022 00:00:38 -0000 Dr Jen Gunter has things she wants you to know about the menopause - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 9 98 sam baker The women's health vigilante is on a mission to give you all the information you need - and then some One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the new season. I had long been an admirer of Dr Jen Gunter's no-bull approach to women's health before I met her eighteen months ago. She didn't disappoint! Here are the original show notes: The best way I can think of to describe this week’s guest is that she’s a women’s health vigilante. (A vagina vigilante if you will!) Dubbed twitter’s resident gynaecologist, and the nemesis of snake oil salesmen everywhere, Dr Jen Gunter is the living embodiment of “information is power”. She has made it her life’s mission to give you the information you need to make life better for you - and for your vagina.  Best known for her book The Vagina Bible, and publicly taking Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop to task for, amongst other things, flogging jade eggs. “Dear Ms Paltrow,” she wrote back in 2017, “It is the biggest load of garbage I have read on your site since vaginal steaming.” Now Jen is bringing that same, erm, direct approach to the menopause with her new book, The Menopause Manifesto. A banger of a book that tells you everything you could possibly need to know and plenty of stuff you don’t but will be glad you do. Jen is characteristically no-bull as she talks menopause, mental health, why we all need to know WTF is going on and why women need more menopausal role models. And whatever you do, don’t get her started on manufacturers who think shoving “meno” in front of a product name is a licence to print money…! Join me and Jen as we cross the crimson bridge and throw ourselves a meno partiy! Welcome to the order of menopause! • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Menopause Manifesto by Dr Jen Gunter. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the new season. I had long been an admirer of Dr Jen Gunter's no-bull approach to women's health before I met her eighteen months ago. She didn't disappoint!


Here are the original show notes:


The best way I can think of to describe this week’s guest is that she’s a women’s health vigilante. (A vagina vigilante if you will!) Dubbed twitter’s resident gynaecologist, and the nemesis of snake oil salesmen everywhere, Dr Jen Gunter is the living embodiment of “information is power”. She has made it her life’s mission to give you the information you need to make life better for you - and for your vagina. 


Best known for her book The Vagina Bible, and publicly taking Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop to task for, amongst other things, flogging jade eggs. “Dear Ms Paltrow,” she wrote back in 2017, “It is the biggest load of garbage I have read on your site since vaginal steaming.” Now Jen is bringing that same, erm, direct approach to the menopause with her new book, The Menopause Manifesto. A banger of a book that tells you everything you could possibly need to know and plenty of stuff you don’t but will be glad you do.


Jen is characteristically no-bull as she talks menopause, mental health, why we all need to know WTF is going on and why women need more menopausal role models. And whatever you do, don’t get her started on manufacturers who think shoving “meno” in front of a product name is a licence to print money…! Join me and Jen as we cross the crimson bridge and throw ourselves a meno partiy! Welcome to the order of menopause!


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Menopause Manifesto by Dr Jen Gunter.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2831 no Nana-Ama Danquah on the triple burden of mental health, menopause and being Black - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the new season. I had never heard of Nana-Ama Danquah before I started The Shift and speaking to her was one of my most enlightening conversations. Nana-Ama's writing has recently found a new audience and was shortlisted for this year's Caine Prize. Here are the original show notes: My guest today is the Ghanaian American writer Nana-Ama Danquah. Nana-Ama found herself in the public eye when, in the late 90s, she published her memoir Willow Weep For Me about suffering from clinical depression - one of the first books to openly discuss black women’s mental health experience. Critically acclaimed by the likes of the late, great Maya Angelou, its description of the shame, dismissal, denial and out and out despair experienced by many black women started a much-needed conversation that was widely credited with “saving lives”. (It's currently not published in the UK - publishers I AM LOOKING AT YOU!) Now 53, Nana-Ama joined me from her home in (sunny) California (grrr) to talk about the double - in fact, make that triple - burden of mental health, menopause and being black, why black women are driving change right now, how menopause turned her into a hot mess and how she’s finally learnt the joy of doing what you do until you die. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker. Willow Weep For Me by Nana-Ama Danquah is not published in the UK, but you can buy it from amazon.co.uk or abebooks.co.uk. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:18 -0000 Nana-Ama Danquah on the triple burden of mental health, menopause and being Black - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 9 97 sam baker The Ghanaian American writer told me why the mental health conversation has a long way to go, how menopause turned her into a hot mess and why Black women are driving change. One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the new season. I had never heard of Nana-Ama Danquah before I started The Shift and speaking to her was one of my most enlightening conversations. Nana-Ama's writing has recently found a new audience and was shortlisted for this year's Caine Prize. Here are the original show notes: My guest today is the Ghanaian American writer Nana-Ama Danquah. Nana-Ama found herself in the public eye when, in the late 90s, she published her memoir Willow Weep For Me about suffering from clinical depression - one of the first books to openly discuss black women’s mental health experience. Critically acclaimed by the likes of the late, great Maya Angelou, its description of the shame, dismissal, denial and out and out despair experienced by many black women started a much-needed conversation that was widely credited with “saving lives”. (It's currently not published in the UK - publishers I AM LOOKING AT YOU!) Now 53, Nana-Ama joined me from her home in (sunny) California (grrr) to talk about the double - in fact, make that triple - burden of mental health, menopause and being black, why black women are driving change right now, how menopause turned her into a hot mess and how she’s finally learnt the joy of doing what you do until you die. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker. Willow Weep For Me by Nana-Ama Danquah is not published in the UK, but you can buy it from amazon.co.uk or abebooks.co.uk. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the new season. I had never heard of Nana-Ama Danquah before I started The Shift and speaking to her was one of my most enlightening conversations. Nana-Ama's writing has recently found a new audience and was shortlisted for this year's Caine Prize.


Here are the original show notes:


My guest today is the Ghanaian American writer Nana-Ama Danquah. Nana-Ama found herself in the public eye when, in the late 90s, she published her memoir Willow Weep For Me about suffering from clinical depression - one of the first books to openly discuss black women’s mental health experience. Critically acclaimed by the likes of the late, great Maya Angelou, its description of the shame, dismissal, denial and out and out despair experienced by many black women started a much-needed conversation that was widely credited with “saving lives”. (It's currently not published in the UK - publishers I AM LOOKING AT YOU!)


Now 53, Nana-Ama joined me from her home in (sunny) California (grrr) to talk about the double - in fact, make that triple - burden of mental health, menopause and being black, why black women are driving change right now, how menopause turned her into a hot mess and how she’s finally learnt the joy of doing what you do until you die.


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker. Willow Weep For Me by Nana-Ama Danquah is not published in the UK, but you can buy it from amazon.co.uk or abebooks.co.uk.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2833 no Anita Rani on why her 40s are her power decade - THE SHIFT REVISITED https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the next season. This is a replay of one of my all time favourites, with the inimitable Anita Rani. I did this interview in June 2021. Here are the original show notes: What even is the “right sort of girl?” That’s a question my guest this week has long struggled to answer. Growing up in Yorkshire, TV presenter and self-proclaimed misfit Anita Rani always felt that she was somehow *wrong* - a feeling that was exacerbated when she moved to London to break into the media - and found herself too brown, too northern, too female. Oh, and too gobby. A triple threat with bells on. Now 43, she co-fronts two national institutions - Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and BBC’s Country File - and has finally reached a point where she felt able to answer (or at least tackle) the question: who even am I? in her memoir, The Right Sort of Girl. Join Anita and me as we journey from 1970s Bradford to her perch on the top of the media tree via eldest-Punjabi-daughter-guilt, never ever ever talking about periods, grunge and Oprah-worship. On the way, Anita tells me why south asian women are badasses, why shapeshifting to fit other people’s expectations is a waste of energy and how she learnt to own her anger. This is a celebration of being in your 40s, being yourself and finding your purpose and I’m pretty sure that you, like me, will love her for it.  • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Anita Rani's memoir, The Right Sort of Girl, and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 13 Sep 2022 00:00:11 -0000 Anita Rani on why her 40s are her power decade - THE SHIFT REVISITED full 9 96 sam baker The broadcaster opens up about ditching the baggage, owning her anger and why she's no longer shape-shifting to fit other people's expectations One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the next season. This is a replay of one of my all time favourites, with the inimitable Anita Rani. I did this interview in June 2021. Here are the original show notes: What even is the “right sort of girl?” That’s a question my guest this week has long struggled to answer. Growing up in Yorkshire, TV presenter and self-proclaimed misfit Anita Rani always felt that she was somehow *wrong* - a feeling that was exacerbated when she moved to London to break into the media - and found herself too brown, too northern, too female. Oh, and too gobby. A triple threat with bells on. Now 43, she co-fronts two national institutions - Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and BBC’s Country File - and has finally reached a point where she felt able to answer (or at least tackle) the question: who even am I? in her memoir, The Right Sort of Girl. Join Anita and me as we journey from 1970s Bradford to her perch on the top of the media tree via eldest-Punjabi-daughter-guilt, never ever ever talking about periods, grunge and Oprah-worship. On the way, Anita tells me why south asian women are badasses, why shapeshifting to fit other people’s expectations is a waste of energy and how she learnt to own her anger. This is a celebration of being in your 40s, being yourself and finding your purpose and I’m pretty sure that you, like me, will love her for it.  • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Anita Rani's memoir, The Right Sort of Girl, and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the next season. This is a replay of one of my all time favourites, with the inimitable Anita Rani.


I did this interview in June 2021. Here are the original show notes:


What even is the “right sort of girl?” That’s a question my guest this week has long struggled to answer. Growing up in Yorkshire, TV presenter and self-proclaimed misfit Anita Rani always felt that she was somehow *wrong* - a feeling that was exacerbated when she moved to London to break into the media - and found herself too brown, too northern, too female. Oh, and too gobby. A triple threat with bells on. Now 43, she co-fronts two national institutions - Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and BBC’s Country File - and has finally reached a point where she felt able to answer (or at least tackle) the question: who even am I? in her memoir, The Right Sort of Girl.


Join Anita and me as we journey from 1970s Bradford to her perch on the top of the media tree via eldest-Punjabi-daughter-guilt, never ever ever talking about periods, grunge and Oprah-worship. On the way, Anita tells me why south asian women are badasses, why shapeshifting to fit other people’s expectations is a waste of energy and how she learnt to own her anger. This is a celebration of being in your 40s, being yourself and finding your purpose and I’m pretty sure that you, like me, will love her for it. 


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Anita Rani's memoir, The Right Sort of Girl, and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2701 no Lisa Jewell on hitting a golden seam of success in her 50s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest is one of Britain’s best loved novelists, Lisa Jewell. Her career started with a smash hit debut novel Ralph’s Party - which she started writing as a bet at the age of 27 while she was unemployed, and, according to her, “totally lacking in direction and ambition”. It was the book of the moment and for 14 novels it looked like her career - although ticking along nicely - would never hit those heights again.  Then her writing took a turn for the dark and her career took a turn for the stratospheric. Lisa Jewell, it transpired had a knack for a killer twist. That knack propelled her to the top of the bestseller lists on both sides of the atlantic with And Then She Was Gone. That was six books ago and she’s never been more successful.  I went to see Lisa in her envy-inducing North London home to talk about her latest book, The Family Remains, the debt she owes Bridget Jones and the sequel she wishes had never seen the light of day. We also chatted about hitting “a golden seam” in her 50s, her unexpectedly scary perimenopause symptoms, testosterone overload, and her extremely proactive ovaries! Plus she shares her controversial secret to successfully parenting teenage girls. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 06 Sep 2022 00:00:22 -0000 Lisa Jewell on hitting a golden seam of success in her 50s full 9 95 sam baker The bestselling author of Then She Was Gone and The Family Upstairs talks unexpected perimenopause symptoms, ODing on testosterone, the book she wishes had never seen the light of day and why she really doesn't care what her bum looks like any more Today’s guest is one of Britain’s best loved novelists, Lisa Jewell. Her career started with a smash hit debut novel Ralph’s Party - which she started writing as a bet at the age of 27 while she was unemployed, and, according to her, “totally lacking in direction and ambition”. It was the book of the moment and for 14 novels it looked like her career - although ticking along nicely - would never hit those heights again.  Then her writing took a turn for the dark and her career took a turn for the stratospheric. Lisa Jewell, it transpired had a knack for a killer twist. That knack propelled her to the top of the bestseller lists on both sides of the atlantic with And Then She Was Gone. That was six books ago and she’s never been more successful.  I went to see Lisa in her envy-inducing North London home to talk about her latest book, The Family Remains, the debt she owes Bridget Jones and the sequel she wishes had never seen the light of day. We also chatted about hitting “a golden seam” in her 50s, her unexpectedly scary perimenopause symptoms, testosterone overload, and her extremely proactive ovaries! Plus she shares her controversial secret to successfully parenting teenage girls. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is one of Britain’s best loved novelists, Lisa Jewell. Her career started with a smash hit debut novel Ralph’s Party - which she started writing as a bet at the age of 27 while she was unemployed, and, according to her, “totally lacking in direction and ambition”. It was the book of the moment and for 14 novels it looked like her career - although ticking along nicely - would never hit those heights again. 


Then her writing took a turn for the dark and her career took a turn for the stratospheric. Lisa Jewell, it transpired had a knack for a killer twist. That knack propelled her to the top of the bestseller lists on both sides of the atlantic with And Then She Was Gone. That was six books ago and she’s never been more successful. 


I went to see Lisa in her envy-inducing North London home to talk about her latest book, The Family Remains, the debt she owes Bridget Jones and the sequel she wishes had never seen the light of day. We also chatted about hitting “a golden seam” in her 50s, her unexpectedly scary perimenopause symptoms, testosterone overload, and her extremely proactive ovaries! Plus she shares her controversial secret to successfully parenting teenage girls.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3686 no Hilma Wolitzer: 80 years of writing, and not done yet https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the writer Hilma Wolitzer. Born in 1930, Hilma had her first poem published at the age of 9. She then shelved that ambition in favour of marriage and children, as women were expected to in the 1950s. 26 years later she had her first short story published. Then there was no stopping her.  Her first novel was published at the age of 44 and since then she has published 14 books. The most recent of which is the career-spanning short story collection - the brilliantly named, Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket. If you, like me, love Elizabeth Strout, I guarantee you will love this.  Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to speak to Hilma from her apartment in New York about writing at 9 and 90, being raised to be a housewife by a housewife and how feminism changed her life. She also talked about losing her husband of 68 years to covid during lockdown, why she can’t think of anything worse than dating again, why she’s not done yet and why she doesn’t mind being an old woman but she definitely doesn’t want to be an old girl. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 30 Aug 2022 00:00:46 -0000 Hilma Wolitzer: 80 years of writing, and not done yet full 9 94 sam baker The 92 year old New Yorker talks feminism, vanity, being raised to be a "housewife" and losing her husband of 68 years to covid My guest today is the writer Hilma Wolitzer. Born in 1930, Hilma had her first poem published at the age of 9. She then shelved that ambition in favour of marriage and children, as women were expected to in the 1950s. 26 years later she had her first short story published. Then there was no stopping her.  Her first novel was published at the age of 44 and since then she has published 14 books. The most recent of which is the career-spanning short story collection - the brilliantly named, Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket. If you, like me, love Elizabeth Strout, I guarantee you will love this.  Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to speak to Hilma from her apartment in New York about writing at 9 and 90, being raised to be a housewife by a housewife and how feminism changed her life. She also talked about losing her husband of 68 years to covid during lockdown, why she can’t think of anything worse than dating again, why she’s not done yet and why she doesn’t mind being an old woman but she definitely doesn’t want to be an old girl. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the writer Hilma Wolitzer. Born in 1930, Hilma had her first poem published at the age of 9. She then shelved that ambition in favour of marriage and children, as women were expected to in the 1950s. 26 years later she had her first short story published. Then there was no stopping her. 


Her first novel was published at the age of 44 and since then she has published 14 books. The most recent of which is the career-spanning short story collection - the brilliantly named, Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket. If you, like me, love Elizabeth Strout, I guarantee you will love this. 


Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to speak to Hilma from her apartment in New York about writing at 9 and 90, being raised to be a housewife by a housewife and how feminism changed her life. She also talked about losing her husband of 68 years to covid during lockdown, why she can’t think of anything worse than dating again, why she’s not done yet and why she doesn’t mind being an old woman but she definitely doesn’t want to be an old girl.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3205 no Clare Grogan on the superpower that helped her survive her most difficult decade https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I can’t remember the first time I met my friend Clare Grogan. But like many Gen-Xers, I remember the first time I saw her in the cult movie Gregory’s Girl, and then, later the same year, on Top of the Pops with Altered Images, performing the band’s top 10 hits Happy Birthday and I Could Be Happy. (I have a bit of a soft spot for that last one.) Still in her teens, she was living a life the rest of us could only dream of. Until, at 25, with three top ten albums under her belt, she left it all behind so she could, as she puts it, “feel where I came from again”. Since then she has had countless presenting and acting roles in everything from Eastenders to Skins. And now, 38 years after her last outing!, she’s back with a new Altered Images album Mascara Streakz. Clare zoomed in to talk about deciding where you want to go in life, doing every show like it might be your last and being back on the road at 60. We discussed the unexpected impact of her daughter hitting the age she was when Altered Images hit the big time, her “difficult 40s” and why it’s never too late to start a band. *Mascara Streakz is released on 26 August.* * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 23 Aug 2022 00:00:20 -0000 Clare Grogan on the superpower that helped her survive her most difficult decade full 9 93 sam baker The Altered Images and Gregory's Girl star talks being a grafter, staying grounded and releasing a new album at 60 I can’t remember the first time I met my friend Clare Grogan. But like many Gen-Xers, I remember the first time I saw her in the cult movie Gregory’s Girl, and then, later the same year, on Top of the Pops with Altered Images, performing the band’s top 10 hits Happy Birthday and I Could Be Happy. (I have a bit of a soft spot for that last one.) Still in her teens, she was living a life the rest of us could only dream of. Until, at 25, with three top ten albums under her belt, she left it all behind so she could, as she puts it, “feel where I came from again”. Since then she has had countless presenting and acting roles in everything from Eastenders to Skins. And now, 38 years after her last outing!, she’s back with a new Altered Images album Mascara Streakz. Clare zoomed in to talk about deciding where you want to go in life, doing every show like it might be your last and being back on the road at 60. We discussed the unexpected impact of her daughter hitting the age she was when Altered Images hit the big time, her “difficult 40s” and why it’s never too late to start a band. *Mascara Streakz is released on 26 August.* * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I can’t remember the first time I met my friend Clare Grogan. But like many Gen-Xers, I remember the first time I saw her in the cult movie Gregory’s Girl, and then, later the same year, on Top of the Pops with Altered Images, performing the band’s top 10 hits Happy Birthday and I Could Be Happy. (I have a bit of a soft spot for that last one.)


Still in her teens, she was living a life the rest of us could only dream of. Until, at 25, with three top ten albums under her belt, she left it all behind so she could, as she puts it, “feel where I came from again”.


Since then she has had countless presenting and acting roles in everything from Eastenders to Skins. And now, 38 years after her last outing!, she’s back with a new Altered Images album Mascara Streakz.


Clare zoomed in to talk about deciding where you want to go in life, doing every show like it might be your last and being back on the road at 60. We discussed the unexpected impact of her daughter hitting the age she was when Altered Images hit the big time, her “difficult 40s” and why it’s never too late to start a band.


*Mascara Streakz is released on 26 August.*


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3332 no Emma Forrest on sex, celibacy and solitude https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Who hasn’t looked at those things you should have done by the time you’re 30/40/50/whatever lists and rolled their eyes? And yet consciously or not many of us still live our lives according to those timelines.  But what does middle age feel like if you’ve been acing those lists since you were 16 - and then suddenly you’re not? Today’s guest Emma Forrest was an early achiever. She had a newspaper column by the age of 16, had written three novels by 30 and then moved to Hollywood and became a screenwriter. There, she seemingly “had it all” - Big job, famous husband, fabulous house, beautiful daughter. And then she didn’t.  So How does it feel to be hitting 40 and walking away from the dream? Swapping An LA mansion for an attic flat in north London. And A glamorous marriage for a relationship with yourself. Someone who, by Emma’s own admission, she thought she might never get to see again. Emma joined me to talk about her new memoir Busy Being Free and how she freed herself from a lifelong obsession with romantic attachment. We discuss how Trump contributed to her decision to step away from sex post-divorce (sorry, you’ll never unsee that!), rediscovering yourself in your 40s, why women who choose to be alone unnerve people, off-loading the “female factory reset” of gratitude and what an Enfant Terrible looks like at 45. CW: I should warn you there’s also discussion of eating disorders, cutting and suicide. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Busy Being Free by Emma Forrest and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 16 Aug 2022 00:00:04 -0000 Emma Forrest on sex, celibacy and solitude full 9 92 sam baker The screenwriter talks about giving up sex for the duration of Trump's presidency and how to be an enfant terrible at 45 Who hasn’t looked at those things you should have done by the time you’re 30/40/50/whatever lists and rolled their eyes? And yet consciously or not many of us still live our lives according to those timelines.  But what does middle age feel like if you’ve been acing those lists since you were 16 - and then suddenly you’re not? Today’s guest Emma Forrest was an early achiever. She had a newspaper column by the age of 16, had written three novels by 30 and then moved to Hollywood and became a screenwriter. There, she seemingly “had it all” - Big job, famous husband, fabulous house, beautiful daughter. And then she didn’t.  So How does it feel to be hitting 40 and walking away from the dream? Swapping An LA mansion for an attic flat in north London. And A glamorous marriage for a relationship with yourself. Someone who, by Emma’s own admission, she thought she might never get to see again. Emma joined me to talk about her new memoir Busy Being Free and how she freed herself from a lifelong obsession with romantic attachment. We discuss how Trump contributed to her decision to step away from sex post-divorce (sorry, you’ll never unsee that!), rediscovering yourself in your 40s, why women who choose to be alone unnerve people, off-loading the “female factory reset” of gratitude and what an Enfant Terrible looks like at 45. CW: I should warn you there’s also discussion of eating disorders, cutting and suicide. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Busy Being Free by Emma Forrest and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Who hasn’t looked at those things you should have done by the time you’re 30/40/50/whatever lists and rolled their eyes? And yet consciously or not many of us still live our lives according to those timelines. 


But what does middle age feel like if you’ve been acing those lists since you were 16 - and then suddenly you’re not?


Today’s guest Emma Forrest was an early achiever. She had a newspaper column by the age of 16, had written three novels by 30 and then moved to Hollywood and became a screenwriter. There, she seemingly “had it all” - Big job, famous husband, fabulous house, beautiful daughter.


And then she didn’t. 


So How does it feel to be hitting 40 and walking away from the dream? Swapping An LA mansion for an attic flat in north London. And A glamorous marriage for a relationship with yourself. Someone who, by Emma’s own admission, she thought she might never get to see again.


Emma joined me to talk about her new memoir Busy Being Free and how she freed herself from a lifelong obsession with romantic attachment. We discuss how Trump contributed to her decision to step away from sex post-divorce (sorry, you’ll never unsee that!), rediscovering yourself in your 40s, why women who choose to be alone unnerve people, off-loading the “female factory reset” of gratitude and what an Enfant Terrible looks like at 45.


CW: I should warn you there’s also discussion of eating disorders, cutting and suicide.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Busy Being Free by Emma Forrest and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3030 no Kit de Waal on race, class, privilege – and her exceedingly cool hair! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest is the award-winning writer, Kit De Waal. Until she was 21, Kit had never read a book voluntarily. But once she started there was no stopping her. Kit started writing in her mid-40s and published her award-winning debut, My Name Is Leon, at 56. Since then she has used her success to work tirelessly to promote the voices of working class writers. Using some of her advance to set up the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Fellowship (aka the Fat Chance scholarship!) and editing Common People, an anthology of working class writing. Now she’s turned her attention to her own childhood. Her memoir, Without Warning And Only Sometimes, is the story of growing up in poverty, one of five children with a Black father and Irish mother who brought them up Jehovah’s Witness… Kit joined me from possibly the most envy-inducing workroom I’ve ever ogled via zoom (and I’ve ogled a few!) to talk being single and reclaiming your own space at 60. We discussed race, class, privilege, the impact of a childhood spent not stepping on the cracks and why she hates that “fucking overused word resilience”. Plus why she’s not interested in a man on the downward slide, being a Tuesday friend and her exceedingly cool hair * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Without Warning And Only Sometimes by Kit de Waal and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 Aug 2022 00:00:30 -0000 Kit de Waal on race, class, privilege – and her exceedingly cool hair! full 9 91 sam baker The bestselling author of My Name Is Leon tells us what it's really like being single at 60 (hello Tuesday friend!) and why she's not interested in a man on the downward slide! Today’s guest is the award-winning writer, Kit De Waal. Until she was 21, Kit had never read a book voluntarily. But once she started there was no stopping her. Kit started writing in her mid-40s and published her award-winning debut, My Name Is Leon, at 56. Since then she has used her success to work tirelessly to promote the voices of working class writers. Using some of her advance to set up the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Fellowship (aka the Fat Chance scholarship!) and editing Common People, an anthology of working class writing. Now she’s turned her attention to her own childhood. Her memoir, Without Warning And Only Sometimes, is the story of growing up in poverty, one of five children with a Black father and Irish mother who brought them up Jehovah’s Witness… Kit joined me from possibly the most envy-inducing workroom I’ve ever ogled via zoom (and I’ve ogled a few!) to talk being single and reclaiming your own space at 60. We discussed race, class, privilege, the impact of a childhood spent not stepping on the cracks and why she hates that “fucking overused word resilience”. Plus why she’s not interested in a man on the downward slide, being a Tuesday friend and her exceedingly cool hair * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Without Warning And Only Sometimes by Kit de Waal and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is the award-winning writer, Kit De Waal. Until she was 21, Kit had never read a book voluntarily. But once she started there was no stopping her. Kit started writing in her mid-40s and published her award-winning debut, My Name Is Leon, at 56. Since then she has used her success to work tirelessly to promote the voices of working class writers. Using some of her advance to set up the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Fellowship (aka the Fat Chance scholarship!) and editing Common People, an anthology of working class writing.


Now she’s turned her attention to her own childhood. Her memoir, Without Warning And Only Sometimes, is the story of growing up in poverty, one of five children with a Black father and Irish mother who brought them up Jehovah’s Witness…


Kit joined me from possibly the most envy-inducing workroom I’ve ever ogled via zoom (and I’ve ogled a few!) to talk being single and reclaiming your own space at 60. We discussed race, class, privilege, the impact of a childhood spent not stepping on the cracks and why she hates that “fucking overused word resilience”. Plus why she’s not interested in a man on the downward slide, being a Tuesday friend and her exceedingly cool hair


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Without Warning And Only Sometimes by Kit de Waal and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3478 no Julia Cameron on alcoholism, creativity and emotional sobriety https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the author of the cult bestseller The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron. Part book, part tool-kit, part spiritual guide, The Artists Way has sold over 4 million copies globally and has inspired countless artists, writers, and creatives including Elizabeth Gilbert, Alicia Keyes, Pete Townshend and many more. In the 30 years since that was published, Julia has written a movie, 7 plays and 23 books, including her memoir Floor Sample. Written in her late 50s she looked back over the first half(ish) of her life: her catholic education, alcoholism and drug abuse, her brief marriage to director Martin Scorsese, and her subsequent search for meaning, for herself, for home, ultimately for a way to be comfortably sober. Speaking from her home in Santa Fe, Julia shared her incredible journey from “just a girl” at Catholic school to The Artists Way by way of leaving Washington a writer and landing in Hollywood a wife. She spoke candidly about losing the love of her life, getting and staying sober, how the nuns were her introduction to women with power and how the morning pages transformed her life. Now 74 and 45 years dry, she says, she’s braver than ever. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Artists Way by Julia Cameron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! Julia's recommendation, Creative Ideas by Ernest Holmes is out of print, but you can buy it here. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 02 Aug 2022 00:00:23 -0000 Julia Cameron on alcoholism, creativity and emotional sobriety full 9 90 sam baker The Artists Way author on sexism, Scorsese and finding a way to be comfortably sober My guest today is the author of the cult bestseller The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron. Part book, part tool-kit, part spiritual guide, The Artists Way has sold over 4 million copies globally and has inspired countless artists, writers, and creatives including Elizabeth Gilbert, Alicia Keyes, Pete Townshend and many more. In the 30 years since that was published, Julia has written a movie, 7 plays and 23 books, including her memoir Floor Sample. Written in her late 50s she looked back over the first half(ish) of her life: her catholic education, alcoholism and drug abuse, her brief marriage to director Martin Scorsese, and her subsequent search for meaning, for herself, for home, ultimately for a way to be comfortably sober. Speaking from her home in Santa Fe, Julia shared her incredible journey from “just a girl” at Catholic school to The Artists Way by way of leaving Washington a writer and landing in Hollywood a wife. She spoke candidly about losing the love of her life, getting and staying sober, how the nuns were her introduction to women with power and how the morning pages transformed her life. Now 74 and 45 years dry, she says, she’s braver than ever. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Artists Way by Julia Cameron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! Julia's recommendation, Creative Ideas by Ernest Holmes is out of print, but you can buy it here. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the author of the cult bestseller The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron. Part book, part tool-kit, part spiritual guide, The Artists Way has sold over 4 million copies globally and has inspired countless artists, writers, and creatives including Elizabeth Gilbert, Alicia Keyes, Pete Townshend and many more.


In the 30 years since that was published, Julia has written a movie, 7 plays and 23 books, including her memoir Floor Sample. Written in her late 50s she looked back over the first half(ish) of her life: her catholic education, alcoholism and drug abuse, her brief marriage to director Martin Scorsese, and her subsequent search for meaning, for herself, for home, ultimately for a way to be comfortably sober.


Speaking from her home in Santa Fe, Julia shared her incredible journey from “just a girl” at Catholic school to The Artists Way by way of leaving Washington a writer and landing in Hollywood a wife. She spoke candidly about losing the love of her life, getting and staying sober, how the nuns were her introduction to women with power and how the morning pages transformed her life. Now 74 and 45 years dry, she says, she’s braver than ever.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Artists Way by Julia Cameron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! Julia's recommendation, Creative Ideas by Ernest Holmes is out of print, but you can buy it here.


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2336 no Jane Fallon on embracing 60 and being a Botox hold-out https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Have you always wanted to wreak revenge on your worst enemies? Those who’ve wronged you, conned you or just crossed you? Well, if you’ve ever lain in the bath (or on the sofa or wherever) fantasising about how you’d get your own back, my guest today is your woman! Jane Fallon - aka the mistress of the revenge romp!  Formerly a TV producer (Jane gave us the era-defining This Life amongst other things), she did a massive handbrake turn at 45 after a flash of overnight inspiration (lucky her!) And chucked it all in to write a novel. Her debut Getting Rid Of Matthew was a hit and 12 novels later she hasn’t looked back. Her latest Just Got Real, looks at what it means to be unexpectedly single again in mid-life and tackles the world of online dating. Jane joined me to talk about giving voice to women over 40, how perimenopause induced her creative midlife crisis, why, for some reason, she thought she could get through menopause without telling anyone (hoho), the liberation of embracing 60, being a Botox holdout and how she trained herself to stop catastrophising. I’m grateful to Jane for telling me about the decision not to have children and her deeply held belief that she would have made a terrible mother. Oh, and BTW Jane, I'm still waiting for photographic evidence of that cartwheel! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including JUST. GOT. REAL. by Jane Fallon and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 26 Jul 2022 00:00:48 -0000 Jane Fallon on embracing 60 and being a Botox hold-out full 9 89 sam baker The bestselling author shares her creative mid-life crisis, how she cured herself of catastrophising - and handstands! Have you always wanted to wreak revenge on your worst enemies? Those who’ve wronged you, conned you or just crossed you? Well, if you’ve ever lain in the bath (or on the sofa or wherever) fantasising about how you’d get your own back, my guest today is your woman! Jane Fallon - aka the mistress of the revenge romp!  Formerly a TV producer (Jane gave us the era-defining This Life amongst other things), she did a massive handbrake turn at 45 after a flash of overnight inspiration (lucky her!) And chucked it all in to write a novel. Her debut Getting Rid Of Matthew was a hit and 12 novels later she hasn’t looked back. Her latest Just Got Real, looks at what it means to be unexpectedly single again in mid-life and tackles the world of online dating. Jane joined me to talk about giving voice to women over 40, how perimenopause induced her creative midlife crisis, why, for some reason, she thought she could get through menopause without telling anyone (hoho), the liberation of embracing 60, being a Botox holdout and how she trained herself to stop catastrophising. I’m grateful to Jane for telling me about the decision not to have children and her deeply held belief that she would have made a terrible mother. Oh, and BTW Jane, I'm still waiting for photographic evidence of that cartwheel! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including JUST. GOT. REAL. by Jane Fallon and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Have you always wanted to wreak revenge on your worst enemies? Those who’ve wronged you, conned you or just crossed you? Well, if you’ve ever lain in the bath (or on the sofa or wherever) fantasising about how you’d get your own back, my guest today is your woman! Jane Fallon - aka the mistress of the revenge romp! 


Formerly a TV producer (Jane gave us the era-defining This Life amongst other things), she did a massive handbrake turn at 45 after a flash of overnight inspiration (lucky her!) And chucked it all in to write a novel. Her debut Getting Rid Of Matthew was a hit and 12 novels later she hasn’t looked back. Her latest Just Got Real, looks at what it means to be unexpectedly single again in mid-life and tackles the world of online dating.


Jane joined me to talk about giving voice to women over 40, how perimenopause induced her creative midlife crisis, why, for some reason, she thought she could get through menopause without telling anyone (hoho), the liberation of embracing 60, being a Botox holdout and how she trained herself to stop catastrophising. I’m grateful to Jane for telling me about the decision not to have children and her deeply held belief that she would have made a terrible mother.


Oh, and BTW Jane, I'm still waiting for photographic evidence of that cartwheel!


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including JUST. GOT. REAL. by Jane Fallon and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3033 no CJ Hauser on learning to live your own dreams, not other people’s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ How does it feel to be catapulted to Internet fame, literally overnight. My guest this week, CJ Hauser, found out when she wrote a little essay back in 2019 about cranes (as in, the birds, not the machines!). Except CJ had just called off her wedding and The Crane Wife wasn’t about cranes, so much as the shapes we contort ourselves into in order to please other people. about denying our own needs and accepting LESS. Forty eight hours after it was published The Crane Wife had gone viral, been read millions of times and identified with by just about everyone who read it. I read it. I couldn’t believe how much it spoke to me. Nor, it seemed, could anyone else. Now CJ has written a memoir in essays - also called The Crane Wife - about love, relationships and the stories we tell ourselves, not, it seems, in order to survive, but in order to set the bar so high we spend the rest of our lives failing to reach it. CJ (and her dog Moriarty @thedogphilosopher on instagram...) joined me to talk about the unnerving impact of overnight success, being “a breakup pro” and learning to live your own dreams, not other people’s. We also discussed her Schrodingers biological clock, the life lessons she’s learnt from Dr Who, she introduced me to the concept of "bucking" and her unified theory of shitty men! * Read CJ’s original essay The Crane Wife here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including THE CRANE WIFE by CJ Hauser and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 19 Jul 2022 00:00:23 -0000 CJ Hauser on learning to live your own dreams, not other people’s full 9 88 sam baker The author of the internet sensation The Crane Wife on how calling off her wedding changed her life How does it feel to be catapulted to Internet fame, literally overnight. My guest this week, CJ Hauser, found out when she wrote a little essay back in 2019 about cranes (as in, the birds, not the machines!). Except CJ had just called off her wedding and The Crane Wife wasn’t about cranes, so much as the shapes we contort ourselves into in order to please other people. about denying our own needs and accepting LESS. Forty eight hours after it was published The Crane Wife had gone viral, been read millions of times and identified with by just about everyone who read it. I read it. I couldn’t believe how much it spoke to me. Nor, it seemed, could anyone else. Now CJ has written a memoir in essays - also called The Crane Wife - about love, relationships and the stories we tell ourselves, not, it seems, in order to survive, but in order to set the bar so high we spend the rest of our lives failing to reach it. CJ (and her dog Moriarty @thedogphilosopher on instagram...) joined me to talk about the unnerving impact of overnight success, being “a breakup pro” and learning to live your own dreams, not other people’s. We also discussed her Schrodingers biological clock, the life lessons she’s learnt from Dr Who, she introduced me to the concept of "bucking" and her unified theory of shitty men! * Read CJ’s original essay The Crane Wife here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including THE CRANE WIFE by CJ Hauser and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How does it feel to be catapulted to Internet fame, literally overnight. My guest this week, CJ Hauser, found out when she wrote a little essay back in 2019 about cranes (as in, the birds, not the machines!). Except CJ had just called off her wedding and The Crane Wife wasn’t about cranes, so much as the shapes we contort ourselves into in order to please other people. about denying our own needs and accepting LESS.


Forty eight hours after it was published The Crane Wife had gone viral, been read millions of times and identified with by just about everyone who read it. I read it. I couldn’t believe how much it spoke to me. Nor, it seemed, could anyone else.


Now CJ has written a memoir in essays - also called The Crane Wife - about love, relationships and the stories we tell ourselves, not, it seems, in order to survive, but in order to set the bar so high we spend the rest of our lives failing to reach it.


CJ (and her dog Moriarty @thedogphilosopher on instagram...) joined me to talk about the unnerving impact of overnight success, being “a breakup pro” and learning to live your own dreams, not other people’s. We also discussed her Schrodingers biological clock, the life lessons she’s learnt from Dr Who, she introduced me to the concept of "bucking" and her unified theory of shitty men!


* Read CJ’s original essay The Crane Wife here.


* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including THE CRANE WIFE by CJ Hauser and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2940 no A quick word from Sam https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Hello everyone! I just wanted to let you know about a new initiative coming from The Shift. I launched The Shift with Sam Baker podcast 18 months ago on a hunch: I figured that if the way women's voices were silenced after 40 bugged me (OK, bugged is a bit of an understatement!) then the chances were it bugged you, too. I had no idea how right I was. Now, thanks to you, my regular listeners, The Shift is approaching a million downloads and is growing fast. As well as a podcast and a book, The Shift is now (drum roll) a newsletter and a community! The reasons for this are two-fold: 1) You keep telling me you want more of The Shift - more women's voices, more stories, more content about the issues that affect you - and I want to give you more. Rather than four short seasons a year, my plan is to make The Shift podcast a weekly affair landing every Tuesday morning, with breaks for Christmas and summer holidays. As well as that, there will be a weekly newsletter and a community, plus access to podcast transcripts, early bird access to events, live podcast recordings and more. 2) Making The Shift takes time and money and I need your help. If you value The Shift and would like to support the work that goes into it - as well as getting a newsletter in your inbox every week, membership of The Shift bookclub, community and more - I'd love it if you'd consider becoming a member and being part of The Shift as it grows. Interested? You can find out more and join at steady.media/theshift Thanks for listening Samx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Wed, 13 Jul 2022 00:00:46 -0000 A quick word from Sam trailer 8 sam baker Welcome to The Shift newsletter and community Hello everyone! I just wanted to let you know about a new initiative coming from The Shift. I launched The Shift with Sam Baker podcast 18 months ago on a hunch: I figured that if the way women's voices were silenced after 40 bugged me (OK, bugged is a bit of an understatement!) then the chances were it bugged you, too. I had no idea how right I was. Now, thanks to you, my regular listeners, The Shift is approaching a million downloads and is growing fast. As well as a podcast and a book, The Shift is now (drum roll) a newsletter and a community! The reasons for this are two-fold: 1) You keep telling me you want more of The Shift - more women's voices, more stories, more content about the issues that affect you - and I want to give you more. Rather than four short seasons a year, my plan is to make The Shift podcast a weekly affair landing every Tuesday morning, with breaks for Christmas and summer holidays. As well as that, there will be a weekly newsletter and a community, plus access to podcast transcripts, early bird access to events, live podcast recordings and more. 2) Making The Shift takes time and money and I need your help. If you value The Shift and would like to support the work that goes into it - as well as getting a newsletter in your inbox every week, membership of The Shift bookclub, community and more - I'd love it if you'd consider becoming a member and being part of The Shift as it grows. Interested? You can find out more and join at steady.media/theshift Thanks for listening Samx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hello everyone! I just wanted to let you know about a new initiative coming from The Shift.


I launched The Shift with Sam Baker podcast 18 months ago on a hunch: I figured that if the way women's voices were silenced after 40 bugged me (OK, bugged is a bit of an understatement!) then the chances were it bugged you, too. I had no idea how right I was. Now, thanks to you, my regular listeners, The Shift is approaching a million downloads and is growing fast. As well as a podcast and a book, The Shift is now (drum roll) a newsletter and a community!


The reasons for this are two-fold:


1) You keep telling me you want more of The Shift - more women's voices, more stories, more content about the issues that affect you - and I want to give you more. Rather than four short seasons a year, my plan is to make The Shift podcast a weekly affair landing every Tuesday morning, with breaks for Christmas and summer holidays. As well as that, there will be a weekly newsletter and a community, plus access to podcast transcripts, early bird access to events, live podcast recordings and more.


2) Making The Shift takes time and money and I need your help. If you value The Shift and would like to support the work that goes into it - as well as getting a newsletter in your inbox every week, membership of The Shift bookclub, community and more - I'd love it if you'd consider becoming a member and being part of The Shift as it grows.


Interested? You can find out more and join at steady.media/theshift


Thanks for listening

Samx


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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 144 no Poorna Bell on the unexpected power in being 40 https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ By her own admission, today’s guest, award winning journalist Poorna Bell, wasn’t looking forward to 40. She feared, as society had taught her, that it might be the beginning of the end. And so, she set out to prove herself wrong.  Poorna has written two memoirs about grief and mental health in the wake of her husband, Rob’s death by suicide. And followed those up with Stronger, an inspiring reevaluation of women’s strength interwoven with her own discovery of power lifting (I kid you not. This woman could bench press Johnny Depp - but I fear she’d have to join the queue.) It’s no surprise that Poorna has become an advocate for diversity, mental health and body image.  Now she’s turned her hand to fiction. Her debut novel, In Case Of Emergency is a warm, funny, immensely entertaining story of friendship, sisterhood, being single in a couples world and a brown woman in a white world. Poorna joined me to talk about taking back power, finding her strength and how fitness changed her. Why she’s all in favour of marriage but has no plans to get back on the relationship escalator, why ageing is her superpower, finding clarity post-40, her search for midlife role models as a brown woman and embracing being a 40something goddess. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including IN CASE OF EMERGENCY by Poorna Bell, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. podchaser token: 0XeeihrspYQYlmZOFLzt Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:36 -0000 Poorna Bell on the unexpected power in being 40 full 8 87 sam baker Body acceptance, setting your boundaries and building a roadmap for being 40+ By her own admission, today’s guest, award winning journalist Poorna Bell, wasn’t looking forward to 40. She feared, as society had taught her, that it might be the beginning of the end. And so, she set out to prove herself wrong.  Poorna has written two memoirs about grief and mental health in the wake of her husband, Rob’s death by suicide. And followed those up with Stronger, an inspiring reevaluation of women’s strength interwoven with her own discovery of power lifting (I kid you not. This woman could bench press Johnny Depp - but I fear she’d have to join the queue.) It’s no surprise that Poorna has become an advocate for diversity, mental health and body image.  Now she’s turned her hand to fiction. Her debut novel, In Case Of Emergency is a warm, funny, immensely entertaining story of friendship, sisterhood, being single in a couples world and a brown woman in a white world. Poorna joined me to talk about taking back power, finding her strength and how fitness changed her. Why she’s all in favour of marriage but has no plans to get back on the relationship escalator, why ageing is her superpower, finding clarity post-40, her search for midlife role models as a brown woman and embracing being a 40something goddess. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including IN CASE OF EMERGENCY by Poorna Bell, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. podchaser token: 0XeeihrspYQYlmZOFLzt Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices By her own admission, today’s guest, award winning journalist Poorna Bell, wasn’t looking forward to 40. She feared, as society had taught her, that it might be the beginning of the end. And so, she set out to prove herself wrong. 


Poorna has written two memoirs about grief and mental health in the wake of her husband, Rob’s death by suicide. And followed those up with Stronger, an inspiring reevaluation of women’s strength interwoven with her own discovery of power lifting (I kid you not. This woman could bench press Johnny Depp - but I fear she’d have to join the queue.) It’s no surprise that Poorna has become an advocate for diversity, mental health and body image. 


Now she’s turned her hand to fiction. Her debut novel, In Case Of Emergency is a warm, funny, immensely entertaining story of friendship, sisterhood, being single in a couples world and a brown woman in a white world.


Poorna joined me to talk about taking back power, finding her strength and how fitness changed her. Why she’s all in favour of marriage but has no plans to get back on the relationship escalator, why ageing is her superpower, finding clarity post-40, her search for midlife role models as a brown woman and embracing being a 40something goddess.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including IN CASE OF EMERGENCY by Poorna Bell, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


podchaser token: 0XeeihrspYQYlmZOFLzt


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3643 no Lisa Taddeo on women, power and the success stitch-up https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is never happier than when she’s making her readers feel uncomfortable. Lisa Taddeo was a skint journalist when she wrote the groundbreaking book, Three Women - the true story of the intimate desires of three American women.  A bestseller on both sides of the atlantic, it is now being made into a TV series starring Shailene Woodley as the author. But more than that, Three Women made millions of women take a long hard look at their own wants, needs and desires and the many ways they’d sublimated them. Lisa followed that up with her first novel, Animal, and has now published a collection of short stories, Ghost Lover, in which she analyses, love, grief, obsession, ageing, body image, and, of course, sex. I’ve interviewed Lisa before, so I thought I knew what to expect: sex, rage, more sex, more rage. But this was not the chat I expected to have. Lisa was in a contemplative mood and we found ourselves dissecting women and power - or the lack of it (and this was before the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade); the way power is given with one hand and taken with the other and how success stitches up women or families. Lisa also opened up about how her mother’s fear of ageing affected her and learning not to be afraid to put a value on herself. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including GHOST LOVER by Lisa Taddeo, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 05 Jul 2022 00:00:59 -0000 Lisa Taddeo on women, power and the success stitch-up full 8 86 sam baker The Three Women author tells us how she finally learned her value and how to ask for it My guest this week is never happier than when she’s making her readers feel uncomfortable. Lisa Taddeo was a skint journalist when she wrote the groundbreaking book, Three Women - the true story of the intimate desires of three American women.  A bestseller on both sides of the atlantic, it is now being made into a TV series starring Shailene Woodley as the author. But more than that, Three Women made millions of women take a long hard look at their own wants, needs and desires and the many ways they’d sublimated them. Lisa followed that up with her first novel, Animal, and has now published a collection of short stories, Ghost Lover, in which she analyses, love, grief, obsession, ageing, body image, and, of course, sex. I’ve interviewed Lisa before, so I thought I knew what to expect: sex, rage, more sex, more rage. But this was not the chat I expected to have. Lisa was in a contemplative mood and we found ourselves dissecting women and power - or the lack of it (and this was before the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade); the way power is given with one hand and taken with the other and how success stitches up women or families. Lisa also opened up about how her mother’s fear of ageing affected her and learning not to be afraid to put a value on herself. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including GHOST LOVER by Lisa Taddeo, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is never happier than when she’s making her readers feel uncomfortable. Lisa Taddeo was a skint journalist when she wrote the groundbreaking book, Three Women - the true story of the intimate desires of three American women. 


A bestseller on both sides of the atlantic, it is now being made into a TV series starring Shailene Woodley as the author. But more than that, Three Women made millions of women take a long hard look at their own wants, needs and desires and the many ways they’d sublimated them.


Lisa followed that up with her first novel, Animal, and has now published a collection of short stories, Ghost Lover, in which she analyses, love, grief, obsession, ageing, body image, and, of course, sex.


I’ve interviewed Lisa before, so I thought I knew what to expect: sex, rage, more sex, more rage. But this was not the chat I expected to have. Lisa was in a contemplative mood and we found ourselves dissecting women and power - or the lack of it (and this was before the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade); the way power is given with one hand and taken with the other and how success stitches up women or families. Lisa also opened up about how her mother’s fear of ageing affected her and learning not to be afraid to put a value on herself.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including GHOST LOVER by Lisa Taddeo, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2359 no Janey Godley on kicking the "I'm fine" compulsion & being proud to be gallus https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the “queen of Scottish comedy”, Janey Godley. Janey has played Broadway, won loads of awards and written a bestselling memoir, Handstands in The Dark about her grim childhood. But you might know her for the viral VoiceOver videos she did of Nicola Sturgeon during lockdown. (If you haven’t seen them, check out her twitter.) Now Janey has turned her hand to fiction, with Nothing Left Unsaid, a moving but coffee-snortingly hilarious story of five single mums struggling to survive in 70s Glasgow. Think Big Little Lies set in 1970s Govan! I inhaled it in one sitting. Last November, Janey was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer - and covid, on the same day. Ever since, in true Janey style, she has shared her ups and downs on social media, on a mission to make sure everyone knows more about the signs of ovarian cancer than she did.  Janey joined me from her home in Glasgow not long after what was hopefully her last chemo to talk about the shock of ovarian cancer, writing a love letter to her mammy Annie and the wee warrior women she grew up with, feeling like a hand grenade in the family, how she finally kicked the compulsion to say “I’m fine”, not wearing a wig to make anyone else feel comfortable and why she’ll always be proud to be gallus. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including NOTHING LEFT UNSAID by Janey Godley, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 28 Jun 2022 00:00:15 -0000 Janey Godley on kicking the "I'm fine" compulsion & being proud to be gallus full 8 85 sam baker The award-winning comic wants you to know more about ovarian cancer symptoms than she did My guest today is the “queen of Scottish comedy”, Janey Godley. Janey has played Broadway, won loads of awards and written a bestselling memoir, Handstands in The Dark about her grim childhood. But you might know her for the viral VoiceOver videos she did of Nicola Sturgeon during lockdown. (If you haven’t seen them, check out her twitter.) Now Janey has turned her hand to fiction, with Nothing Left Unsaid, a moving but coffee-snortingly hilarious story of five single mums struggling to survive in 70s Glasgow. Think Big Little Lies set in 1970s Govan! I inhaled it in one sitting. Last November, Janey was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer - and covid, on the same day. Ever since, in true Janey style, she has shared her ups and downs on social media, on a mission to make sure everyone knows more about the signs of ovarian cancer than she did.  Janey joined me from her home in Glasgow not long after what was hopefully her last chemo to talk about the shock of ovarian cancer, writing a love letter to her mammy Annie and the wee warrior women she grew up with, feeling like a hand grenade in the family, how she finally kicked the compulsion to say “I’m fine”, not wearing a wig to make anyone else feel comfortable and why she’ll always be proud to be gallus. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including NOTHING LEFT UNSAID by Janey Godley, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is the “queen of Scottish comedy”, Janey Godley. Janey has played Broadway, won loads of awards and written a bestselling memoir, Handstands in The Dark about her grim childhood. But you might know her for the viral VoiceOver videos she did of Nicola Sturgeon during lockdown. (If you haven’t seen them, check out her twitter.)


Now Janey has turned her hand to fiction, with Nothing Left Unsaid, a moving but coffee-snortingly hilarious story of five single mums struggling to survive in 70s Glasgow. Think Big Little Lies set in 1970s Govan! I inhaled it in one sitting.


Last November, Janey was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer - and covid, on the same day. Ever since, in true Janey style, she has shared her ups and downs on social media, on a mission to make sure everyone knows more about the signs of ovarian cancer than she did. 


Janey joined me from her home in Glasgow not long after what was hopefully her last chemo to talk about the shock of ovarian cancer, writing a love letter to her mammy Annie and the wee warrior women she grew up with, feeling like a hand grenade in the family, how she finally kicked the compulsion to say “I’m fine”, not wearing a wig to make anyone else feel comfortable and why she’ll always be proud to be gallus.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including NOTHING LEFT UNSAID by Janey Godley, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2927 no Sabrina Pace-Humphreys on rural racism, alcoholism and the life-saving power of running https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week’s guest will make you wonder what you do with your time! Sabrina Pace-Humphreys is an award-winning business woman, a social justice activist, an ultra-runner, a mother of four and grandmother of three. (And as if that wasn't enough, right now, as of June 19th, she's running 268 miles along The Spine of the UK!) Not bad going for 44.  But it is none of those things that led her to write her memoir, Black Sheep - a story of growing up Black, on the poverty line, in small town England. As a child, and the only Black person in that town, she experienced constant bullying, verbal and physical racist abuse. She didn’t know who she was, or where she belonged. Sabrina joined me to talk about why she’s decided it’s time to speak out about rural racism. The impact of growing up in a place where literally no-one looked like her and How she finally found the identity she craved. Sabrina is incredibly frank about burying herself in workaholism and alcoholism, her battles with anxiety, and how learning to run - after a lifetime of mocking runners! - saved her. If you’re looking for motivation to start running look no further. In fact, if you’re looking for motivation full stop, you’ve found it. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including BLACK SHEEP by Sabrina Pace-Humphreys, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 21 Jun 2022 00:00:55 -0000 Sabrina Pace-Humphreys on rural racism, alcoholism and the life-saving power of running full 8 84 sam baker The 44-year-old grandmother is a one-woman motivation machine This week’s guest will make you wonder what you do with your time! Sabrina Pace-Humphreys is an award-winning business woman, a social justice activist, an ultra-runner, a mother of four and grandmother of three. (And as if that wasn't enough, right now, as of June 19th, she's running 268 miles along The Spine of the UK!) Not bad going for 44.  But it is none of those things that led her to write her memoir, Black Sheep - a story of growing up Black, on the poverty line, in small town England. As a child, and the only Black person in that town, she experienced constant bullying, verbal and physical racist abuse. She didn’t know who she was, or where she belonged. Sabrina joined me to talk about why she’s decided it’s time to speak out about rural racism. The impact of growing up in a place where literally no-one looked like her and How she finally found the identity she craved. Sabrina is incredibly frank about burying herself in workaholism and alcoholism, her battles with anxiety, and how learning to run - after a lifetime of mocking runners! - saved her. If you’re looking for motivation to start running look no further. In fact, if you’re looking for motivation full stop, you’ve found it. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including BLACK SHEEP by Sabrina Pace-Humphreys, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week’s guest will make you wonder what you do with your time! Sabrina Pace-Humphreys is an award-winning business woman, a social justice activist, an ultra-runner, a mother of four and grandmother of three. (And as if that wasn't enough, right now, as of June 19th, she's running 268 miles along The Spine of the UK!) Not bad going for 44. 


But it is none of those things that led her to write her memoir, Black Sheep - a story of growing up Black, on the poverty line, in small town England. As a child, and the only Black person in that town, she experienced constant bullying, verbal and physical racist abuse. She didn’t know who she was, or where she belonged.


Sabrina joined me to talk about why she’s decided it’s time to speak out about rural racism. The impact of growing up in a place where literally no-one looked like her and How she finally found the identity she craved. Sabrina is incredibly frank about burying herself in workaholism and alcoholism, her battles with anxiety, and how learning to run - after a lifetime of mocking runners! - saved her. If you’re looking for motivation to start running look no further. In fact, if you’re looking for motivation full stop, you’ve found it.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including BLACK SHEEP by Sabrina Pace-Humphreys, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3487 no Ruth Ozeki on why menopause is the new adolescence - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Last night Ruth won the Women's Prize for her wonderful novel, The Book Of Form And Emptiness, so I thought I'd give this another listen. Here are the original show notes: My guest this week is a novelist, film-maker - and Zen Buddhist priest. Ruth Ozeki was born in Conneticut in the 1950s to a Japanese mother and, as she puts it, caucasian anthropologist father. Despite always wanting to write, she didn’t publish her first novel until she was 40, because, in part, she “didn’t feel entitled to”. She needn’t have worried. That novel, My Year Of Meats, won the Kiriyama Prize and the American Book Award, and her third A Tale For The Time Being, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2013. Her latest novel, The Book Of Form And Emptiness, looks destined to go the same way. But buddhism has informed Ruth’s life just as much as - if not more than - writing. She joined me to run the conversational gamut! We talked meditation, ageing, grief, living through the death of our parents, writing out her teenage mental health crises, why objects mean so much to us, the appeal of Marie Kondo, coming to terms with our ageing face and why menopause and adolescence have so much in common. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Book Of Form And Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Thu, 16 Jun 2022 07:04:58 -0000 Ruth Ozeki on why menopause is the new adolescence - FROM THE ARCHIVES full 8 83 sam baker The Women's Prize winner is full of wisdom Last night Ruth won the Women's Prize for her wonderful novel, The Book Of Form And Emptiness, so I thought I'd give this another listen. Here are the original show notes: My guest this week is a novelist, film-maker - and Zen Buddhist priest. Ruth Ozeki was born in Conneticut in the 1950s to a Japanese mother and, as she puts it, caucasian anthropologist father. Despite always wanting to write, she didn’t publish her first novel until she was 40, because, in part, she “didn’t feel entitled to”. She needn’t have worried. That novel, My Year Of Meats, won the Kiriyama Prize and the American Book Award, and her third A Tale For The Time Being, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2013. Her latest novel, The Book Of Form And Emptiness, looks destined to go the same way. But buddhism has informed Ruth’s life just as much as - if not more than - writing. She joined me to run the conversational gamut! We talked meditation, ageing, grief, living through the death of our parents, writing out her teenage mental health crises, why objects mean so much to us, the appeal of Marie Kondo, coming to terms with our ageing face and why menopause and adolescence have so much in common. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Book Of Form And Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Last night Ruth won the Women's Prize for her wonderful novel, The Book Of Form And Emptiness, so I thought I'd give this another listen. Here are the original show notes:


My guest this week is a novelist, film-maker - and Zen Buddhist priest. Ruth Ozeki was born in Conneticut in the 1950s to a Japanese mother and, as she puts it, caucasian anthropologist father. Despite always wanting to write, she didn’t publish her first novel until she was 40, because, in part, she “didn’t feel entitled to”. She needn’t have worried. That novel, My Year Of Meats, won the Kiriyama Prize and the American Book Award, and her third A Tale For The Time Being, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2013. Her latest novel, The Book Of Form And Emptiness, looks destined to go the same way.


But buddhism has informed Ruth’s life just as much as - if not more than - writing. She joined me to run the conversational gamut! We talked meditation, ageing, grief, living through the death of our parents, writing out her teenage mental health crises, why objects mean so much to us, the appeal of Marie Kondo, coming to terms with our ageing face and why menopause and adolescence have so much in common.


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Book Of Form And Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2462 no Christie Watson on menopause, midlife and mischief https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I’ve lost count of the number of women I’ve spoken to who were taken totally by surprise by perimenopause but, to date, none of them actually had medical training. Todays guest changes all that. Before she was an award winning writer, Christie watson was a nurse. She spent 20 years on children’s intensive care before her debut won the Costa first novel award and altered the trajectory of her life. Since then Christie has written two bestselling nursing memoirs, including the wonderful The Language of Kindness, and a second novel. Then, aged 42, perimenopause totally floored her. A single mum of two teenagers, she suddenly found herself a “blubbering snot crying wreck” in Sainsburys car park - a stranger, inside and out. Sound familiar?! I met Christie to talk about her memoir about that experience, Quilt On Fire, in a no-man’s land opposite the US embassy. As you do. We discussed being blindsided by menopause, grey pubic hairs, biblical bleeding, and the impact of unresolved trauma. Plus Being single in midlife and braving the dating shark tank, her own personal menopause club (lucky woman), having a vulva the size of Brazil, the joy of becoming visible to older women and why nobody really has their shit together. Oh and an unexpected use for frozen fish fingers.  You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including QUILT ON FIRE by Christie Watson, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 14 Jun 2022 00:00:24 -0000 Christie Watson on menopause, midlife and mischief full 8 82 sam baker Why even people with medical training can't identify their own perimenopause I’ve lost count of the number of women I’ve spoken to who were taken totally by surprise by perimenopause but, to date, none of them actually had medical training. Todays guest changes all that. Before she was an award winning writer, Christie watson was a nurse. She spent 20 years on children’s intensive care before her debut won the Costa first novel award and altered the trajectory of her life. Since then Christie has written two bestselling nursing memoirs, including the wonderful The Language of Kindness, and a second novel. Then, aged 42, perimenopause totally floored her. A single mum of two teenagers, she suddenly found herself a “blubbering snot crying wreck” in Sainsburys car park - a stranger, inside and out. Sound familiar?! I met Christie to talk about her memoir about that experience, Quilt On Fire, in a no-man’s land opposite the US embassy. As you do. We discussed being blindsided by menopause, grey pubic hairs, biblical bleeding, and the impact of unresolved trauma. Plus Being single in midlife and braving the dating shark tank, her own personal menopause club (lucky woman), having a vulva the size of Brazil, the joy of becoming visible to older women and why nobody really has their shit together. Oh and an unexpected use for frozen fish fingers.  You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including QUILT ON FIRE by Christie Watson, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I’ve lost count of the number of women I’ve spoken to who were taken totally by surprise by perimenopause but, to date, none of them actually had medical training. Todays guest changes all that. Before she was an award winning writer, Christie watson was a nurse. She spent 20 years on children’s intensive care before her debut won the Costa first novel award and altered the trajectory of her life.


Since then Christie has written two bestselling nursing memoirs, including the wonderful The Language of Kindness, and a second novel. Then, aged 42, perimenopause totally floored her. A single mum of two teenagers, she suddenly found herself a “blubbering snot crying wreck” in Sainsburys car park - a stranger, inside and out. Sound familiar?!


I met Christie to talk about her memoir about that experience, Quilt On Fire, in a no-man’s land opposite the US embassy. As you do. We discussed being blindsided by menopause, grey pubic hairs, biblical bleeding, and the impact of unresolved trauma. Plus Being single in midlife and braving the dating shark tank, her own personal menopause club (lucky woman), having a vulva the size of Brazil, the joy of becoming visible to older women and why nobody really has their shit together. Oh and an unexpected use for frozen fish fingers. 


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including QUILT ON FIRE by Christie Watson, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3026 no Sheila Hancock on sexism, classism and the double-edged sword of being seen as a "strong woman" https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest is nothing less than an acting legend. Although she probably wouldn’t have any truck with that. Dame Sheila Hancock is that rare thing – a successful actor with working class roots, an 89 year old who’s still beating off offers with a stick and a woman who refuses to be afraid to speak her mind. Sheila has done EVERYTHING from Shakespeare to sitcoms. A member of the National Theatre Company, she was the first woman to direct at the Olivier Theatre in her 50s and has been nominated for 6 Olivier Awards, written two novels and a loose trilogy of memoirs (the second of which was about her marriage to Morse and Sweeney legend, John Thaw). The third is Old Rage, which started out as a book about the wisdom and fulfilment of old age ended up…. not! Ninety next year, Sheila is taking less prisoners than ever. She joined me from her living room to talk education and inequality, corruption, climate change and Brexit, suffering from the empathy “disease” and why being seen as a strong woman is a double-edged sword. She also told me what it was like being a working class woman in TV in the 1970s, how she learnt the consequences of speaking out the hard way and why she’s no longer bothering to conceal her rage. Sheila Hancock for PM! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including OLD RAGE by Sheila Hancock, Sheila's book recommendation, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 07 Jun 2022 00:00:31 -0000 Sheila Hancock on sexism, classism and the double-edged sword of being seen as a "strong woman" full 8 81 sam baker It's time to meet your old bird role model! Today’s guest is nothing less than an acting legend. Although she probably wouldn’t have any truck with that. Dame Sheila Hancock is that rare thing – a successful actor with working class roots, an 89 year old who’s still beating off offers with a stick and a woman who refuses to be afraid to speak her mind. Sheila has done EVERYTHING from Shakespeare to sitcoms. A member of the National Theatre Company, she was the first woman to direct at the Olivier Theatre in her 50s and has been nominated for 6 Olivier Awards, written two novels and a loose trilogy of memoirs (the second of which was about her marriage to Morse and Sweeney legend, John Thaw). The third is Old Rage, which started out as a book about the wisdom and fulfilment of old age ended up…. not! Ninety next year, Sheila is taking less prisoners than ever. She joined me from her living room to talk education and inequality, corruption, climate change and Brexit, suffering from the empathy “disease” and why being seen as a strong woman is a double-edged sword. She also told me what it was like being a working class woman in TV in the 1970s, how she learnt the consequences of speaking out the hard way and why she’s no longer bothering to conceal her rage. Sheila Hancock for PM! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including OLD RAGE by Sheila Hancock, Sheila's book recommendation, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is nothing less than an acting legend. Although she probably wouldn’t have any truck with that. Dame Sheila Hancock is that rare thing – a successful actor with working class roots, an 89 year old who’s still beating off offers with a stick and a woman who refuses to be afraid to speak her mind.


Sheila has done EVERYTHING from Shakespeare to sitcoms. A member of the National Theatre Company, she was the first woman to direct at the Olivier Theatre in her 50s and has been nominated for 6 Olivier Awards, written two novels and a loose trilogy of memoirs (the second of which was about her marriage to Morse and Sweeney legend, John Thaw). The third is Old Rage, which started out as a book about the wisdom and fulfilment of old age ended up…. not!


Ninety next year, Sheila is taking less prisoners than ever. She joined me from her living room to talk education and inequality, corruption, climate change and Brexit, suffering from the empathy “disease” and why being seen as a strong woman is a double-edged sword. She also told me what it was like being a working class woman in TV in the 1970s, how she learnt the consequences of speaking out the hard way and why she’s no longer bothering to conceal her rage. Sheila Hancock for PM!


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including OLD RAGE by Sheila Hancock, Sheila's book recommendation, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3239 no Natalie Lee on breaking free of shame and finding sexual freedom https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is a 42-year-old mum of two on a mission to kick sexual shame into touch. Natalie Lee was just like many of the rest of us. Not mad keen on her body, not as familiar with orgasm as she’d have liked to be and, by her own admission, a latecomer to masturbation. Hands up if that sounds familiar. (And don’t worry, no-one can see you!) That is until she had her daughters and realised that if she wanted them to grow up free of sexual shame, she needed to sort out her own first. After a long, hard look at herself, Natalie started her body- and sex-positive instagram account @stylemesunday and took her first semi-naked ‘this is my body, like it or lump it’ photo. Now, 110k followers later, she has shared her own journey to sexual freedom in Feeling Myself (clue’s in the name), in the hope it will help you start yours. Nat joined me in a full and frank (!) conversation about finding the confidence to end her marriage, how she overcame self-loathing, sexual experimentation, why it’s so important to talk to our children about sex (no matter how much they wish you wouldn’t!), embracing pansexuality and why the jeans don’t fit you, not the other way around You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Feeling Myself by Natalie Lee and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 31 May 2022 00:00:51 -0000 Natalie Lee on breaking free of shame and finding sexual freedom full 8 80 sam baker The StyleMeSunday blogger is on a mission to help us get back in touch with our bodies My guest today is a 42-year-old mum of two on a mission to kick sexual shame into touch. Natalie Lee was just like many of the rest of us. Not mad keen on her body, not as familiar with orgasm as she’d have liked to be and, by her own admission, a latecomer to masturbation. Hands up if that sounds familiar. (And don’t worry, no-one can see you!) That is until she had her daughters and realised that if she wanted them to grow up free of sexual shame, she needed to sort out her own first. After a long, hard look at herself, Natalie started her body- and sex-positive instagram account @stylemesunday and took her first semi-naked ‘this is my body, like it or lump it’ photo. Now, 110k followers later, she has shared her own journey to sexual freedom in Feeling Myself (clue’s in the name), in the hope it will help you start yours. Nat joined me in a full and frank (!) conversation about finding the confidence to end her marriage, how she overcame self-loathing, sexual experimentation, why it’s so important to talk to our children about sex (no matter how much they wish you wouldn’t!), embracing pansexuality and why the jeans don’t fit you, not the other way around You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Feeling Myself by Natalie Lee and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a 42-year-old mum of two on a mission to kick sexual shame into touch. Natalie Lee was just like many of the rest of us. Not mad keen on her body, not as familiar with orgasm as she’d have liked to be and, by her own admission, a latecomer to masturbation. Hands up if that sounds familiar. (And don’t worry, no-one can see you!)


That is until she had her daughters and realised that if she wanted them to grow up free of sexual shame, she needed to sort out her own first. After a long, hard look at herself, Natalie started her body- and sex-positive instagram account @stylemesunday and took her first semi-naked ‘this is my body, like it or lump it’ photo. Now, 110k followers later, she has shared her own journey to sexual freedom in Feeling Myself (clue’s in the name), in the hope it will help you start yours.


Nat joined me in a full and frank (!) conversation about finding the confidence to end her marriage, how she overcame self-loathing, sexual experimentation, why it’s so important to talk to our children about sex (no matter how much they wish you wouldn’t!), embracing pansexuality and why the jeans don’t fit you, not the other way around


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Feeling Myself by Natalie Lee and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2732 yes Amy Bloom on love, death, dignity – and tarot! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ When you enter a relationship, you rarely consider how it might end. Let’s face it, how many of us would ever do anything if we crossed THAT bridge before we came to it. For today’s guest, writer and therapist Amy Bloom, THAT BRIDGE came all too soon when her husband Brian was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers and decided he would rather “die on his feet than live on his knees”. It was a decision that sent the couple on a journey from the East coast of America to Dignitas in Switzerland. Amy’s memoir In Love is the heartbreaking account of that journey. But as the book’s title suggests this is also a tender, hopeful and passionate love letter to a man whose belief in human agency extended to his own death. CW: Just in case it doesn’t go without saying - in parts, this is not the easiest listen, Amy talks openly about the reality of an early dementia diagnosis, the right to die and living with her husband’s decision to do so. But ALSO the advantages of being older when you fall in love, why you should marry because of each other’s faults not in spite of them, why women often blow up their lives in their 50s plus her lifelong love of tarot You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including In Love by Amy Bloom, her book recommendation, Childhood, Youth, Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 24 May 2022 00:00:50 -0000 Amy Bloom on love, death, dignity – and tarot! full 8 79 sam baker The author on learning that grief is the price we pay for love When you enter a relationship, you rarely consider how it might end. Let’s face it, how many of us would ever do anything if we crossed THAT bridge before we came to it. For today’s guest, writer and therapist Amy Bloom, THAT BRIDGE came all too soon when her husband Brian was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers and decided he would rather “die on his feet than live on his knees”. It was a decision that sent the couple on a journey from the East coast of America to Dignitas in Switzerland. Amy’s memoir In Love is the heartbreaking account of that journey. But as the book’s title suggests this is also a tender, hopeful and passionate love letter to a man whose belief in human agency extended to his own death. CW: Just in case it doesn’t go without saying - in parts, this is not the easiest listen, Amy talks openly about the reality of an early dementia diagnosis, the right to die and living with her husband’s decision to do so. But ALSO the advantages of being older when you fall in love, why you should marry because of each other’s faults not in spite of them, why women often blow up their lives in their 50s plus her lifelong love of tarot You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including In Love by Amy Bloom, her book recommendation, Childhood, Youth, Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices When you enter a relationship, you rarely consider how it might end. Let’s face it, how many of us would ever do anything if we crossed THAT bridge before we came to it.


For today’s guest, writer and therapist Amy Bloom, THAT BRIDGE came all too soon when her husband Brian was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers and decided he would rather “die on his feet than live on his knees”. It was a decision that sent the couple on a journey from the East coast of America to Dignitas in Switzerland. Amy’s memoir In Love is the heartbreaking account of that journey. But as the book’s title suggests this is also a tender, hopeful and passionate love letter to a man whose belief in human agency extended to his own death.


CW: Just in case it doesn’t go without saying - in parts, this is not the easiest listen, Amy talks openly about the reality of an early dementia diagnosis, the right to die and living with her husband’s decision to do so.


But ALSO the advantages of being older when you fall in love, why you should marry because of each other’s faults not in spite of them, why women often blow up their lives in their 50s plus her lifelong love of tarot


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including In Love by Amy Bloom, her book recommendation, Childhood, Youth, Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2565 no BONUS: Sam Baker on menopause, the HRT lottery and the power of invisibility https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Welcome to this special bonus episode of The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post 40. Created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam baker.  Listeners often ask why I don’t put myself on the receiving end of The Shift!? Well, a couple of weeks ago I did just that. When I was interviewed about menopause, misogyny, the HRT lottery and all things midlife by my friend Jennifer Crichton, creator of The Flock, at Edinburgh Wellbeing Festival. As you will hear, it’s not the highest quality, as it was recorded in an auditorium with a live audience, but I hope it gives you a taster of what The Shift Live could be like. (Watch this space for more on that!) And if you enjoy this, why not sign up to The Shift newsletter for features about everything from menopause and midlife to money, relationships, sex, you name it. Plus you'll get first dibs on exclusive podcasts, transcripts of your favourite episodes, book recommendations and much more. Find out more and sign up at steady.media/theshift • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sat, 21 May 2022 00:00:14 -0000 BONUS: Sam Baker on menopause, the HRT lottery and the power of invisibility bonus 8 78 sam baker Recorded live at the Edinburgh Wellbeing Festival Welcome to this special bonus episode of The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post 40. Created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam baker.  Listeners often ask why I don’t put myself on the receiving end of The Shift!? Well, a couple of weeks ago I did just that. When I was interviewed about menopause, misogyny, the HRT lottery and all things midlife by my friend Jennifer Crichton, creator of The Flock, at Edinburgh Wellbeing Festival. As you will hear, it’s not the highest quality, as it was recorded in an auditorium with a live audience, but I hope it gives you a taster of what The Shift Live could be like. (Watch this space for more on that!) And if you enjoy this, why not sign up to The Shift newsletter for features about everything from menopause and midlife to money, relationships, sex, you name it. Plus you'll get first dibs on exclusive podcasts, transcripts of your favourite episodes, book recommendations and much more. Find out more and sign up at steady.media/theshift • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Welcome to this special bonus episode of The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post 40. Created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam baker. 


Listeners often ask why I don’t put myself on the receiving end of The Shift!? Well, a couple of weeks ago I did just that. When I was interviewed about menopause, misogyny, the HRT lottery and all things midlife by my friend Jennifer Crichton, creator of The Flock, at Edinburgh Wellbeing Festival.


As you will hear, it’s not the highest quality, as it was recorded in an auditorium with a live audience, but I hope it gives you a taster of what The Shift Live could be like. (Watch this space for more on that!)


And if you enjoy this, why not sign up to The Shift newsletter for features about everything from menopause and midlife to money, relationships, sex, you name it. Plus you'll get first dibs on exclusive podcasts, transcripts of your favourite episodes, book recommendations and much more. Find out more and sign up at steady.media/theshift


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2162 no Minnie Driver on ageing, expectation and creased Brad Pitt! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is one of the most enduring movie actresses of our (by which I mean my!) generation. Minnie Driver made her first film, Circle of Friends in 1995, and went on to follow that with a lead role in Stanley Tucci’s gorgeous ode to Italian food, Big Night, an Oscar nominated turn in Goodwill Hunting. And my personal favourite Grosse Point Blank.  Now 52, with a 13yo son, Henry, and over fifty roles under her belt, Minnie is still “doing Hollywood” very much her own way. As well as two albums and a podcast (Minnie’s Questions), she’s now written a memoir, Managing Expectations, a book about how things not working out for her inevitably led to other things working out. Minnie joined me from her LA home to tell me why being called outspoken makes her want to punch walls, overcoming the curse of other people’s expectations (and her own!), why she always felt like a failure for not being married, how getting fired never feels any less unjust and embracing her vengeful streak! She also introduces me to the concept of is-ness, shares her big hair survival tips and has things to say about why Hollywood dudes can be creased, but women can’t! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Managing Expectations by Minnie Driver, Minnie's book recommendation Send Nudes by Saba Sams and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 17 May 2022 00:00:00 -0000 Minnie Driver on ageing, expectation and creased Brad Pitt! full 8 77 sam baker The actress discusses the myth of the difficult woman, marriage "failure" and Hollywood's double standards (amongst other things!) My guest this week is one of the most enduring movie actresses of our (by which I mean my!) generation. Minnie Driver made her first film, Circle of Friends in 1995, and went on to follow that with a lead role in Stanley Tucci’s gorgeous ode to Italian food, Big Night, an Oscar nominated turn in Goodwill Hunting. And my personal favourite Grosse Point Blank.  Now 52, with a 13yo son, Henry, and over fifty roles under her belt, Minnie is still “doing Hollywood” very much her own way. As well as two albums and a podcast (Minnie’s Questions), she’s now written a memoir, Managing Expectations, a book about how things not working out for her inevitably led to other things working out. Minnie joined me from her LA home to tell me why being called outspoken makes her want to punch walls, overcoming the curse of other people’s expectations (and her own!), why she always felt like a failure for not being married, how getting fired never feels any less unjust and embracing her vengeful streak! She also introduces me to the concept of is-ness, shares her big hair survival tips and has things to say about why Hollywood dudes can be creased, but women can’t! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Managing Expectations by Minnie Driver, Minnie's book recommendation Send Nudes by Saba Sams and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is one of the most enduring movie actresses of our (by which I mean my!) generation. Minnie Driver made her first film, Circle of Friends in 1995, and went on to follow that with a lead role in Stanley Tucci’s gorgeous ode to Italian food, Big Night, an Oscar nominated turn in Goodwill Hunting. And my personal favourite Grosse Point Blank. 


Now 52, with a 13yo son, Henry, and over fifty roles under her belt, Minnie is still “doing Hollywood” very much her own way. As well as two albums and a podcast (Minnie’s Questions), she’s now written a memoir, Managing Expectations, a book about how things not working out for her inevitably led to other things working out.


Minnie joined me from her LA home to tell me why being called outspoken makes her want to punch walls, overcoming the curse of other people’s expectations (and her own!), why she always felt like a failure for not being married, how getting fired never feels any less unjust and embracing her vengeful streak! She also introduces me to the concept of is-ness, shares her big hair survival tips and has things to say about why Hollywood dudes can be creased, but women can’t!


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Managing Expectations by Minnie Driver, Minnie's book recommendation Send Nudes by Saba Sams and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2622 no Abi Morgan on embracing catastrophe and rebuilding just about everything in your 50s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest is a woman I’ve admired for the longest time: stage and screenwriter Abi Morgan. Throughout her thirty year career Abi has written some of our most memorable drama: Shame, Sex Traffic, The Queen, Iron Lady, The Hour (for which she won an Emmy), Suffragette and, most recently, the BBCone hit, The Split. In her work, female characters took centre stage long before that became the fashionable thing to do. But now, Abi has been forced to take centre stage herself. Four years ago, she returned home one lunchtime to find her partner of 20 years, Jakob, collapsed on the bathroom floor. It was the start of a sequence of events that would upend their family forever. And it’s the subject of perhaps the most extraordinary memoir I have ever read - This is Not a Pity memoir. And it isn’t. It’s about love, trauma and ultimately - weirdly! - about hope. Abi joined me to talk candidly about the cataclysmic impact of Jake’s illness, the long - and ongoing - journey to rebuild their family and how, in the midst of all that, she coped with her own breast cancer diagnosis. She also told me about being a lone woman in a world of white men in leather jackets, budging up to make room at the table and why she’s done with being “user-friendly”. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including This Is Not A Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 10 May 2022 00:00:27 -0000 Abi Morgan on embracing catastrophe and rebuilding just about everything in your 50s full 8 76 sam baker The award-winning screenwriter of The Split tells how she coped when her husband no longer recognised her Today’s guest is a woman I’ve admired for the longest time: stage and screenwriter Abi Morgan. Throughout her thirty year career Abi has written some of our most memorable drama: Shame, Sex Traffic, The Queen, Iron Lady, The Hour (for which she won an Emmy), Suffragette and, most recently, the BBCone hit, The Split. In her work, female characters took centre stage long before that became the fashionable thing to do. But now, Abi has been forced to take centre stage herself. Four years ago, she returned home one lunchtime to find her partner of 20 years, Jakob, collapsed on the bathroom floor. It was the start of a sequence of events that would upend their family forever. And it’s the subject of perhaps the most extraordinary memoir I have ever read - This is Not a Pity memoir. And it isn’t. It’s about love, trauma and ultimately - weirdly! - about hope. Abi joined me to talk candidly about the cataclysmic impact of Jake’s illness, the long - and ongoing - journey to rebuild their family and how, in the midst of all that, she coped with her own breast cancer diagnosis. She also told me about being a lone woman in a world of white men in leather jackets, budging up to make room at the table and why she’s done with being “user-friendly”. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including This Is Not A Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is a woman I’ve admired for the longest time: stage and screenwriter Abi Morgan. Throughout her thirty year career Abi has written some of our most memorable drama: Shame, Sex Traffic, The Queen, Iron Lady, The Hour (for which she won an Emmy), Suffragette and, most recently, the BBCone hit, The Split. In her work, female characters took centre stage long before that became the fashionable thing to do.


But now, Abi has been forced to take centre stage herself. Four years ago, she returned home one lunchtime to find her partner of 20 years, Jakob, collapsed on the bathroom floor. It was the start of a sequence of events that would upend their family forever. And it’s the subject of perhaps the most extraordinary memoir I have ever read - This is Not a Pity memoir. And it isn’t. It’s about love, trauma and ultimately - weirdly! - about hope.


Abi joined me to talk candidly about the cataclysmic impact of Jake’s illness, the long - and ongoing - journey to rebuild their family and how, in the midst of all that, she coped with her own breast cancer diagnosis. She also told me about being a lone woman in a world of white men in leather jackets, budging up to make room at the table and why she’s done with being “user-friendly”.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including This Is Not A Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3080 no Chitra Ramaswamy on memory, mothering & the "mid-life gift" of responsibility https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is the award-winning journalist Chitra Ramaswamy. And, lucky me, Chitra lives in Edinburgh so - before I go any further - let me revel in the joy that was recording this episode IRL! With an actual RL person! I know… Anyway, back to Chitra. Her first book, Expecting: the inner life of pregnancy was garlanded with praise and won the Saltire First Book award. Her new memoir-come-social-history, Homelands, is the moving story of a most unlikely friendship - between Chitra, who was born in London in the 1970s to Indian immigrant parents, and Henry Wuga, a 98 year old jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany in 1939.  Sitting in Chitra’s kitchen (with her rescue dog, Daphne, who you will hear plenty of snoring in the background!) we discussed the importance of finding commonalities, learning to talk about shame, living with a mother-shaped hole and what her friendship with Henry taught her about a talent for happiness. We also talked about the midlife “gift” of responsibility, the tyranny of the life list, and why she hopes she’ll age eccentrically. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Homelands by Chitra Ramaswamy and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 03 May 2022 00:00:05 -0000 Chitra Ramaswamy on memory, mothering & the "mid-life gift" of responsibility full 8 75 sam baker And what an unlikely cross-generational friendship taught her about happiness My guest this week is the award-winning journalist Chitra Ramaswamy. And, lucky me, Chitra lives in Edinburgh so - before I go any further - let me revel in the joy that was recording this episode IRL! With an actual RL person! I know… Anyway, back to Chitra. Her first book, Expecting: the inner life of pregnancy was garlanded with praise and won the Saltire First Book award. Her new memoir-come-social-history, Homelands, is the moving story of a most unlikely friendship - between Chitra, who was born in London in the 1970s to Indian immigrant parents, and Henry Wuga, a 98 year old jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany in 1939.  Sitting in Chitra’s kitchen (with her rescue dog, Daphne, who you will hear plenty of snoring in the background!) we discussed the importance of finding commonalities, learning to talk about shame, living with a mother-shaped hole and what her friendship with Henry taught her about a talent for happiness. We also talked about the midlife “gift” of responsibility, the tyranny of the life list, and why she hopes she’ll age eccentrically. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Homelands by Chitra Ramaswamy and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is the award-winning journalist Chitra Ramaswamy. And, lucky me, Chitra lives in Edinburgh so - before I go any further - let me revel in the joy that was recording this episode IRL! With an actual RL person! I know…


Anyway, back to Chitra. Her first book, Expecting: the inner life of pregnancy was garlanded with praise and won the Saltire First Book award. Her new memoir-come-social-history, Homelands, is the moving story of a most unlikely friendship - between Chitra, who was born in London in the 1970s to Indian immigrant parents, and Henry Wuga, a 98 year old jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany in 1939. 


Sitting in Chitra’s kitchen (with her rescue dog, Daphne, who you will hear plenty of snoring in the background!) we discussed the importance of finding commonalities, learning to talk about shame, living with a mother-shaped hole and what her friendship with Henry taught her about a talent for happiness. We also talked about the midlife “gift” of responsibility, the tyranny of the life list, and why she hopes she’ll age eccentrically.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Homelands by Chitra Ramaswamy and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3263 no Nina Stibbe on the relationship-saving power of a sofa bed! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ What happens when “one of the great comic writers of our time” hits menopause? That’s the conundrum that faced this week’s guest, award-winning novelist Nina Stibbe when she sat down to write her new novel.  With five bestselling books under her belt, including her memoir, Love Nina, which was turned into a hit TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter. And three novels centred around the turbulent teens and twenties of her alter-ego Lizzie Vogel, Nina decided it was time to turn her hand to middle age.  In One Day I Shall Astonish The World, Nina examines the heartbreak, hilarity and occasional hatred of a friendship that stretches from late teens to mid-50s by way of very different love, life and career choices. Nina joined me from Cornwall to talk about being hit by the menopause truck, the pressure to be always funny and why her greatest midlife inspiration has come from comedy women. She also said she looks older than her mum and shared her ultimate midlife relationship-saver: the sofa bed. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including One Day I Shall Astonish The World by Nina Stibbe and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 26 Apr 2022 00:00:35 -0000 Nina Stibbe on the relationship-saving power of a sofa bed! full 8 74 sam baker The award-winning comic writer turns her hand to menopause, middle age and midlife sex scenes What happens when “one of the great comic writers of our time” hits menopause? That’s the conundrum that faced this week’s guest, award-winning novelist Nina Stibbe when she sat down to write her new novel.  With five bestselling books under her belt, including her memoir, Love Nina, which was turned into a hit TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter. And three novels centred around the turbulent teens and twenties of her alter-ego Lizzie Vogel, Nina decided it was time to turn her hand to middle age.  In One Day I Shall Astonish The World, Nina examines the heartbreak, hilarity and occasional hatred of a friendship that stretches from late teens to mid-50s by way of very different love, life and career choices. Nina joined me from Cornwall to talk about being hit by the menopause truck, the pressure to be always funny and why her greatest midlife inspiration has come from comedy women. She also said she looks older than her mum and shared her ultimate midlife relationship-saver: the sofa bed. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including One Day I Shall Astonish The World by Nina Stibbe and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices What happens when “one of the great comic writers of our time” hits menopause? That’s the conundrum that faced this week’s guest, award-winning novelist Nina Stibbe when she sat down to write her new novel. 


With five bestselling books under her belt, including her memoir, Love Nina, which was turned into a hit TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter. And three novels centred around the turbulent teens and twenties of her alter-ego Lizzie Vogel, Nina decided it was time to turn her hand to middle age. 


In One Day I Shall Astonish The World, Nina examines the heartbreak, hilarity and occasional hatred of a friendship that stretches from late teens to mid-50s by way of very different love, life and career choices.


Nina joined me from Cornwall to talk about being hit by the menopause truck, the pressure to be always funny and why her greatest midlife inspiration has come from comedy women. She also said she looks older than her mum and shared her ultimate midlife relationship-saver: the sofa bed.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including One Day I Shall Astonish The World by Nina Stibbe and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2056 no Jojo Moyes on radical life change in your 40s - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Back in the before times, I had an idea to launch a podcast that celebrated the achievements and lives of women over 40. With a couple of friends and an idiot-proof microphone I recorded the first series of what was to become The Shift. This is a replay of one of the first episodes I ever recorded - with my friend Jojo Moyes. Little did we know that two and a half years later we would only have seen each other a handful of times and EVERYTHING would have changed irrevocably. It's a real blast from the past in so many ways. Here are the original show notes: How does it feel to suddenly become ultra-visible just as the world is trying to invisible you? That’s what happened to this week’s guest, mega-selling novelist Jojo Moyes, when the book her old publishers didn't want to publish - Me Before You - became a global bestseller and smash-hit movie in her mid-40s.  Since then every book Jojo has written has been a bestseller and she’s sold the movie rights to pretty much everything she’s ever written. (Not remotely jealous.) Her latest, The Giver Of Stars, the transporting story of a group of women setting up a horseback library in the Appalachians is currently at the top of the bestseller lists and a movie is underway.  But life wasn’t always like that. Far from it. Jojo is funny and frank about the impact of stratospheric success on her professional and personal life. How it felt to be suddenly visible in her late forties. Health, fitness, freedom, a new found love of clothes and why she feels better than ever at 50. She also reveals how she finally overcame Imposter Syndrome, why she no longer suffers fools and how making new friends at 50 has been a revelation.  The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. The Giver Of Stars by Jojo Moyes is out now in paperback and available to buy here. Jojo's book recommendation: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, out now in paperback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 19 Apr 2022 00:00:26 -0000 Jojo Moyes on radical life change in your 40s - FROM THE ARCHIVES full 7 73 sam baker <p>Back in the before times, I had an idea to launch a podcast that celebrated the achievements and lives of women over 40. With a couple of friends and an idiot-proof microphone I recorded the first series of what was to become The Shift. This is a replay of one of the first episodes I ever recorded - with my friend Jojo Moyes. Little did we know that two and a half years later we would only have seen each other a handful of times and EVERYTHING would have changed irrevocably. It's a real blast from the past in so many ways.</p><br><p>Here are the original show notes:</p><br><p>How does it feel to suddenly become ultra-visible just as the world is trying to invisible you? That’s what happened to this week’s guest, mega-selling novelist Jojo Moyes, when the book her old publishers didn't want to publish - Me Before You - became a global bestseller and smash-hit movie in her mid-40s.&nbsp;</p><br><p>Since then every book Jojo has written has been a bestseller and she’s sold the movie rights to pretty much everything she’s ever written. (Not remotely jealous.) Her latest, The Giver Of Stars, the transporting story of a group of women setting up a horseback library in the Appalachians is currently at the top of the bestseller lists and a movie is underway.&nbsp;</p><br><p>But life wasn’t always like that. Far from it. Jojo is funny and frank about the impact of stratospheric success on her professional and personal life. How it felt to be suddenly visible in her late forties. Health, fitness, freedom, a new found love of clothes and why she feels better than ever at 50. She also reveals how she finally overcame Imposter Syndrome, why she no longer suffers fools and how making new friends at 50 has been a revelation.&nbsp;</p><br><p>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford.&nbsp;I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker</p><br><p>And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at <a href="https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/</a></p><br><p><strong>The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker</strong> is out now in hardback and available to buy <a href="https://amzn.to/2QguHBP" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><br><p><strong>The Giver Of Stars by Jojo Moyes</strong> is out now in paperback and available to buy <a href="https://amzn.to/2EbyYU8" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><br><p><strong>Jojo's book recommendation: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo</strong>, out now in paperback and available to buy <a href="https://amzn.to/2RmE03j" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> Back in the before times, I had an idea to launch a podcast that celebrated the achievements and lives of women over 40. With a couple of friends and an idiot-proof microphone I recorded the first series of what was to become The Shift. This is a replay of one of the first episodes I ever recorded - with my friend Jojo Moyes. Little did we know that two and a half years later we would only have seen each other a handful of times and EVERYTHING would have changed irrevocably. It's a real blast from the past in so many ways. Here are the original show notes: How does it feel to suddenly become ultra-visible just as the world is trying to invisible you? That’s what happened to this week’s guest, mega-selling novelist Jojo Moyes, when the book her old publishers didn't want to publish - Me Before You - became a global bestseller and smash-hit movie in her mid-40s.  Since then every book Jojo has written has been a bestseller and she’s sold the movie rights to pretty much everything she’s ever written. (Not remotely jealous.) Her latest, The Giver Of Stars, the transporting story of a group of women setting up a horseback library in the Appalachians is currently at the top of the bestseller lists and a movie is underway.  But life wasn’t always like that. Far from it. Jojo is funny and frank about the impact of stratospheric success on her professional and personal life. How it felt to be suddenly visible in her late forties. Health, fitness, freedom, a new found love of clothes and why she feels better than ever at 50. She also reveals how she finally overcame Imposter Syndrome, why she no longer suffers fools and how making new friends at 50 has been a revelation.  The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. The Giver Of Stars by Jojo Moyes is out now in paperback and available to buy here. Jojo's book recommendation: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, out now in paperback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Back in the before times, I had an idea to launch a podcast that celebrated the achievements and lives of women over 40. With a couple of friends and an idiot-proof microphone I recorded the first series of what was to become The Shift. This is a replay of one of the first episodes I ever recorded - with my friend Jojo Moyes. Little did we know that two and a half years later we would only have seen each other a handful of times and EVERYTHING would have changed irrevocably. It's a real blast from the past in so many ways.


Here are the original show notes:


How does it feel to suddenly become ultra-visible just as the world is trying to invisible you? That’s what happened to this week’s guest, mega-selling novelist Jojo Moyes, when the book her old publishers didn't want to publish - Me Before You - became a global bestseller and smash-hit movie in her mid-40s. 


Since then every book Jojo has written has been a bestseller and she’s sold the movie rights to pretty much everything she’s ever written. (Not remotely jealous.) Her latest, The Giver Of Stars, the transporting story of a group of women setting up a horseback library in the Appalachians is currently at the top of the bestseller lists and a movie is underway. 


But life wasn’t always like that. Far from it. Jojo is funny and frank about the impact of stratospheric success on her professional and personal life. How it felt to be suddenly visible in her late forties. Health, fitness, freedom, a new found love of clothes and why she feels better than ever at 50. She also reveals how she finally overcame Imposter Syndrome, why she no longer suffers fools and how making new friends at 50 has been a revelation. 


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


The Giver Of Stars by Jojo Moyes is out now in paperback and available to buy here.


Jojo's book recommendation: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, out now in paperback and available to buy here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2933 no Philippa Perry takes issue with your inner critic - FROM THE ARCHIVE https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Since I recorded this episode with Philippa Perry she's gone from strength to strength. Her already bestselling book has spent even more weeks at number one, she's got a new problem page in The Observer magazine - and it's brilliant. And now she's back on our screens with husband Grayson (and more importantly, Kevin the cat) in Grayson's Art Club. (It should be Grayson and Philippa's Art Club, but hey ho...) Here are the original show notes: How's 2021 for you so far?! I know, right? Well, who better to grab us by the scruff of the neck at just the point our meagre enthusiasm is starting to wear off than Philippa Perry? Philippa has been a psychotherapist for 20 years. She’s also an agony aunt, presenter and author of the bestseller, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad you did) - a clever, funny - and SANE - guide that acknowledges ‘they f*ck you up, your mum and dad’, and then helps you try not to do the same. Philippa is completely fascinating as she talks about “getting hold of the steering wheel of life”, why plummeting oestrogen levels made her “homicidal not suicidal”, why women should stop playing “mine’s smaller than yours” and her own battle to silence her inner critic. And if you want to know how to make a sweary cushion you’ve come to the right place. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too and The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read and Couch Fiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 12 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -0000 Philippa Perry takes issue with your inner critic - FROM THE ARCHIVE full 7 72 sam baker The agony aunt says it's time for women to stop playing "mine's smaller than yours" Since I recorded this episode with Philippa Perry she's gone from strength to strength. Her already bestselling book has spent even more weeks at number one, she's got a new problem page in The Observer magazine - and it's brilliant. And now she's back on our screens with husband Grayson (and more importantly, Kevin the cat) in Grayson's Art Club. (It should be Grayson and Philippa's Art Club, but hey ho...) Here are the original show notes: How's 2021 for you so far?! I know, right? Well, who better to grab us by the scruff of the neck at just the point our meagre enthusiasm is starting to wear off than Philippa Perry? Philippa has been a psychotherapist for 20 years. She’s also an agony aunt, presenter and author of the bestseller, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad you did) - a clever, funny - and SANE - guide that acknowledges ‘they f*ck you up, your mum and dad’, and then helps you try not to do the same. Philippa is completely fascinating as she talks about “getting hold of the steering wheel of life”, why plummeting oestrogen levels made her “homicidal not suicidal”, why women should stop playing “mine’s smaller than yours” and her own battle to silence her inner critic. And if you want to know how to make a sweary cushion you’ve come to the right place. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too and The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read and Couch Fiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Since I recorded this episode with Philippa Perry she's gone from strength to strength. Her already bestselling book has spent even more weeks at number one, she's got a new problem page in The Observer magazine - and it's brilliant. And now she's back on our screens with husband Grayson (and more importantly, Kevin the cat) in Grayson's Art Club. (It should be Grayson and Philippa's Art Club, but hey ho...)


Here are the original show notes:


How's 2021 for you so far?! I know, right? Well, who better to grab us by the scruff of the neck at just the point our meagre enthusiasm is starting to wear off than Philippa Perry? Philippa has been a psychotherapist for 20 years. She’s also an agony aunt, presenter and author of the bestseller, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad you did) - a clever, funny - and SANE - guide that acknowledges ‘they f*ck you up, your mum and dad’, and then helps you try not to do the same.


Philippa is completely fascinating as she talks about “getting hold of the steering wheel of life”, why plummeting oestrogen levels made her “homicidal not suicidal”, why women should stop playing “mine’s smaller than yours” and her own battle to silence her inner critic. And if you want to know how to make a sweary cushion you’ve come to the right place.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too and The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read and Couch Fiction.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2361 yes Lindsey Hilsum on menopause in a warzone - FROM THE ARCHIVES https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. This is a replay of one of my all time favourites. I was in awe of the indomitable Channel 4 international editor Lindsey Hilsum when I interviewed her 15 months ago and even more so now, as we watch her daily reporting from the devastation that has been wrought on Ukraine by Russian troops. Here are the original show notes: You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012. Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years… You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 05 Apr 2022 00:00:16 -0000 Lindsey Hilsum on menopause in a warzone - FROM THE ARCHIVES full 7 71 sam baker <p>One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. This is a replay of one of my all time favourites. I was in awe of the indomitable Channel 4 international editor Lindsey Hilsum when I interviewed her 15 months ago and even more so now, as we watch her daily reporting from the devastation that has been wrought on Ukraine by Russian troops.</p><br><p>Here are the original show notes:</p><br><p>You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012.</p><br><p>Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years…</p><br><p>You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at <a href="https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/sambaker" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, including the book that accompanies this podcast, <em>The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too</em> by Sam Baker and <em>In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin </em>by Lindsey Hilsum.</p><br><p>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br><p>And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at <a href="https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/</a></p><p><br></p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. This is a replay of one of my all time favourites. I was in awe of the indomitable Channel 4 international editor Lindsey Hilsum when I interviewed her 15 months ago and even more so now, as we watch her daily reporting from the devastation that has been wrought on Ukraine by Russian troops. Here are the original show notes: You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012. Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years… You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices One of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. This is a replay of one of my all time favourites. I was in awe of the indomitable Channel 4 international editor Lindsey Hilsum when I interviewed her 15 months ago and even more so now, as we watch her daily reporting from the devastation that has been wrought on Ukraine by Russian troops.


Here are the original show notes:


You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012.


Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years…


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2456 no Delia Ephron on getting a second chance at life and love in your 70s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My final guest of the season is the acclaimed screenwriter and bestselling author, Delia Ephron. Unfailingly wise, warm and witty, Delia is perhaps best known as co-writer of the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks smash hit You’ve Got Mail, with her sister, the writer and director Nora Ephron,. Delia’s new memoir, Left On Tenth, is the kind of story that would out-rom if not out-com - anything Nora could have come up with. Except… every word is true. At 72, Delia found herself quite literally left on Tenth street in Manhattan, when her husband of 37 years, Jerry, died of cancer, just three years after the death of her beloved big sister Nora. A year later Delia reconnected with Peter, a man she didn’t even remember dating in college. It was love at second sight. But that was only the start of the story. Because just four months later, Delia was diagnosed with the same cancer that killed her sister. Now 77, and recovering from a successful bone marrow transplant, Delia joined me from California to talk about getting a second chance at life and love in your 70s, the imperfection of sisterhood, being a lifelong worrier, why friendship is her superpower and shy she's addicted to blow dries (and pastries!). Oh, and, “if someone wants to crush your dreams with their big fat foot get out!”.  You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Left On Tenth by Delia Ephron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 29 Mar 2022 00:00:21 -0000 Delia Ephron on getting a second chance at life and love in your 70s full 7 70 sam baker An emotional chat with the hit screenwriter of You've Got Mail: pastries, blow-dries, friend-daughters, discovering your voice and her bossy big sister, Nora Ephron My final guest of the season is the acclaimed screenwriter and bestselling author, Delia Ephron. Unfailingly wise, warm and witty, Delia is perhaps best known as co-writer of the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks smash hit You’ve Got Mail, with her sister, the writer and director Nora Ephron,. Delia’s new memoir, Left On Tenth, is the kind of story that would out-rom if not out-com - anything Nora could have come up with. Except… every word is true. At 72, Delia found herself quite literally left on Tenth street in Manhattan, when her husband of 37 years, Jerry, died of cancer, just three years after the death of her beloved big sister Nora. A year later Delia reconnected with Peter, a man she didn’t even remember dating in college. It was love at second sight. But that was only the start of the story. Because just four months later, Delia was diagnosed with the same cancer that killed her sister. Now 77, and recovering from a successful bone marrow transplant, Delia joined me from California to talk about getting a second chance at life and love in your 70s, the imperfection of sisterhood, being a lifelong worrier, why friendship is her superpower and shy she's addicted to blow dries (and pastries!). Oh, and, “if someone wants to crush your dreams with their big fat foot get out!”.  You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Left On Tenth by Delia Ephron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My final guest of the season is the acclaimed screenwriter and bestselling author, Delia Ephron. Unfailingly wise, warm and witty, Delia is perhaps best known as co-writer of the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks smash hit You’ve Got Mail, with her sister, the writer and director Nora Ephron,.


Delia’s new memoir, Left On Tenth, is the kind of story that would out-rom if not out-com - anything Nora could have come up with. Except… every word is true.


At 72, Delia found herself quite literally left on Tenth street in Manhattan, when her husband of 37 years, Jerry, died of cancer, just three years after the death of her beloved big sister Nora. A year later Delia reconnected with Peter, a man she didn’t even remember dating in college. It was love at second sight. But that was only the start of the story. Because just four months later, Delia was diagnosed with the same cancer that killed her sister.


Now 77, and recovering from a successful bone marrow transplant, Delia joined me from California to talk about getting a second chance at life and love in your 70s, the imperfection of sisterhood, being a lifelong worrier, why friendship is her superpower and shy she's addicted to blow dries (and pastries!). Oh, and, “if someone wants to crush your dreams with their big fat foot get out!”. 


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Left On Tenth by Delia Ephron and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2786 no Kat Farmer has the answer to all your "my wardrobe hates me" dilemmas https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Totally lost sight of your personal style? Feel like your clothes hate you? Whether it’s the result of two years in and out of lockdown, emerging from the motherhood tunnel or the advent of menopause, many of us no longer have a clue how to get dressed. Enter this week’s guest: Kat Farmer, better known by her instagram handle @doesmybumlook40 - best friend to every woman with nothing to wear for who they want to be today. But scroll back a decade and Kat wasn’t a style savvy influencer with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, she was a mum of three small children, in her late thirties, who had completely lost her way. Kat’s now written a book - Get Changed, finding the new you through fashion - a typically friendly and low-key guide to just that. TBH I was hoping that when I spoke to Kat I’d also get a free wardrobe detox - bloody covid! Instead, we ended up on zoom talking everything from reinventing your career to why clothes are the key to our identity, how the fashion industry is finally wising up to older women and why her rule of three will put an end to all your shopping mistakes. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Get Changed by Kat Farmer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 22 Mar 2022 01:00:26 -0000 Kat Farmer has the answer to all your "my wardrobe hates me" dilemmas full 7 69 sam baker The woman better known as @doesmybumlook40 on rediscovering your identity through fashion, her failsafe labels and why she’ll never be seen dead in a fun-lining Totally lost sight of your personal style? Feel like your clothes hate you? Whether it’s the result of two years in and out of lockdown, emerging from the motherhood tunnel or the advent of menopause, many of us no longer have a clue how to get dressed. Enter this week’s guest: Kat Farmer, better known by her instagram handle @doesmybumlook40 - best friend to every woman with nothing to wear for who they want to be today. But scroll back a decade and Kat wasn’t a style savvy influencer with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, she was a mum of three small children, in her late thirties, who had completely lost her way. Kat’s now written a book - Get Changed, finding the new you through fashion - a typically friendly and low-key guide to just that. TBH I was hoping that when I spoke to Kat I’d also get a free wardrobe detox - bloody covid! Instead, we ended up on zoom talking everything from reinventing your career to why clothes are the key to our identity, how the fashion industry is finally wising up to older women and why her rule of three will put an end to all your shopping mistakes. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Get Changed by Kat Farmer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Totally lost sight of your personal style? Feel like your clothes hate you? Whether it’s the result of two years in and out of lockdown, emerging from the motherhood tunnel or the advent of menopause, many of us no longer have a clue how to get dressed.


Enter this week’s guest: Kat Farmer, better known by her instagram handle @doesmybumlook40 - best friend to every woman with nothing to wear for who they want to be today.


But scroll back a decade and Kat wasn’t a style savvy influencer with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, she was a mum of three small children, in her late thirties, who had completely lost her way.


Kat’s now written a book - Get Changed, finding the new you through fashion - a typically friendly and low-key guide to just that.


TBH I was hoping that when I spoke to Kat I’d also get a free wardrobe detox - bloody covid! Instead, we ended up on zoom talking everything from reinventing your career to why clothes are the key to our identity, how the fashion industry is finally wising up to older women and why her rule of three will put an end to all your shopping mistakes.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Get Changed by Kat Farmer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3162 no Dana Spiotta on putting paid to menopause shame https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ When was the last time you read a book where the central character was not just perimenopausal but also talked and thought about menopause and its impact on her life. And she wasn’t a laughing stock? I’m prepared to bet never. That was the driving force for my guest this week, novelist Dana Spiotta. What if, she asked herself, the lead characters of some of her favourite books had had a hot flush? Think Mrs Dalloway on HRT. The resulting novel, Wayward, is the story of 53 year old Sam who, in the midst of the chaos and perverse clarity of perimenopause falls in love with a rundown house, buys it and leaves her husband, teenage daughter and the suburban security of married life in pursuit of a new her. Wayward is a blast of fresh air; funny, furious and extremely close to home! Dana joined me from her home in Syracuse, upstate New York, to talk about accidentally writing a “menopause novel”, how her own perimenopause informed her characters (cue, rage, insomnia and midlife misogyny), what happens when menopause and puberty collide and why people are still grossed out by the truth about female bodies. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Wayward by Dana Spiotta and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 15 Mar 2022 01:00:41 -0000 Dana Spiotta on putting paid to menopause shame full 7 68 sam baker Rage, insomnia, midlife misogyny and why people are still grossed out by the truth about women's bodies When was the last time you read a book where the central character was not just perimenopausal but also talked and thought about menopause and its impact on her life. And she wasn’t a laughing stock? I’m prepared to bet never. That was the driving force for my guest this week, novelist Dana Spiotta. What if, she asked herself, the lead characters of some of her favourite books had had a hot flush? Think Mrs Dalloway on HRT. The resulting novel, Wayward, is the story of 53 year old Sam who, in the midst of the chaos and perverse clarity of perimenopause falls in love with a rundown house, buys it and leaves her husband, teenage daughter and the suburban security of married life in pursuit of a new her. Wayward is a blast of fresh air; funny, furious and extremely close to home! Dana joined me from her home in Syracuse, upstate New York, to talk about accidentally writing a “menopause novel”, how her own perimenopause informed her characters (cue, rage, insomnia and midlife misogyny), what happens when menopause and puberty collide and why people are still grossed out by the truth about female bodies. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Wayward by Dana Spiotta and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices When was the last time you read a book where the central character was not just perimenopausal but also talked and thought about menopause and its impact on her life. And she wasn’t a laughing stock?


I’m prepared to bet never.


That was the driving force for my guest this week, novelist Dana Spiotta. What if, she asked herself, the lead characters of some of her favourite books had had a hot flush? Think Mrs Dalloway on HRT.


The resulting novel, Wayward, is the story of 53 year old Sam who, in the midst of the chaos and perverse clarity of perimenopause falls in love with a rundown house, buys it and leaves her husband, teenage daughter and the suburban security of married life in pursuit of a new her.


Wayward is a blast of fresh air; funny, furious and extremely close to home! Dana joined me from her home in Syracuse, upstate New York, to talk about accidentally writing a “menopause novel”, how her own perimenopause informed her characters (cue, rage, insomnia and midlife misogyny), what happens when menopause and puberty collide and why people are still grossed out by the truth about female bodies.


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Wayward by Dana Spiotta and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2819 no Clover Stroud on grief, love, sex and sisterhood https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last. But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46.  The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief. Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Red Of My Blood by Clover Stroud and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 08 Mar 2022 01:00:46 -0000 Clover Stroud on grief, love, sex and sisterhood full 7 67 sam baker The fearless writer on finding a new person to be and why she's looking forward to menopause It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last. But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46.  The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief. Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Red Of My Blood by Clover Stroud and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last.


But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46. 


The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief.


Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Red Of My Blood by Clover Stroud and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3332 no Barbara Blake Hannah on feeling new at 80 and why she believes in miracles https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the Jamaican author, journalist, film maker and (no exaggeration) living legend Barbara Blake Hannah. Already an experienced journalist when she arrived in London in 1964, Barbara was shocked to discover her achievements counted for nothing because of the colour of her skin. But she made headlines anyway, in 1968, when she became the first Black TV journalist in the UK. She lasted nine months before being dismissed - almost certainly as a result of a racist backlash, in which her employers sided with the racists… It was several years before another black journalist appeared in a news role on British screens. Without Barbara, arguably, there would have been no Moira Stuart or Trevor Macdonald. Now 80, Barbara has led a pioneering life, so it’s a joy to celebrate it with the republication of her groundbreaking 1982 memoir, Growing Out - Black Hair And Black Pride in The Swinging Sixties, as part of Bernardine Evaristo’s Black Britain Writing Back series. From her home in Kingston, Jamaica, which she shares with her son, Barbara told me what she learnt from being at the sharp end of racism, why the Black Lives Matter movement gives her hope, feeling new again at 80 and how she learnt to love herself as a Black woman. She also talks about the power and politics of hair and how she has the skin of a 12 year old! Plus she introduced me to my new mantra: time is longer than rope.  • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Growing Out, Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging Sixties by Barbara Blake Hannah and all the other books in Bernardine Evaristo's Black Britain Writing Back series. You can also get the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 01 Mar 2022 01:00:00 -0000 Barbara Blake Hannah on feeling new at 80 and why she believes in miracles full 7 66 sam baker The pioneering journalist talks the power and politics of hair, learning to love herself as a Black woman and how #BlackLivesMatter gives her hope My guest today is the Jamaican author, journalist, film maker and (no exaggeration) living legend Barbara Blake Hannah. Already an experienced journalist when she arrived in London in 1964, Barbara was shocked to discover her achievements counted for nothing because of the colour of her skin. But she made headlines anyway, in 1968, when she became the first Black TV journalist in the UK. She lasted nine months before being dismissed - almost certainly as a result of a racist backlash, in which her employers sided with the racists… It was several years before another black journalist appeared in a news role on British screens. Without Barbara, arguably, there would have been no Moira Stuart or Trevor Macdonald. Now 80, Barbara has led a pioneering life, so it’s a joy to celebrate it with the republication of her groundbreaking 1982 memoir, Growing Out - Black Hair And Black Pride in The Swinging Sixties, as part of Bernardine Evaristo’s Black Britain Writing Back series. From her home in Kingston, Jamaica, which she shares with her son, Barbara told me what she learnt from being at the sharp end of racism, why the Black Lives Matter movement gives her hope, feeling new again at 80 and how she learnt to love herself as a Black woman. She also talks about the power and politics of hair and how she has the skin of a 12 year old! Plus she introduced me to my new mantra: time is longer than rope.  • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Growing Out, Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging Sixties by Barbara Blake Hannah and all the other books in Bernardine Evaristo's Black Britain Writing Back series. You can also get the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the Jamaican author, journalist, film maker and (no exaggeration) living legend Barbara Blake Hannah.


Already an experienced journalist when she arrived in London in 1964, Barbara was shocked to discover her achievements counted for nothing because of the colour of her skin. But she made headlines anyway, in 1968, when she became the first Black TV journalist in the UK. She lasted nine months before being dismissed - almost certainly as a result of a racist backlash, in which her employers sided with the racists… It was several years before another black journalist appeared in a news role on British screens. Without Barbara, arguably, there would have been no Moira Stuart or Trevor Macdonald.


Now 80, Barbara has led a pioneering life, so it’s a joy to celebrate it with the republication of her groundbreaking 1982 memoir, Growing Out - Black Hair And Black Pride in The Swinging Sixties, as part of Bernardine Evaristo’s Black Britain Writing Back series.


From her home in Kingston, Jamaica, which she shares with her son, Barbara told me what she learnt from being at the sharp end of racism, why the Black Lives Matter movement gives her hope, feeling new again at 80 and how she learnt to love herself as a Black woman. She also talks about the power and politics of hair and how she has the skin of a 12 year old! Plus she introduced me to my new mantra: time is longer than rope. 


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Growing Out, Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging Sixties by Barbara Blake Hannah and all the other books in Bernardine Evaristo's Black Britain Writing Back series. You can also get the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2893 no Christina Patterson on how to deal with the blows life throws at you https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ By the time we hit our 50s, most of us have… let’s just say… lived a little. But few have been through the mill to quite the extent that Christina Patterson has. Christina was 49 and recovering from breast cancer when she lost the job that she not just loved but that defined her. Rebuilding her life and career in her 50s formed the basis for her first book - memoir-come-survival manual, The Art of Not Falling Apart. As if that wasn’t enough for one person to cope with, on top of this crushing loss, she has lived through a second cancer diagnosis and multiple family deaths. She is, in her own words, the last one standing. Her new memoir, Outside, The Sky Is Blue tells of the dynamics of a family in the grip of one child’s mental health crisis; it’s a story of love and loss, but ultimately, unexpectedly, a celebration.  Christina and I talked about all the big stuff: success and failure, guilt and grief, the lifelong impact of family dynamics... Plus how to cope when your body starts saying the things your mind can’t, failing at relationships and then finding love in your 50s and why there is nothing but NOTHING like a good party. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Outside The Sky Is Blue by Christina Patterson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 22 Feb 2022 01:00:22 -0000 Christina Patterson on how to deal with the blows life throws at you full 7 65 sam baker Failure and success, guilt and grief, to finding the elusive one in your 50s. This conversation has it all By the time we hit our 50s, most of us have… let’s just say… lived a little. But few have been through the mill to quite the extent that Christina Patterson has. Christina was 49 and recovering from breast cancer when she lost the job that she not just loved but that defined her. Rebuilding her life and career in her 50s formed the basis for her first book - memoir-come-survival manual, The Art of Not Falling Apart. As if that wasn’t enough for one person to cope with, on top of this crushing loss, she has lived through a second cancer diagnosis and multiple family deaths. She is, in her own words, the last one standing. Her new memoir, Outside, The Sky Is Blue tells of the dynamics of a family in the grip of one child’s mental health crisis; it’s a story of love and loss, but ultimately, unexpectedly, a celebration.  Christina and I talked about all the big stuff: success and failure, guilt and grief, the lifelong impact of family dynamics... Plus how to cope when your body starts saying the things your mind can’t, failing at relationships and then finding love in your 50s and why there is nothing but NOTHING like a good party. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Outside The Sky Is Blue by Christina Patterson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices By the time we hit our 50s, most of us have… let’s just say… lived a little. But few have been through the mill to quite the extent that Christina Patterson has. Christina was 49 and recovering from breast cancer when she lost the job that she not just loved but that defined her. Rebuilding her life and career in her 50s formed the basis for her first book - memoir-come-survival manual, The Art of Not Falling Apart.


As if that wasn’t enough for one person to cope with, on top of this crushing loss, she has lived through a second cancer diagnosis and multiple family deaths. She is, in her own words, the last one standing.


Her new memoir, Outside, The Sky Is Blue tells of the dynamics of a family in the grip of one child’s mental health crisis; it’s a story of love and loss, but ultimately, unexpectedly, a celebration. 


Christina and I talked about all the big stuff: success and failure, guilt and grief, the lifelong impact of family dynamics... Plus how to cope when your body starts saying the things your mind can’t, failing at relationships and then finding love in your 50s and why there is nothing but NOTHING like a good party.


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Outside The Sky Is Blue by Christina Patterson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2378 no Marian Keyes is BACK! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week’s guest needs zero introduction - and not just because she’s been here before. Marian Keyes was one of the first guests on The Shift and her episode [episode 2 if you’re interested!] is still one of the most popular. So I’m delighted that she’s agreed to come back to chat about her new book - the long awaited sequel to her smash hit Rachel’s Holiday. The wonderful Again, Rachel revisits Rachel Walsh, the Walsh family and everybody’s favourite fictional fantasy, LUKE COSTELLO, 25 years after we saw her leave rehab and it’s no spoiler to say that, like its main characters, it’s older, wiser and hotter than ever. So I’m not going to wang on about the fact she’s sold over 39million copies globally and still worries she’s not good enough. (My heart). OR that she’s just launched a podcast Now You’re Asking with her friend Tara Flynn, I’m going to let Marian do the talking. And boy did we TALK. With typical generosity, wisdom and humour, Marian opened up about infertility, addiction, embracing change, how it feels to revisit your best loved character - and yourself! - 25 years on and fecking Fitbit addiction. She also throws in body shaming, self-forgiveness, mid-life sexuality, falling in love with your mother in your 50s and the many many joys of being “unyoung”. CONTENT WARNING: infertility. To hear Marian's earlier episode on menopause etc listen to episode 2 here. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 15 Feb 2022 01:00:00 -0000 Marian Keyes is BACK! full 7 64 sam baker The much-loved author on infertility, addiction and revisiting her most popular character 20 years on in Again, Rachel, the sequel to Rachel's Holiday This week’s guest needs zero introduction - and not just because she’s been here before. Marian Keyes was one of the first guests on The Shift and her episode [episode 2 if you’re interested!] is still one of the most popular. So I’m delighted that she’s agreed to come back to chat about her new book - the long awaited sequel to her smash hit Rachel’s Holiday. The wonderful Again, Rachel revisits Rachel Walsh, the Walsh family and everybody’s favourite fictional fantasy, LUKE COSTELLO, 25 years after we saw her leave rehab and it’s no spoiler to say that, like its main characters, it’s older, wiser and hotter than ever. So I’m not going to wang on about the fact she’s sold over 39million copies globally and still worries she’s not good enough. (My heart). OR that she’s just launched a podcast Now You’re Asking with her friend Tara Flynn, I’m going to let Marian do the talking. And boy did we TALK. With typical generosity, wisdom and humour, Marian opened up about infertility, addiction, embracing change, how it feels to revisit your best loved character - and yourself! - 25 years on and fecking Fitbit addiction. She also throws in body shaming, self-forgiveness, mid-life sexuality, falling in love with your mother in your 50s and the many many joys of being “unyoung”. CONTENT WARNING: infertility. To hear Marian's earlier episode on menopause etc listen to episode 2 here. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week’s guest needs zero introduction - and not just because she’s been here before. Marian Keyes was one of the first guests on The Shift and her episode [episode 2 if you’re interested!] is still one of the most popular. So I’m delighted that she’s agreed to come back to chat about her new book - the long awaited sequel to her smash hit Rachel’s Holiday. The wonderful Again, Rachel revisits Rachel Walsh, the Walsh family and everybody’s favourite fictional fantasy, LUKE COSTELLO, 25 years after we saw her leave rehab and it’s no spoiler to say that, like its main characters, it’s older, wiser and hotter than ever.


So I’m not going to wang on about the fact she’s sold over 39million copies globally and still worries she’s not good enough. (My heart). OR that she’s just launched a podcast Now You’re Asking with her friend Tara Flynn, I’m going to let Marian do the talking. And boy did we TALK.


With typical generosity, wisdom and humour, Marian opened up about infertility, addiction, embracing change, how it feels to revisit your best loved character - and yourself! - 25 years on and fecking Fitbit addiction. She also throws in body shaming, self-forgiveness, mid-life sexuality, falling in love with your mother in your 50s and the many many joys of being “unyoung”.


CONTENT WARNING: infertility.


To hear Marian's earlier episode on menopause etc listen to episode 2 here.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2706 no Jami Attenberg on the joy of starting over and finding a place of your own https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ We all tackle ageing in different ways but very few of us do it the way this week’s guest did - by packing up her entire life and moving thousands of miles to a new city and a new life.  Until her mid-forties, writer Jami Attenberg sofa-surfed her way around America - the year she turned 40 she slept in 26 different beds in seven months! Even for the daughter of a travelling salesman, Jami’s litany of sofas, spare beds and floors is enough to give even the most nomadic back ache! The author of seven novels, including four bestsellers, I Came All This Way To Meet You, is Jami’s first memoir. A moving, candid, unexpectedly funny look at becoming grown up (ish), stopping running and how she, quite literally, wrote herself home. Jami joined me from New Orleans to tell me how she finally stopped moving, being the daughter of a motherless mother and how she was scarred by summer camp! She also talked about embracing the mid-life move, why you don’t always have to give people what they want, just because they ask, and the life changing impact of having a hysterectomy. Oh and that “neck thing”? It’s real… • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including I Came All This Way To Meet You by Jami Attenberg and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 08 Feb 2022 01:00:29 -0000 Jami Attenberg on the joy of starting over and finding a place of your own full 7 63 sam baker The bestselling American author talks embracing the mid-life move and how having a hysterectomy changed her perspective on everything We all tackle ageing in different ways but very few of us do it the way this week’s guest did - by packing up her entire life and moving thousands of miles to a new city and a new life.  Until her mid-forties, writer Jami Attenberg sofa-surfed her way around America - the year she turned 40 she slept in 26 different beds in seven months! Even for the daughter of a travelling salesman, Jami’s litany of sofas, spare beds and floors is enough to give even the most nomadic back ache! The author of seven novels, including four bestsellers, I Came All This Way To Meet You, is Jami’s first memoir. A moving, candid, unexpectedly funny look at becoming grown up (ish), stopping running and how she, quite literally, wrote herself home. Jami joined me from New Orleans to tell me how she finally stopped moving, being the daughter of a motherless mother and how she was scarred by summer camp! She also talked about embracing the mid-life move, why you don’t always have to give people what they want, just because they ask, and the life changing impact of having a hysterectomy. Oh and that “neck thing”? It’s real… • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including I Came All This Way To Meet You by Jami Attenberg and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices We all tackle ageing in different ways but very few of us do it the way this week’s guest did - by packing up her entire life and moving thousands of miles to a new city and a new life. 


Until her mid-forties, writer Jami Attenberg sofa-surfed her way around America - the year she turned 40 she slept in 26 different beds in seven months! Even for the daughter of a travelling salesman, Jami’s litany of sofas, spare beds and floors is enough to give even the most nomadic back ache!


The author of seven novels, including four bestsellers, I Came All This Way To Meet You, is Jami’s first memoir. A moving, candid, unexpectedly funny look at becoming grown up (ish), stopping running and how she, quite literally, wrote herself home.


Jami joined me from New Orleans to tell me how she finally stopped moving, being the daughter of a motherless mother and how she was scarred by summer camp! She also talked about embracing the mid-life move, why you don’t always have to give people what they want, just because they ask, and the life changing impact of having a hysterectomy. Oh and that “neck thing”? It’s real…


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including I Came All This Way To Meet You by Jami Attenberg and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2284 no Dorothy Koomson on how she learnt to be enough https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the international bestseller Dorothy Koomson. She started young - she had her first stab at writing a book at 13 - and, like me, worked on Just Seventeen, amongst many other magazines, before actually publishing her first novel at 30. She has now written 16 Sunday Times bestsellers and is the biggest selling Black author of adult fiction in the UK - not bad for a woman whose debut novel was turned down for, amongst other things, having a Black character but not being about “the Black experience”. Her latest, I know what you’ve done, is just out in paperback and has been described as “Desperate Housewives but darker”. It’s also completely stuffed with brilliant parts for midlife women - ITV, I’m looking at you! Dorothy joined me from Brighton to talk about feeling like you’re “enough”, 80s TV crushes, the gynae and thyroid hell that gave her constant hot flushes, facing up to grey pubic hair and why there’s still A LOT of work to do when it comes to telling all women’s stories. Oh and why we need to bring back Golden Girls. I’m here for that! • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including I Know What You've Done by Dorothy Koomson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 01 Feb 2022 01:00:34 -0000 Dorothy Koomson on how she learnt to be enough full 7 62 sam baker The biggest selling Black author of adult fiction in the UK talks everything from tokenism and representation to gynae hell, grey pubic hair and the genius of the Golden Girls My guest today is the international bestseller Dorothy Koomson. She started young - she had her first stab at writing a book at 13 - and, like me, worked on Just Seventeen, amongst many other magazines, before actually publishing her first novel at 30. She has now written 16 Sunday Times bestsellers and is the biggest selling Black author of adult fiction in the UK - not bad for a woman whose debut novel was turned down for, amongst other things, having a Black character but not being about “the Black experience”. Her latest, I know what you’ve done, is just out in paperback and has been described as “Desperate Housewives but darker”. It’s also completely stuffed with brilliant parts for midlife women - ITV, I’m looking at you! Dorothy joined me from Brighton to talk about feeling like you’re “enough”, 80s TV crushes, the gynae and thyroid hell that gave her constant hot flushes, facing up to grey pubic hair and why there’s still A LOT of work to do when it comes to telling all women’s stories. Oh and why we need to bring back Golden Girls. I’m here for that! • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including I Know What You've Done by Dorothy Koomson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the international bestseller Dorothy Koomson. She started young - she had her first stab at writing a book at 13 - and, like me, worked on Just Seventeen, amongst many other magazines, before actually publishing her first novel at 30. She has now written 16 Sunday Times bestsellers and is the biggest selling Black author of adult fiction in the UK - not bad for a woman whose debut novel was turned down for, amongst other things, having a Black character but not being about “the Black experience”.


Her latest, I know what you’ve done, is just out in paperback and has been described as “Desperate Housewives but darker”. It’s also completely stuffed with brilliant parts for midlife women - ITV, I’m looking at you!


Dorothy joined me from Brighton to talk about feeling like you’re “enough”, 80s TV crushes, the gynae and thyroid hell that gave her constant hot flushes, facing up to grey pubic hair and why there’s still A LOT of work to do when it comes to telling all women’s stories. Oh and why we need to bring back Golden Girls. I’m here for that!


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including I Know What You've Done by Dorothy Koomson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2370 no Nicola Sturgeon on power and the fiftysomething woman https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I’m really thrilled to launch this season with one of my long time fantasy guests. Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland since 2015, has been dubbed one of the most powerful women in British politics, if not in Britain, and she shows no sign of stopping. Now 51, she grew up the eldest of two in an ordinary working class family in Ayrshire. Her mum was a dental nurse, her dad an electrician, she went to a state school and was the first in her family to go to university. In the 1970s and 80s - not a world where ordinary working class girls were expected to branch out - she was taught by her parents that she could - and she believed them, joining the SNP at 16 and becoming the youngest candidate standing in the 1991 election. Unfortunately Omicron stopped us meeting in person (shame because I’ve heard the loos at Bute House are worth a snoop!), but Nicola joined me remotely to talk about what it means to be a fifty something woman in the corridors of power - from having to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously and why a little bit of self doubt is good for you. ( I can think of a few male politicians who might benefit…) She was also incredibly open about “being in the foothills of menopause”, preparing to take HRT and what happens if you have a hot flush in parliament. It’s always been my aim to ask powerful women to speak up about menopause so I couldn’t be more grateful to Nicola for taking time out to have this conversation. PLUS she’s shared a whole host of brilliant book recommendations at the end. You can buy all the books Nicola recommends at Bookshop.org, plus the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 25 Jan 2022 01:00:06 -0000 Nicola Sturgeon on power and the fiftysomething woman full 7 61 sam baker The First Minister of Scotland opens up about menopause, imposter syndrome, me too and if menopausal women ruled the world I’m really thrilled to launch this season with one of my long time fantasy guests. Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland since 2015, has been dubbed one of the most powerful women in British politics, if not in Britain, and she shows no sign of stopping. Now 51, she grew up the eldest of two in an ordinary working class family in Ayrshire. Her mum was a dental nurse, her dad an electrician, she went to a state school and was the first in her family to go to university. In the 1970s and 80s - not a world where ordinary working class girls were expected to branch out - she was taught by her parents that she could - and she believed them, joining the SNP at 16 and becoming the youngest candidate standing in the 1991 election. Unfortunately Omicron stopped us meeting in person (shame because I’ve heard the loos at Bute House are worth a snoop!), but Nicola joined me remotely to talk about what it means to be a fifty something woman in the corridors of power - from having to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously and why a little bit of self doubt is good for you. ( I can think of a few male politicians who might benefit…) She was also incredibly open about “being in the foothills of menopause”, preparing to take HRT and what happens if you have a hot flush in parliament. It’s always been my aim to ask powerful women to speak up about menopause so I couldn’t be more grateful to Nicola for taking time out to have this conversation. PLUS she’s shared a whole host of brilliant book recommendations at the end. You can buy all the books Nicola recommends at Bookshop.org, plus the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I’m really thrilled to launch this season with one of my long time fantasy guests. Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland since 2015, has been dubbed one of the most powerful women in British politics, if not in Britain, and she shows no sign of stopping.


Now 51, she grew up the eldest of two in an ordinary working class family in Ayrshire. Her mum was a dental nurse, her dad an electrician, she went to a state school and was the first in her family to go to university. In the 1970s and 80s - not a world where ordinary working class girls were expected to branch out - she was taught by her parents that she could - and she believed them, joining the SNP at 16 and becoming the youngest candidate standing in the 1991 election.


Unfortunately Omicron stopped us meeting in person (shame because I’ve heard the loos at Bute House are worth a snoop!), but Nicola joined me remotely to talk about what it means to be a fifty something woman in the corridors of power - from having to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously and why a little bit of self doubt is good for you. ( I can think of a few male politicians who might benefit…)


She was also incredibly open about “being in the foothills of menopause”, preparing to take HRT and what happens if you have a hot flush in parliament. It’s always been my aim to ask powerful women to speak up about menopause so I couldn’t be more grateful to Nicola for taking time out to have this conversation.


PLUS she’s shared a whole host of brilliant book recommendations at the end.


You can buy all the books Nicola recommends at Bookshop.org, plus the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2428 no Pepsi and Shirlie on miscarriage, mental health and 40 years of friendship https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ It's season finale time. And have I got a festive special for you! There is no child of the 80s who won’t remember today’s guests. For a decade, Pepsi Demacque-Crockett and Shirlie Kemp - better known as Pepsi and Shirlie - were a fixture of the charts. First as part of Wham! With Shirlie’s school friends George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, then as a duo - their first single, Heartache, reached number 2 - only being beaten to number one by their good friend George. Even now they enter most of our homes at least once a year, thanks to the legendary Wham hit, Last Christmas.  Now friends for almost 40 years, Pepsi and Shirlie have written a memoir. It’s All In Black and White records the highs and lows of being thrust into the tabloid limelight while still in their teens, coping with fame - and then the loss of it; public success, personal memories and private grief.  They joined me to talk about their crazy journey from ordinary working class girls to global chart-toppers, their lifelong friendship, confidence, hormones, miscarriage, mental health and so much more. Hope you enjoy the nostalgia trip as much as we did Trigger warning: this episode contains candid discussion of the emotional impact of miscarriage. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including It's All In Black And White by Pepsi and Shirlie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 14 Dec 2021 01:00:49 -0000 Pepsi and Shirlie on miscarriage, mental health and 40 years of friendship full 6 60 sam baker The duo talk Wham!, motherhood, confidence, grief and getting on with it It's season finale time. And have I got a festive special for you! There is no child of the 80s who won’t remember today’s guests. For a decade, Pepsi Demacque-Crockett and Shirlie Kemp - better known as Pepsi and Shirlie - were a fixture of the charts. First as part of Wham! With Shirlie’s school friends George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, then as a duo - their first single, Heartache, reached number 2 - only being beaten to number one by their good friend George. Even now they enter most of our homes at least once a year, thanks to the legendary Wham hit, Last Christmas.  Now friends for almost 40 years, Pepsi and Shirlie have written a memoir. It’s All In Black and White records the highs and lows of being thrust into the tabloid limelight while still in their teens, coping with fame - and then the loss of it; public success, personal memories and private grief.  They joined me to talk about their crazy journey from ordinary working class girls to global chart-toppers, their lifelong friendship, confidence, hormones, miscarriage, mental health and so much more. Hope you enjoy the nostalgia trip as much as we did Trigger warning: this episode contains candid discussion of the emotional impact of miscarriage. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including It's All In Black And White by Pepsi and Shirlie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices It's season finale time. And have I got a festive special for you!


There is no child of the 80s who won’t remember today’s guests. For a decade, Pepsi Demacque-Crockett and Shirlie Kemp - better known as Pepsi and Shirlie - were a fixture of the charts. First as part of Wham! With Shirlie’s school friends George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, then as a duo - their first single, Heartache, reached number 2 - only being beaten to number one by their good friend George. Even now they enter most of our homes at least once a year, thanks to the legendary Wham hit, Last Christmas. 


Now friends for almost 40 years, Pepsi and Shirlie have written a memoir. It’s All In Black and White records the highs and lows of being thrust into the tabloid limelight while still in their teens, coping with fame - and then the loss of it; public success, personal memories and private grief. 


They joined me to talk about their crazy journey from ordinary working class girls to global chart-toppers, their lifelong friendship, confidence, hormones, miscarriage, mental health and so much more. Hope you enjoy the nostalgia trip as much as we did


Trigger warning: this episode contains candid discussion of the emotional impact of miscarriage.


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including It's All In Black And White by Pepsi and Shirlie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3091 no Lynda La Plante on breaking boundaries and why there STILL aren't enough good roles for women https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is a woman who - to coin a bit of 1980s jargon - punched through the glass ceiling for women in TV, creating not just one but a series of female lead characters who broke the mould. And not just any old female lead but OLDER female leads. There would be no Happy Valley or Scott & Bailey if it wasn’t for Lynda La Plante’s groundbreaking creation, detective Jane Tennison, brought to life by Helen Mirren. The BAFTA and Emmy award winning screenwriter of Prime Suspect, Widows and many other hit TV shows, Lynda has written 43 bestselling books, including the young Tennison series - the latest of which is Unholy Murder - that takes Jane Tennison back to the 80s as she battles to break through in the macho Met.  Lynda is now 78 and it’s 30 years since her groundbreaking creation hit our small screens (back when there were only four channels and primetime telly really mattered). But Lynda started out as a dyslexic drama student who, she says, was “too short and plain” to get good parts. Lucky for us, she decided to try her hand at writing them instead. Lynda tells me what it was really like to be a woman in TV in the 80s and 90s (and noughties!), the humiliation that shaped her, how she learnt not to let things get to her and why you should always always ALWAYS read the small print! She has a few things to say about contemporary crime TV drama, but this is a bit of a masterclass for any wannabe crime writers. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Unholy Murder by Lynda La Plante and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 07 Dec 2021 01:00:07 -0000 Lynda La Plante on breaking boundaries and why there STILL aren't enough good roles for women full 6 59 sam baker The Prime Suspect creator also has a few things to say about contemporary TV crime drama My guest this week is a woman who - to coin a bit of 1980s jargon - punched through the glass ceiling for women in TV, creating not just one but a series of female lead characters who broke the mould. And not just any old female lead but OLDER female leads. There would be no Happy Valley or Scott & Bailey if it wasn’t for Lynda La Plante’s groundbreaking creation, detective Jane Tennison, brought to life by Helen Mirren. The BAFTA and Emmy award winning screenwriter of Prime Suspect, Widows and many other hit TV shows, Lynda has written 43 bestselling books, including the young Tennison series - the latest of which is Unholy Murder - that takes Jane Tennison back to the 80s as she battles to break through in the macho Met.  Lynda is now 78 and it’s 30 years since her groundbreaking creation hit our small screens (back when there were only four channels and primetime telly really mattered). But Lynda started out as a dyslexic drama student who, she says, was “too short and plain” to get good parts. Lucky for us, she decided to try her hand at writing them instead. Lynda tells me what it was really like to be a woman in TV in the 80s and 90s (and noughties!), the humiliation that shaped her, how she learnt not to let things get to her and why you should always always ALWAYS read the small print! She has a few things to say about contemporary crime TV drama, but this is a bit of a masterclass for any wannabe crime writers. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Unholy Murder by Lynda La Plante and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is a woman who - to coin a bit of 1980s jargon - punched through the glass ceiling for women in TV, creating not just one but a series of female lead characters who broke the mould. And not just any old female lead but OLDER female leads. There would be no Happy Valley or Scott & Bailey if it wasn’t for Lynda La Plante’s groundbreaking creation, detective Jane Tennison, brought to life by Helen Mirren. The BAFTA and Emmy award winning screenwriter of Prime Suspect, Widows and many other hit TV shows, Lynda has written 43 bestselling books, including the young Tennison series - the latest of which is Unholy Murder - that takes Jane Tennison back to the 80s as she battles to break through in the macho Met. 


Lynda is now 78 and it’s 30 years since her groundbreaking creation hit our small screens (back when there were only four channels and primetime telly really mattered). But Lynda started out as a dyslexic drama student who, she says, was “too short and plain” to get good parts. Lucky for us, she decided to try her hand at writing them instead. Lynda tells me what it was really like to be a woman in TV in the 80s and 90s (and noughties!), the humiliation that shaped her, how she learnt not to let things get to her and why you should always always ALWAYS read the small print!


She has a few things to say about contemporary crime TV drama, but this is a bit of a masterclass for any wannabe crime writers.


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Unholy Murder by Lynda La Plante and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3186 no Liz Fraser on living with and loving an alcoholic https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ What do you do if the person you love turns out to hold the seeds to your own destruction? My guest this week has lived through it and discovered the answer to that question the hard way. Writer and broadcaster Liz Fraser was a divorced mother of three in her 40s when she met and fell in love with M. They moved in together, she became pregnant, and when they had a daughter they decided to move to Venice. So far, so idyllic. But M was an alcoholic and Liz’s life was about to descend into a hell we all think is reserved for other people. In her astonishingly visceral memoir, Coming Clean, Liz writes about love, addiction, mental health and recovery with rage and clarity to create an unlookawayfromable story of - well, I want to say pain and healing - but I have to be honest and say it’s mainly pain. But she also writes about love. The love that brought them together. The love that kept them that way through unimaginable trauma. The love that, against all odds, still exists. I want to thank Liz for her candour throughout this conversation. She talks with generosity and honesty about the urge to fix everything, her sense of failure and the consequences for her own mental health. Unsurprisingly it’s upsetting in places. But I know if you’ve ever been a situation remotely like this, you’ll find what Liz has to say immensely helpful.  WARNING: this conversation includes discussion of alcoholism, addiction, emotional abuse, violence, mental health issues, self-harming, eating disorders, trauma and PTSD. If you've been affected by any of the issues discussed in this podcast, these organisations may be able to help you. AL-Anon - al-anon.org Nacoa - nacoa.org.uk Refuge - helpline: 0808 2000 247, refuge.co.uk Samaritans - helpline: 116123, samaritans.org Shelter - shelter.org.uk Women's Aid - womensaid.org.uk • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Coming Clean by Liz Fraser and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 30 Nov 2021 01:00:04 -0000 Liz Fraser on living with and loving an alcoholic full 6 58 sam baker <p>What do you do if the person you love turns out to hold the seeds to your own destruction? My guest this week has lived through it and discovered the answer to that question the hard way. Writer and broadcaster Liz Fraser was a divorced mother of three in her 40s when she met and fell in love with M. They moved in together, she became pregnant, and when they had a daughter they decided to move to Venice. So far, so idyllic. But M was an alcoholic and Liz’s life was about to descend into a hell we all think is reserved for other people.</p><br><p>In her astonishingly visceral memoir, Coming Clean, Liz writes about love, addiction, mental health and recovery with rage and clarity to create an unlookawayfromable story of - well, I want to say pain and healing - but I have to be honest and say it’s mainly pain. But she also writes about love. The love that brought them together. The love that kept them that way through unimaginable trauma. The love that, against all odds, still exists.</p><br><p>I want to thank Liz for her candour throughout this conversation. She talks with generosity and honesty about the urge to fix everything, her sense of failure and the consequences for her own mental health. Unsurprisingly it’s upsetting in places. But I know if you’ve ever been a situation remotely like this, you’ll find what Liz has to say immensely helpful.&nbsp;</p><br><p><strong>WARNING: this conversation includes discussion of alcoholism, addiction, emotional abuse, violence, mental health issues, self-harming, eating disorders, trauma and PTSD.</strong></p><br><p>If you've been affected by any of the issues discussed in this podcast, these organisations may be able to help you.</p><br><p>AL-Anon - <a href="al-anon.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">al-anon.org</a></p><p>Nacoa - <a href="nacoa.org.uk" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nacoa.org.uk</a></p><p>Refuge - helpline: 0808 2000 247, <a href="refuge.co.uk" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">refuge.co.uk</a></p><p>Samaritans - helpline: 116123, <a href="samaritans.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">samaritans.org</a></p><p>Shelter - <a href="shelter.org.uk" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">shelter.org.uk</a></p><p>Women's Aid - <a href="womensaid.org.uk" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">womensaid.org.uk</a></p><br><p>• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at <a href="https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/the-shift-podcast-guests-books" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, including <strong>Coming Clean</strong> by Liz Fraser and the book that inspired this podcast, <strong>The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too</strong>, by me!</p><br><p>• <strong>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker</strong> is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> What do you do if the person you love turns out to hold the seeds to your own destruction? My guest this week has lived through it and discovered the answer to that question the hard way. Writer and broadcaster Liz Fraser was a divorced mother of three in her 40s when she met and fell in love with M. They moved in together, she became pregnant, and when they had a daughter they decided to move to Venice. So far, so idyllic. But M was an alcoholic and Liz’s life was about to descend into a hell we all think is reserved for other people. In her astonishingly visceral memoir, Coming Clean, Liz writes about love, addiction, mental health and recovery with rage and clarity to create an unlookawayfromable story of - well, I want to say pain and healing - but I have to be honest and say it’s mainly pain. But she also writes about love. The love that brought them together. The love that kept them that way through unimaginable trauma. The love that, against all odds, still exists. I want to thank Liz for her candour throughout this conversation. She talks with generosity and honesty about the urge to fix everything, her sense of failure and the consequences for her own mental health. Unsurprisingly it’s upsetting in places. But I know if you’ve ever been a situation remotely like this, you’ll find what Liz has to say immensely helpful.  WARNING: this conversation includes discussion of alcoholism, addiction, emotional abuse, violence, mental health issues, self-harming, eating disorders, trauma and PTSD. If you've been affected by any of the issues discussed in this podcast, these organisations may be able to help you. AL-Anon - al-anon.org Nacoa - nacoa.org.uk Refuge - helpline: 0808 2000 247, refuge.co.uk Samaritans - helpline: 116123, samaritans.org Shelter - shelter.org.uk Women's Aid - womensaid.org.uk • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Coming Clean by Liz Fraser and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices What do you do if the person you love turns out to hold the seeds to your own destruction? My guest this week has lived through it and discovered the answer to that question the hard way. Writer and broadcaster Liz Fraser was a divorced mother of three in her 40s when she met and fell in love with M. They moved in together, she became pregnant, and when they had a daughter they decided to move to Venice. So far, so idyllic. But M was an alcoholic and Liz’s life was about to descend into a hell we all think is reserved for other people.


In her astonishingly visceral memoir, Coming Clean, Liz writes about love, addiction, mental health and recovery with rage and clarity to create an unlookawayfromable story of - well, I want to say pain and healing - but I have to be honest and say it’s mainly pain. But she also writes about love. The love that brought them together. The love that kept them that way through unimaginable trauma. The love that, against all odds, still exists.


I want to thank Liz for her candour throughout this conversation. She talks with generosity and honesty about the urge to fix everything, her sense of failure and the consequences for her own mental health. Unsurprisingly it’s upsetting in places. But I know if you’ve ever been a situation remotely like this, you’ll find what Liz has to say immensely helpful. 


WARNING: this conversation includes discussion of alcoholism, addiction, emotional abuse, violence, mental health issues, self-harming, eating disorders, trauma and PTSD.


If you've been affected by any of the issues discussed in this podcast, these organisations may be able to help you.


AL-Anon - al-anon.org

Nacoa - nacoa.org.uk

Refuge - helpline: 0808 2000 247, refuge.co.uk

Samaritans - helpline: 116123, samaritans.org

Shelter - shelter.org.uk

Women's Aid - womensaid.org.uk


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Coming Clean by Liz Fraser and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2867 no Mariella Frostrup on fearlessness, menopause and knowing your worth https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week was known for her willingness for say it like it is even before she made a TV show about the menopause. No, not THAT one. The one BEFORE. Broadcaster Mariella Frostrup was banging the menopause drum back in 2018 when her own ignorance about her symptoms at first shocked her and then prompted her to do something bout it. The resulting documentary, The Truth About Menopause, was a smash hit.  And she’s now followed that up with a book, Cracking The Menopause, written with her friend, journalist Alice Smellie. If you’re a fan of the book of this podcast - The Shift (how I lost and found myself after 40 and you can too) - Mariella’s book will be right up your street. Mariella and I talk candidly about all things menopause - from menopause ignorance to sleeplessness to “the bubble of poison bile” that surrounds the whole subject! She also has plenty to say about the insidiousness of women being “scrap heaped” at 50, why fearlessness is so much sexier than the ability to look 28 and why the time has come to just stop bloody putting up with it! • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Cracking The Menopause by Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 23 Nov 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Mariella Frostrup on fearlessness, menopause and knowing your worth full 6 57 sam baker Why the broadcaster is on a mission to "burst the bubble of poison bile!" that surrounds menopause My guest this week was known for her willingness for say it like it is even before she made a TV show about the menopause. No, not THAT one. The one BEFORE. Broadcaster Mariella Frostrup was banging the menopause drum back in 2018 when her own ignorance about her symptoms at first shocked her and then prompted her to do something bout it. The resulting documentary, The Truth About Menopause, was a smash hit.  And she’s now followed that up with a book, Cracking The Menopause, written with her friend, journalist Alice Smellie. If you’re a fan of the book of this podcast - The Shift (how I lost and found myself after 40 and you can too) - Mariella’s book will be right up your street. Mariella and I talk candidly about all things menopause - from menopause ignorance to sleeplessness to “the bubble of poison bile” that surrounds the whole subject! She also has plenty to say about the insidiousness of women being “scrap heaped” at 50, why fearlessness is so much sexier than the ability to look 28 and why the time has come to just stop bloody putting up with it! • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Cracking The Menopause by Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week was known for her willingness for say it like it is even before she made a TV show about the menopause. No, not THAT one. The one BEFORE. Broadcaster Mariella Frostrup was banging the menopause drum back in 2018 when her own ignorance about her symptoms at first shocked her and then prompted her to do something bout it. The resulting documentary, The Truth About Menopause, was a smash hit. 


And she’s now followed that up with a book, Cracking The Menopause, written with her friend, journalist Alice Smellie. If you’re a fan of the book of this podcast - The Shift (how I lost and found myself after 40 and you can too) - Mariella’s book will be right up your street.


Mariella and I talk candidly about all things menopause - from menopause ignorance to sleeplessness to “the bubble of poison bile” that surrounds the whole subject! She also has plenty to say about the insidiousness of women being “scrap heaped” at 50, why fearlessness is so much sexier than the ability to look 28 and why the time has come to just stop bloody putting up with it!


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Cracking The Menopause by Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2835 no Bobbi Brown on taking a leap at 64 https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ If you, like me, have lived most of your life in fear of foundation, this week’s guest is your saviour. Because this woman saved us no-make-up girls’ lives. Back in 1991, Bobbi Brown was a makeup artist frustrated by the fact that most makeup looked like a mask so she produced a range of 10 lipsticks that actually matched people’s lips. Shocker! Those lipsticks were the start of something huge: the first eponymous make up artist led beauty brand. A brand that Bobbi sold to Estee Lauder just four years later for who knows how much. Now, after 22 years at Estee Lauder and a few years rejuvenating, Bobbi is back doing what she loves - being her own boss - and with a brand new line, Jones Road. Bobbi joined me from her house in the Hamptons to talk about reinventing yourself in your sixties, the emotional wrench of leaving her name and her legacy behind, how to get what you want at work (and at home), seeing the beauty in growing older - emotionally and physically - and the joy of nobody trying to fix you. Oh, and how not to look like sh*t! (By the way, Jones Road Miracle Balm is your new best friend! I’m a convert) Find out more about Jones Road Beauty at JonesRoadBeauty.com. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 16 Nov 2021 01:00:21 -0000 Bobbi Brown on taking a leap at 64 full 6 56 sam baker The makeup artist, entrepreneur and genius behind "no makeup makeup" gets candid If you, like me, have lived most of your life in fear of foundation, this week’s guest is your saviour. Because this woman saved us no-make-up girls’ lives. Back in 1991, Bobbi Brown was a makeup artist frustrated by the fact that most makeup looked like a mask so she produced a range of 10 lipsticks that actually matched people’s lips. Shocker! Those lipsticks were the start of something huge: the first eponymous make up artist led beauty brand. A brand that Bobbi sold to Estee Lauder just four years later for who knows how much. Now, after 22 years at Estee Lauder and a few years rejuvenating, Bobbi is back doing what she loves - being her own boss - and with a brand new line, Jones Road. Bobbi joined me from her house in the Hamptons to talk about reinventing yourself in your sixties, the emotional wrench of leaving her name and her legacy behind, how to get what you want at work (and at home), seeing the beauty in growing older - emotionally and physically - and the joy of nobody trying to fix you. Oh, and how not to look like sh*t! (By the way, Jones Road Miracle Balm is your new best friend! I’m a convert) Find out more about Jones Road Beauty at JonesRoadBeauty.com. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices If you, like me, have lived most of your life in fear of foundation, this week’s guest is your saviour. Because this woman saved us no-make-up girls’ lives. Back in 1991, Bobbi Brown was a makeup artist frustrated by the fact that most makeup looked like a mask so she produced a range of 10 lipsticks that actually matched people’s lips. Shocker! Those lipsticks were the start of something huge: the first eponymous make up artist led beauty brand. A brand that Bobbi sold to Estee Lauder just four years later for who knows how much. Now, after 22 years at Estee Lauder and a few years rejuvenating, Bobbi is back doing what she loves - being her own boss - and with a brand new line, Jones Road.


Bobbi joined me from her house in the Hamptons to talk about reinventing yourself in your sixties, the emotional wrench of leaving her name and her legacy behind, how to get what you want at work (and at home), seeing the beauty in growing older - emotionally and physically - and the joy of nobody trying to fix you. Oh, and how not to look like sh*t!


(By the way, Jones Road Miracle Balm is your new best friend! I’m a convert)


Find out more about Jones Road Beauty at JonesRoadBeauty.com.


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2860 no Ruth Ozeki on why menopause is the new adolescence https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is a novelist, film-maker - and Zen Buddhist priest. Ruth Ozeki was born in Conneticut in the 1950s to a Japanese mother and, as she puts it, caucasian anthropologist father. Despite always wanting to write, she didn’t publish her first novel until she was 40, because, in part, she “didn’t feel entitled to”. She needn’t have worried. That novel, My Year Of Meats, won the Kiriyama Prize and the American Book Award, and her third A Tale For The Time Being, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2013. Her latest novel, The Book Of Form And Emptiness, looks destined to go the same way. But buddhism has informed Ruth’s life just as much as - if not more than - writing. She joined me to run the conversational gamut! We talked meditation, ageing, grief, living through the death of our parents, writing out her teenage mental health crises, why objects mean so much to us, the appeal of Marie Kondo, coming to terms with our ageing face and why menopause and adolescence have so much in common. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Book Of Form And Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 Nov 2021 01:00:21 -0000 Ruth Ozeki on why menopause is the new adolescence full 6 55 sam baker Wisdom aplenty from the writer, film maker and Zen Buddhist priest My guest this week is a novelist, film-maker - and Zen Buddhist priest. Ruth Ozeki was born in Conneticut in the 1950s to a Japanese mother and, as she puts it, caucasian anthropologist father. Despite always wanting to write, she didn’t publish her first novel until she was 40, because, in part, she “didn’t feel entitled to”. She needn’t have worried. That novel, My Year Of Meats, won the Kiriyama Prize and the American Book Award, and her third A Tale For The Time Being, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2013. Her latest novel, The Book Of Form And Emptiness, looks destined to go the same way. But buddhism has informed Ruth’s life just as much as - if not more than - writing. She joined me to run the conversational gamut! We talked meditation, ageing, grief, living through the death of our parents, writing out her teenage mental health crises, why objects mean so much to us, the appeal of Marie Kondo, coming to terms with our ageing face and why menopause and adolescence have so much in common. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Book Of Form And Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is a novelist, film-maker - and Zen Buddhist priest. Ruth Ozeki was born in Conneticut in the 1950s to a Japanese mother and, as she puts it, caucasian anthropologist father. Despite always wanting to write, she didn’t publish her first novel until she was 40, because, in part, she “didn’t feel entitled to”. She needn’t have worried. That novel, My Year Of Meats, won the Kiriyama Prize and the American Book Award, and her third A Tale For The Time Being, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2013. Her latest novel, The Book Of Form And Emptiness, looks destined to go the same way.


But buddhism has informed Ruth’s life just as much as - if not more than - writing. She joined me to run the conversational gamut! We talked meditation, ageing, grief, living through the death of our parents, writing out her teenage mental health crises, why objects mean so much to us, the appeal of Marie Kondo, coming to terms with our ageing face and why menopause and adolescence have so much in common.


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Book Of Form And Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2462 no Fi Glover and Jane Garvey on Fortunately, friendship and pushing boundaries in your 50s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ How do two sensible middle aged broadcasters become the voices of a generation of pissed off older women? My guests today can tell you aaallll about that. Fi Glover and Jane Garvey were off-air colleagues who turned their on-air sensible reputations (as hosts of The Listening Project and Woman’s Hour respectively) on their heads when they launched a weeny little podcast called Fortunately. Described as “two friends chuntering waspishly” - or as Fi and Jane put it “talking complete s**t!”, it’s now “quite successful” according to the BBC - a runaway success according to their millions of listeners. Now they’ve written Did I Say That Out Loud, a book that’s so funny that coffee (and some other, not so pleasant stuff) came out of my nose. I joined Fi and Jane in a box room by the Thames where we chuntered about friendship, being judgemental, making involuntary noises (Jane), pushing boundaries in your fifties and why older women’s voices are relevant to everyone. Amongst many other things. Frankly, it’s like herding cats! Is there anything these two won’t talk about? There’s only one way to find out… • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Did I Say That Out Loud by Fi Glover and Jane Garvey, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 02 Nov 2021 01:00:57 -0000 Fi Glover and Jane Garvey on Fortunately, friendship and pushing boundaries in your 50s full 6 54 sam baker The women behind the podcasting phenomenon Fortunately tell us what's what How do two sensible middle aged broadcasters become the voices of a generation of pissed off older women? My guests today can tell you aaallll about that. Fi Glover and Jane Garvey were off-air colleagues who turned their on-air sensible reputations (as hosts of The Listening Project and Woman’s Hour respectively) on their heads when they launched a weeny little podcast called Fortunately. Described as “two friends chuntering waspishly” - or as Fi and Jane put it “talking complete s**t!”, it’s now “quite successful” according to the BBC - a runaway success according to their millions of listeners. Now they’ve written Did I Say That Out Loud, a book that’s so funny that coffee (and some other, not so pleasant stuff) came out of my nose. I joined Fi and Jane in a box room by the Thames where we chuntered about friendship, being judgemental, making involuntary noises (Jane), pushing boundaries in your fifties and why older women’s voices are relevant to everyone. Amongst many other things. Frankly, it’s like herding cats! Is there anything these two won’t talk about? There’s only one way to find out… • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Did I Say That Out Loud by Fi Glover and Jane Garvey, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How do two sensible middle aged broadcasters become the voices of a generation of pissed off older women? My guests today can tell you aaallll about that. Fi Glover and Jane Garvey were off-air colleagues who turned their on-air sensible reputations (as hosts of The Listening Project and Woman’s Hour respectively) on their heads when they launched a weeny little podcast called Fortunately.


Described as “two friends chuntering waspishly” - or as Fi and Jane put it “talking complete s**t!”, it’s now “quite successful” according to the BBC - a runaway success according to their millions of listeners.


Now they’ve written Did I Say That Out Loud, a book that’s so funny that coffee (and some other, not so pleasant stuff) came out of my nose. I joined Fi and Jane in a box room by the Thames where we chuntered about friendship, being judgemental, making involuntary noises (Jane), pushing boundaries in your fifties and why older women’s voices are relevant to everyone. Amongst many other things. Frankly, it’s like herding cats!


Is there anything these two won’t talk about? There’s only one way to find out…


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Did I Say That Out Loud by Fi Glover and Jane Garvey, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2678 no Paula Sutton on how age has liberated her and the rejuvenating power of dressing up https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Today’s guest is former fashion journalist turned interiors blogger, Paula Sutton. For twenty years Paula lived a typical busy busy busy 9-to-9 London life. But the birth of her third child made her question everything. Ditching her glamorous job, she and her husband and three kids decamped to rural Norfolk. There, jobless, cash-less and identity-less, she began documenting the boot-strapped doing up of their new house on Instagram, as Hill House Vintage. And that might have been that until Paula posted a picture of herself picnicking in her gorgeous garden and found herself at the centre of a twitter storm. Suddenly @HillHouseVintage had half a million followers and an enjoyable hobby had become a whole new career. Paula tells me about the twitter storm that upended her life, being an older black woman in the public eye, kicking the curse of “I used to be dot dot dot”, what vintage means to her, the rejuvenating power of dressing up, and why age has liberated her.  • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Hill House Vintage, the art of creating a joyful life by Paula Sutton, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 26 Oct 2021 00:00:37 -0000 Paula Sutton on how age has liberated her and the rejuvenating power of dressing up full 6 53 sam baker The woman behind Instagram phenomenon Hill House Vintage Today’s guest is former fashion journalist turned interiors blogger, Paula Sutton. For twenty years Paula lived a typical busy busy busy 9-to-9 London life. But the birth of her third child made her question everything. Ditching her glamorous job, she and her husband and three kids decamped to rural Norfolk. There, jobless, cash-less and identity-less, she began documenting the boot-strapped doing up of their new house on Instagram, as Hill House Vintage. And that might have been that until Paula posted a picture of herself picnicking in her gorgeous garden and found herself at the centre of a twitter storm. Suddenly @HillHouseVintage had half a million followers and an enjoyable hobby had become a whole new career. Paula tells me about the twitter storm that upended her life, being an older black woman in the public eye, kicking the curse of “I used to be dot dot dot”, what vintage means to her, the rejuvenating power of dressing up, and why age has liberated her.  • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Hill House Vintage, the art of creating a joyful life by Paula Sutton, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today’s guest is former fashion journalist turned interiors blogger, Paula Sutton.


For twenty years Paula lived a typical busy busy busy 9-to-9 London life. But the birth of her third child made her question everything. Ditching her glamorous job, she and her husband and three kids decamped to rural Norfolk. There, jobless, cash-less and identity-less, she began documenting the boot-strapped doing up of their new house on Instagram, as Hill House Vintage.


And that might have been that until Paula posted a picture of herself picnicking in her gorgeous garden and found herself at the centre of a twitter storm.


Suddenly @HillHouseVintage had half a million followers and an enjoyable hobby had become a whole new career. Paula tells me about the twitter storm that upended her life, being an older black woman in the public eye, kicking the curse of “I used to be dot dot dot”, what vintage means to her, the rejuvenating power of dressing up, and why age has liberated her. 


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Hill House Vintage, the art of creating a joyful life by Paula Sutton, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2722 no Val McDermid on anger, ageing – and an unlikely "cure" for menopause https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Dubbed the Queen of Crime, Val McDermid has written 35 books (she thinks, but she’s stopped counting), sold over 17million copies and been translated into 40 languages. At the vanguard of female crimewriters, she’s created countless female sleuths but is probably best known for one of her male ones - Dr Tony Hill of the TV series Wire In The Blood. She also created Traces the BBC series aired earlier this year starring Martin (Line of Duty) Compston. Now 65, she’s gone back to her youth. In her new book, 1979, Val explores what it was like to be a young female journalist in the male dominated tabloid newsrooms of the late 70s. And she should know because she was that hack. But Val started out over 60 years ago as a working class kid in Fife where, at 16, she became the first ever state school educated pupil from Scotland to go to St Hilda’s College Oxford. Val lives not far from me in Edinburgh, so she popped round to hang out with Sausage the cat and chat being a young lesbian in a hetrosexual white man’s world, anger, ageing and discovering an unexpected ‘cure’ for hot flushes. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including 1979 by Val McDermid, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 19 Oct 2021 00:00:27 -0000 Val McDermid on anger, ageing – and an unlikely "cure" for menopause full 6 52 sam baker <p>Dubbed the Queen of Crime, Val McDermid has written 35 books (she thinks, but she’s stopped counting), sold over 17million copies and been translated into 40 languages. At the vanguard of female crimewriters, she’s created countless female sleuths but is probably best known for one of her male ones - Dr Tony Hill of the TV series Wire In The Blood. She also created Traces the BBC series aired earlier this year starring Martin (Line of Duty) Compston.</p><br><p>Now 65, she’s gone back to her youth. In her new book, 1979, Val explores what it was like to be a young female journalist in the male dominated tabloid newsrooms of the late 70s. And she should know because she was that hack.</p><br><p>But Val started out over 60 years ago as a working class kid in Fife where, at 16, she became the first ever state school educated pupil from Scotland to go to St Hilda’s College Oxford. Val lives not far from me in Edinburgh, so she popped round to hang out with Sausage the cat and chat being a young lesbian in a hetrosexual white man’s world, anger, ageing and discovering an unexpected ‘cure’ for hot flushes.</p><br><p>• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at <a href="https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/the-shift-podcast-guests-books" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, including <strong>1979</strong> by Val McDermid, and the book that inspired this podcast, <strong>The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too</strong>, by me!</p><br><p>• <strong>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker</strong> is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> Dubbed the Queen of Crime, Val McDermid has written 35 books (she thinks, but she’s stopped counting), sold over 17million copies and been translated into 40 languages. At the vanguard of female crimewriters, she’s created countless female sleuths but is probably best known for one of her male ones - Dr Tony Hill of the TV series Wire In The Blood. She also created Traces the BBC series aired earlier this year starring Martin (Line of Duty) Compston. Now 65, she’s gone back to her youth. In her new book, 1979, Val explores what it was like to be a young female journalist in the male dominated tabloid newsrooms of the late 70s. And she should know because she was that hack. But Val started out over 60 years ago as a working class kid in Fife where, at 16, she became the first ever state school educated pupil from Scotland to go to St Hilda’s College Oxford. Val lives not far from me in Edinburgh, so she popped round to hang out with Sausage the cat and chat being a young lesbian in a hetrosexual white man’s world, anger, ageing and discovering an unexpected ‘cure’ for hot flushes. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including 1979 by Val McDermid, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Dubbed the Queen of Crime, Val McDermid has written 35 books (she thinks, but she’s stopped counting), sold over 17million copies and been translated into 40 languages. At the vanguard of female crimewriters, she’s created countless female sleuths but is probably best known for one of her male ones - Dr Tony Hill of the TV series Wire In The Blood. She also created Traces the BBC series aired earlier this year starring Martin (Line of Duty) Compston.


Now 65, she’s gone back to her youth. In her new book, 1979, Val explores what it was like to be a young female journalist in the male dominated tabloid newsrooms of the late 70s. And she should know because she was that hack.


But Val started out over 60 years ago as a working class kid in Fife where, at 16, she became the first ever state school educated pupil from Scotland to go to St Hilda’s College Oxford. Val lives not far from me in Edinburgh, so she popped round to hang out with Sausage the cat and chat being a young lesbian in a hetrosexual white man’s world, anger, ageing and discovering an unexpected ‘cure’ for hot flushes.


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including 1979 by Val McDermid, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2361 no Sophie Ellis Bextor on music, men and motherhood https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week has always been a self-starter. From flogging Blue Peter badges in the playground to earn a few extra quid to joining theaudience while she was still at school (famously telling her mum, ‘Sod school I’m going on a tour with NME’), Sophie Ellis Bextor has been doing it her own way for a very long time.  Famous almost before she was born – thanks to her mum, Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis – she’s made seven albums, aced Strictly, had five children (all boys, aged 2-17) and given us two enormous dance hits in Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) with Spiller and Murder On The Dance Floor. And that was before she brought some levity to lockdown with her sequin-strewn Kitchen Disco. Now Sophie has written a memoir, Spinning Plates. Named for her podcast, it’s an unexpectedly candid and down to earth look at music, men and motherhood, and how her attitude to all three has changed as she’s got older.  Sophie joined me from the kitchen of Kitchen Disco fame to talk about giving voice to her 17-year-old self, reshaping her career in her 40s, the art of bouncing back and learning when to say no. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Spinning Plates by Sophie Ellis Bextor, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • You can listen to Sophie's podcast, Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis Bextor, on apple, acast, Spotify, amazon or wherever you get your podcasts. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford (isn't she brilliant?!). If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 12 Oct 2021 00:00:56 -0000 Sophie Ellis Bextor on music, men and motherhood full 6 51 sam baker ...and why she's not afraid to say no My guest this week has always been a self-starter. From flogging Blue Peter badges in the playground to earn a few extra quid to joining theaudience while she was still at school (famously telling her mum, ‘Sod school I’m going on a tour with NME’), Sophie Ellis Bextor has been doing it her own way for a very long time.  Famous almost before she was born – thanks to her mum, Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis – she’s made seven albums, aced Strictly, had five children (all boys, aged 2-17) and given us two enormous dance hits in Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) with Spiller and Murder On The Dance Floor. And that was before she brought some levity to lockdown with her sequin-strewn Kitchen Disco. Now Sophie has written a memoir, Spinning Plates. Named for her podcast, it’s an unexpectedly candid and down to earth look at music, men and motherhood, and how her attitude to all three has changed as she’s got older.  Sophie joined me from the kitchen of Kitchen Disco fame to talk about giving voice to her 17-year-old self, reshaping her career in her 40s, the art of bouncing back and learning when to say no. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Spinning Plates by Sophie Ellis Bextor, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! • You can listen to Sophie's podcast, Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis Bextor, on apple, acast, Spotify, amazon or wherever you get your podcasts. • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford (isn't she brilliant?!). If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week has always been a self-starter. From flogging Blue Peter badges in the playground to earn a few extra quid to joining theaudience while she was still at school (famously telling her mum, ‘Sod school I’m going on a tour with NME’), Sophie Ellis Bextor has been doing it her own way for a very long time. 


Famous almost before she was born – thanks to her mum, Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis – she’s made seven albums, aced Strictly, had five children (all boys, aged 2-17) and given us two enormous dance hits in Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) with Spiller and Murder On The Dance Floor. And that was before she brought some levity to lockdown with her sequin-strewn Kitchen Disco.


Now Sophie has written a memoir, Spinning Plates. Named for her podcast, it’s an unexpectedly candid and down to earth look at music, men and motherhood, and how her attitude to all three has changed as she’s got older. 


Sophie joined me from the kitchen of Kitchen Disco fame to talk about giving voice to her 17-year-old self, reshaping her career in her 40s, the art of bouncing back and learning when to say no.


• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Spinning Plates by Sophie Ellis Bextor, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


• You can listen to Sophie's podcast, Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis Bextor, on apple, acast, Spotify, amazon or wherever you get your podcasts.


• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford (isn't she brilliant?!). If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2458 no Tasmina Perry on career, confidence and how not to get stuck at the amber light (from the archives) https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ The Shift has so many new listeners that it seemed like time to say hello, welcome and thank you for your support. It's been SO gratifying to see how many of you agreed with my hunch that there was a big appetite to hear older women talking about their lives, loves, losses and learnings. This is a replay of the first episode I ever recorded. We weren't even sure it *would* be an episode - we just recorded it as a test pilot to see how it went down. Over a year, almost 50 episodes and hundreds of thousands of downloads later, it's safe to say it went down a storm. SO, in case you haven't heard it, here it is the first episode. The one recorded in my friend Tammy's kitchen. The one that started it all. My guest this week is the ultimate career pivoter, novelist, journalist, screenwriter, (potter!) Tasmina Perry. I’ve known Tasmina (Tammy) since we were both baby editors and stuck on the management training course from hell together. We have been firm friends ever since. She’s since gone on to write 15 (!) novels - 13 as Tasmina Perry, 2 psychological thrillers as JL Butler and is now, “pushing 50”, a screenwriter. But she started life as a lawyer and is the queen of reinvention. Exactly the woman you need right now when the world is going to hell in a handcart! She shares her advice on getting your confidence back on track, learning to put yourself out there and how not to get “stuck at the amber lights” where career is concerned. (Oh and Take That!) The new you starts here! Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.  The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * Sam's book, The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now and available to buy here Friend of the Family by Tasmina Perry is out now in paperback and available to buy here Mine by JL Butler is out now in paperback and available to buy here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 28 Sep 2021 00:00:27 -0000 Tasmina Perry on career, confidence and how not to get stuck at the amber light (from the archives) full 5 50 sam baker <p>The Shift has so many new listeners that it seemed like time to say hello, welcome and thank you for your support. It's been SO gratifying to see how many of you agreed with my hunch that there was a big appetite to hear older women talking about their lives, loves, losses and learnings.</p><br><p>This is a replay of the first episode I ever recorded. We weren't even sure it *would* be an episode - we just recorded it as a test pilot to see how it went down. Over a year, almost 50 episodes and hundreds of thousands of downloads later, it's safe to say it went down a storm. SO, in case you haven't heard it, here it is the first episode. The one recorded in my friend Tammy's kitchen. The one that started it all.</p><br><p>My guest this week is the ultimate career pivoter, novelist, journalist, screenwriter, (potter!) Tasmina Perry. I’ve known Tasmina (Tammy) since we were both baby editors and stuck on the management training course from hell together. We have been firm friends ever since. She’s since gone on to write 15 (!) novels - 13 as Tasmina Perry, 2 psychological thrillers as JL Butler and is now, “pushing 50”, a screenwriter. But she started life as a lawyer and is the queen of reinvention. Exactly the woman you need right now when the world is going to hell in a handcart!</p><br><p>She shares her advice on getting your confidence back on track, learning to put yourself out there and how not to get “stuck at the amber lights” where career is concerned. (Oh and Take That!) The new you starts here!</p><br><p>Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.&nbsp;</p><br><p>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford.&nbsp;I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker</p><br><p>*</p><br><p>Sam's book, <strong>The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too</strong> is out now and available to buy <a href="https://amzn.to/3fYMqrK" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a></p><br><p><strong>Friend of the Family by Tasmina Perry</strong> is out now in paperback and available to buy <a href="https://amzn.to/31Uwqly" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a></p><br><p><strong>Mine by JL Butler</strong> is out now in paperback and available to buy <a href="https://amzn.to/2Fpufia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a></p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> The Shift has so many new listeners that it seemed like time to say hello, welcome and thank you for your support. It's been SO gratifying to see how many of you agreed with my hunch that there was a big appetite to hear older women talking about their lives, loves, losses and learnings. This is a replay of the first episode I ever recorded. We weren't even sure it *would* be an episode - we just recorded it as a test pilot to see how it went down. Over a year, almost 50 episodes and hundreds of thousands of downloads later, it's safe to say it went down a storm. SO, in case you haven't heard it, here it is the first episode. The one recorded in my friend Tammy's kitchen. The one that started it all. My guest this week is the ultimate career pivoter, novelist, journalist, screenwriter, (potter!) Tasmina Perry. I’ve known Tasmina (Tammy) since we were both baby editors and stuck on the management training course from hell together. We have been firm friends ever since. She’s since gone on to write 15 (!) novels - 13 as Tasmina Perry, 2 psychological thrillers as JL Butler and is now, “pushing 50”, a screenwriter. But she started life as a lawyer and is the queen of reinvention. Exactly the woman you need right now when the world is going to hell in a handcart! She shares her advice on getting your confidence back on track, learning to put yourself out there and how not to get “stuck at the amber lights” where career is concerned. (Oh and Take That!) The new you starts here! Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.  The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * Sam's book, The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now and available to buy here Friend of the Family by Tasmina Perry is out now in paperback and available to buy here Mine by JL Butler is out now in paperback and available to buy here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The Shift has so many new listeners that it seemed like time to say hello, welcome and thank you for your support. It's been SO gratifying to see how many of you agreed with my hunch that there was a big appetite to hear older women talking about their lives, loves, losses and learnings.


This is a replay of the first episode I ever recorded. We weren't even sure it *would* be an episode - we just recorded it as a test pilot to see how it went down. Over a year, almost 50 episodes and hundreds of thousands of downloads later, it's safe to say it went down a storm. SO, in case you haven't heard it, here it is the first episode. The one recorded in my friend Tammy's kitchen. The one that started it all.


My guest this week is the ultimate career pivoter, novelist, journalist, screenwriter, (potter!) Tasmina Perry. I’ve known Tasmina (Tammy) since we were both baby editors and stuck on the management training course from hell together. We have been firm friends ever since. She’s since gone on to write 15 (!) novels - 13 as Tasmina Perry, 2 psychological thrillers as JL Butler and is now, “pushing 50”, a screenwriter. But she started life as a lawyer and is the queen of reinvention. Exactly the woman you need right now when the world is going to hell in a handcart!


She shares her advice on getting your confidence back on track, learning to put yourself out there and how not to get “stuck at the amber lights” where career is concerned. (Oh and Take That!) The new you starts here!


Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. 


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


*


Sam's book, The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now and available to buy here


Friend of the Family by Tasmina Perry is out now in paperback and available to buy here


Mine by JL Butler is out now in paperback and available to buy here


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3400 no Marian Keyes on menopause, Botox and learning to be shameless (from the archive) https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This is the second episode I ever recorded and the most popular episode of The Shift bar none. Marian Keyes has a legion of fans and for good reason. I thought I'd replay it in preparation for the upcoming 25th anniversary of her greatest hit, Rachel's Holiday, and its long-awaited sequel, Again, Rachel, coming February 2022. * Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She can’t not speak the truth. Which could well be why she’s sold over 35 million books. Her trademark: the silk glove of laugh out loud funny stories that conceal within them the iron fist of tough contemporary issues. The latest of which is the frankly fabliss and immensely truth-telly no. 1 bestseller Grown Ups. Marian and I holed up in a hotel in Liverpool and recorded this with the mic propped on an ironing board. It's all glamour round these parts. Over the next 45 minutes Marian will tell the unvarnished truth about menopause (how different would it be if it happened to men???), invisibility, infertility grief, HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless. (Oh and her passion for fashion. And beauty products. And…) In short, this episode is not to be missed. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Grown Ups by Marian Keyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 21 Sep 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Marian Keyes on menopause, Botox and learning to be shameless (from the archive) full 5 49 sam baker <p>This is the second episode I ever recorded and the most popular episode of The Shift bar none. Marian Keyes has a legion of fans and for good reason. I thought I'd replay it in preparation for the upcoming 25th anniversary of her greatest hit, Rachel's Holiday, and its long-awaited sequel, Again, Rachel, coming February 2022.</p><br><p>* </p><br><p>Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She can’t not speak the truth. Which could well be why she’s sold over 35 million books. Her trademark: the silk glove of laugh out loud funny stories that conceal within them the iron fist of tough contemporary issues. The latest of which is the frankly fabliss and immensely truth-telly no. 1 bestseller Grown Ups.</p><br><p>Marian and I holed up in a hotel in Liverpool and recorded this with the mic propped on an ironing board. It's all glamour round these parts.</p><br><p>Over the next 45 minutes Marian will tell the unvarnished truth about menopause (how different would it be if it happened to men???), invisibility, infertility grief, HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless. (Oh and her passion for fashion. And beauty products. And…) In short, this episode is not to be missed.</p><br><p>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br><p>You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at <a href="https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/sambaker" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, including the book that accompanies this podcast, <em>The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too</em> by Sam Baker and <em>Grown Ups </em>by Marian Keyes.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> This is the second episode I ever recorded and the most popular episode of The Shift bar none. Marian Keyes has a legion of fans and for good reason. I thought I'd replay it in preparation for the upcoming 25th anniversary of her greatest hit, Rachel's Holiday, and its long-awaited sequel, Again, Rachel, coming February 2022. * Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She can’t not speak the truth. Which could well be why she’s sold over 35 million books. Her trademark: the silk glove of laugh out loud funny stories that conceal within them the iron fist of tough contemporary issues. The latest of which is the frankly fabliss and immensely truth-telly no. 1 bestseller Grown Ups. Marian and I holed up in a hotel in Liverpool and recorded this with the mic propped on an ironing board. It's all glamour round these parts. Over the next 45 minutes Marian will tell the unvarnished truth about menopause (how different would it be if it happened to men???), invisibility, infertility grief, HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless. (Oh and her passion for fashion. And beauty products. And…) In short, this episode is not to be missed. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Grown Ups by Marian Keyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This is the second episode I ever recorded and the most popular episode of The Shift bar none. Marian Keyes has a legion of fans and for good reason. I thought I'd replay it in preparation for the upcoming 25th anniversary of her greatest hit, Rachel's Holiday, and its long-awaited sequel, Again, Rachel, coming February 2022.


*


Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She can’t not speak the truth. Which could well be why she’s sold over 35 million books. Her trademark: the silk glove of laugh out loud funny stories that conceal within them the iron fist of tough contemporary issues. The latest of which is the frankly fabliss and immensely truth-telly no. 1 bestseller Grown Ups.


Marian and I holed up in a hotel in Liverpool and recorded this with the mic propped on an ironing board. It's all glamour round these parts.


Over the next 45 minutes Marian will tell the unvarnished truth about menopause (how different would it be if it happened to men???), invisibility, infertility grief, HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless. (Oh and her passion for fashion. And beauty products. And…) In short, this episode is not to be missed.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Grown Ups by Marian Keyes.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2754 no Isabel Allende on feminism, anger and being fatally heterosexual (from the archive) https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This is a replay of an episode from earlier this year. If I had to choose one episode as my favourite - tough call, like choosing a favourite child! - this would probably be it. If you've heard it before, give it another listen - Isabel Allende is iconic, truly. If you haven't, you are about to meet your old bird role model.... The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. Her latest is a memoir, The Soul of A Woman. In it, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want? From her home in Northern California, Isabel told me why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up by the end of this podcast! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 14 Sep 2021 00:00:28 -0000 Isabel Allende on feminism, anger and being fatally heterosexual (from the archive) full 5 48 sam baker <p>This is a replay of an episode from earlier this year. If I had to choose one episode as my favourite - tough call, like choosing a favourite child! - this would probably be it. If you've heard it before, give it another listen - Isabel Allende is iconic, truly. If you haven't, you are about to meet your old bird role model....</p><br><p>The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. Her latest is a memoir, The Soul of A Woman. In it, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want?</p><br><p>From her home in Northern California, Isabel told me why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up by the end of this podcast!</p><br><p>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br><p>You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at <a href="https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/sambaker" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, including the book that accompanies this podcast, <em>The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too</em> by Sam Baker and <em>The Soul of a Woman </em>by Isabel Allende.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> This is a replay of an episode from earlier this year. If I had to choose one episode as my favourite - tough call, like choosing a favourite child! - this would probably be it. If you've heard it before, give it another listen - Isabel Allende is iconic, truly. If you haven't, you are about to meet your old bird role model.... The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. Her latest is a memoir, The Soul of A Woman. In it, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want? From her home in Northern California, Isabel told me why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up by the end of this podcast! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a replay of an episode from earlier this year. If I had to choose one episode as my favourite - tough call, like choosing a favourite child! - this would probably be it. If you've heard it before, give it another listen - Isabel Allende is iconic, truly. If you haven't, you are about to meet your old bird role model....


The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. Her latest is a memoir, The Soul of A Woman. In it, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want?


From her home in Northern California, Isabel told me why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up by the end of this podcast!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2241 no Denise Mina gets frank about HRT, sex and ageing (from the archive) https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This is a replay of an episode first broadcast last autumn. I'm replaying it now to coincide with the publication of Denise's new novella, Rizzio, a gripping contemporary reimagining of the 1566 murder of Mary Queen of Scots' right hand man. (And also because Denise is a total legend (not to mention extremely straight-talking) and I'm pretty sure that the new devotees The Shift has acquired over the last year will love her.) This week’s episode comes to you from the Glasgow kitchen of straight talking crime writer Denise Mina. She’s written 15 novels, including the award-winning The Long Drop, and her last, Conviction, was scooped up by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Bookclub. But her latest, The Less Dead, based on a real life Glasgow serial killer, focusses on what makes a “good” victim versus a “bad” one, and takes her right back to her political roots. Over an enormous pot of strong tea (she truly has the biggest tea pot I have ever seen) Denise and I go to all the places. And I mean ALL OF THEM. I could have stayed there all day. From sexism in crime fiction and what it was like growing up in the 1980s to channelling her anger, plus HRT, withering vaginas and creaking joints and so much more... Plus Denise tries (in vain) to teach me the art of confrontation; all while taking a delivery from John Lewis and baking a mean pecan pie - but don’t tell her I told you so! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, and edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here. • Rizzio by Denise Mina is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 07 Sep 2021 00:00:38 -0000 Denise Mina gets frank about HRT, sex and ageing (from the archive) full 5 47 sam baker <p>This is a replay of an episode first broadcast last autumn. I'm replaying it now to coincide with the publication of Denise's new novella, Rizzio, a gripping contemporary reimagining of the 1566 murder of Mary Queen of Scots' right hand man. (And also because Denise is a total legend (not to mention extremely straight-talking) and I'm pretty sure that the new devotees The Shift has acquired over the last year will love her.)</p><br><p>This week’s episode comes to you from the Glasgow kitchen of straight talking crime writer Denise Mina. She’s written 15 novels, including the award-winning The Long Drop, and her last, Conviction, was scooped up by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Bookclub. But her latest, The Less Dead, based on a real life Glasgow serial killer, focusses on what makes a “good” victim versus a “bad” one, and takes her right back to her political roots.</p><br><p>Over an enormous pot of strong tea (she truly has the biggest tea pot I have ever seen) Denise and I go to all the places. And I mean ALL OF THEM. I could have stayed there all day. From sexism in crime fiction and what it was like growing up in the 1980s to channelling her anger, plus HRT, withering vaginas and creaking joints and so much more... Plus Denise tries (in vain) to teach me the art of confrontation; all while taking a delivery from John Lewis and baking a mean pecan pie - but don’t tell her I told you so!</p><br><p>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, and edited by Emily Sandford.&nbsp;I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br><p><strong>• The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too</strong> is out now in hardback and available to buy <a href="https://amzn.to/3dFM0XM" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p><strong>• Rizzio by Denise Mina</strong> is out now in hardback and available to buy <a href="https://amzn.to/37pVIfS" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> This is a replay of an episode first broadcast last autumn. I'm replaying it now to coincide with the publication of Denise's new novella, Rizzio, a gripping contemporary reimagining of the 1566 murder of Mary Queen of Scots' right hand man. (And also because Denise is a total legend (not to mention extremely straight-talking) and I'm pretty sure that the new devotees The Shift has acquired over the last year will love her.) This week’s episode comes to you from the Glasgow kitchen of straight talking crime writer Denise Mina. She’s written 15 novels, including the award-winning The Long Drop, and her last, Conviction, was scooped up by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Bookclub. But her latest, The Less Dead, based on a real life Glasgow serial killer, focusses on what makes a “good” victim versus a “bad” one, and takes her right back to her political roots. Over an enormous pot of strong tea (she truly has the biggest tea pot I have ever seen) Denise and I go to all the places. And I mean ALL OF THEM. I could have stayed there all day. From sexism in crime fiction and what it was like growing up in the 1980s to channelling her anger, plus HRT, withering vaginas and creaking joints and so much more... Plus Denise tries (in vain) to teach me the art of confrontation; all while taking a delivery from John Lewis and baking a mean pecan pie - but don’t tell her I told you so! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, and edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here. • Rizzio by Denise Mina is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a replay of an episode first broadcast last autumn. I'm replaying it now to coincide with the publication of Denise's new novella, Rizzio, a gripping contemporary reimagining of the 1566 murder of Mary Queen of Scots' right hand man. (And also because Denise is a total legend (not to mention extremely straight-talking) and I'm pretty sure that the new devotees The Shift has acquired over the last year will love her.)


This week’s episode comes to you from the Glasgow kitchen of straight talking crime writer Denise Mina. She’s written 15 novels, including the award-winning The Long Drop, and her last, Conviction, was scooped up by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Bookclub. But her latest, The Less Dead, based on a real life Glasgow serial killer, focusses on what makes a “good” victim versus a “bad” one, and takes her right back to her political roots.


Over an enormous pot of strong tea (she truly has the biggest tea pot I have ever seen) Denise and I go to all the places. And I mean ALL OF THEM. I could have stayed there all day. From sexism in crime fiction and what it was like growing up in the 1980s to channelling her anger, plus HRT, withering vaginas and creaking joints and so much more... Plus Denise tries (in vain) to teach me the art of confrontation; all while taking a delivery from John Lewis and baking a mean pecan pie - but don’t tell her I told you so!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, and edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


• The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here.

• Rizzio by Denise Mina is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3013 yes Jess Phillips on why we need to talk about menopause in parliament https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today has been MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. Jess Phillips still lives in Birmingham, with her husband and two sons, not far from where she grew up with her activist parents, going to women’s liberation playgroup and hanging out with her nan who listened to Prime Ministers Questions while ironing. Before becoming an MP, Jess worked for Women’s Aid - and is currently Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding. She has also written four books (because she’s obv got so much spare time on her hands). the latest is Everything You Need To Know About Politics - a typically no bull guide to the ins and outs of being an MP. (I don’t want to prejudge anything, but I’ve got to say it reads an awful lot like a manifesto for a new kind of politics that is a touch less pale male and stale than the one we’re used to.) Jess is quite unlike any other MP I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a few. (For my sins.) She joined me to talk about believing you CAN, why Carrie Bradshaw’s behaviour is problematically coercive and every girl has a “Cousin Anne”. She also says she won’t be standing for leader of the labour party any time soon, older women are woefully under represented and when the time comes, she’ll be wearing her menopause proudly in parliament. (Jess, we will be holding you to that!) You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Everything You Really Need To Know About Politics by Jess Phillips and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 31 Aug 2021 00:00:45 -0000 Jess Phillips on why we need to talk about menopause in parliament full 5 46 sam baker <p>My guest today has been MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. Jess Phillips still lives in Birmingham, with her husband and two sons, not far from where she grew up with her activist parents, going to women’s liberation playgroup and hanging out with her nan who listened to Prime Ministers Questions while ironing. Before becoming an MP, Jess worked for Women’s Aid - and is currently Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding.</p><br><p>She has also written four books (because she’s obv got so much spare time on her hands). the latest is Everything You Need To Know About Politics - a typically no bull guide to the ins and outs of being an MP. (I don’t want to prejudge anything, but I’ve got to say it reads an awful lot like a manifesto for a new kind of politics that is a touch less pale male and stale than the one we’re used to.)</p><br><p>Jess is quite unlike any other MP I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a few. (For my sins.) She joined me to talk about believing you CAN, why Carrie Bradshaw’s behaviour is problematically coercive and every girl has a “Cousin Anne”. She also says she won’t be standing for leader of the labour party any time soon, older women are woefully under represented and when the time comes, she’ll be wearing her menopause proudly in parliament. (Jess, we will be holding you to that!)</p><br><p>You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Everything You Really Need To Know About Politics by Jess Phillips and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! </p><br><p>The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p> My guest today has been MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. Jess Phillips still lives in Birmingham, with her husband and two sons, not far from where she grew up with her activist parents, going to women’s liberation playgroup and hanging out with her nan who listened to Prime Ministers Questions while ironing. Before becoming an MP, Jess worked for Women’s Aid - and is currently Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding. She has also written four books (because she’s obv got so much spare time on her hands). the latest is Everything You Need To Know About Politics - a typically no bull guide to the ins and outs of being an MP. (I don’t want to prejudge anything, but I’ve got to say it reads an awful lot like a manifesto for a new kind of politics that is a touch less pale male and stale than the one we’re used to.) Jess is quite unlike any other MP I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a few. (For my sins.) She joined me to talk about believing you CAN, why Carrie Bradshaw’s behaviour is problematically coercive and every girl has a “Cousin Anne”. She also says she won’t be standing for leader of the labour party any time soon, older women are woefully under represented and when the time comes, she’ll be wearing her menopause proudly in parliament. (Jess, we will be holding you to that!) You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Everything You Really Need To Know About Politics by Jess Phillips and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today has been MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. Jess Phillips still lives in Birmingham, with her husband and two sons, not far from where she grew up with her activist parents, going to women’s liberation playgroup and hanging out with her nan who listened to Prime Ministers Questions while ironing. Before becoming an MP, Jess worked for Women’s Aid - and is currently Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding.


She has also written four books (because she’s obv got so much spare time on her hands). the latest is Everything You Need To Know About Politics - a typically no bull guide to the ins and outs of being an MP. (I don’t want to prejudge anything, but I’ve got to say it reads an awful lot like a manifesto for a new kind of politics that is a touch less pale male and stale than the one we’re used to.)


Jess is quite unlike any other MP I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a few. (For my sins.) She joined me to talk about believing you CAN, why Carrie Bradshaw’s behaviour is problematically coercive and every girl has a “Cousin Anne”. She also says she won’t be standing for leader of the labour party any time soon, older women are woefully under represented and when the time comes, she’ll be wearing her menopause proudly in parliament. (Jess, we will be holding you to that!)


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Everything You Really Need To Know About Politics by Jess Phillips and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2803 no Lucy Kellaway on fear, freedom and starting a whole new life in her 50s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Ever wanted to chuck it all in? I mean ALL of it? My guest today did just that - baby, bathwater AND bath. For 30 years, journalist Lucy Kellaway was a columnist on the Financial Times. Then, in the space of just a couple of years she ditched not only that but her home of 15 years, her husband of 25 years - and even her hair! (Not in that order.) In her new book, Re-educated, she talks about the overwhelming urge to remake our lives that often hits women in our 40s and 50s and why she decided to upend her life, chucking in her enviable - and some might say cushy! - highly paid job to retrain for one that er, isn’t… teaching in an inner London secondary school. Over the next 40 minutes Lucy tells me about her newfound freedom, why fear is one of the most important emotions, how her house became a physical symbol of a marriage that no longer worked for her and why going grey was possibly the biggest shift of all. (And don’t get her started on the inequities of internet dating…) You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Re-educated by Lucy Kellaway and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 23 Aug 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Lucy Kellaway on fear, freedom and starting a whole new life in her 50s full 5 45 sam baker Ever wanted to chuck it all in? I mean ALL of it? My guest today did just that - baby, bathwater AND bath. For 30 years, journalist Lucy Kellaway was a columnist on the Financial Times. Then, in the space of just a couple of years she ditched not only ... Ever wanted to chuck it all in? I mean ALL of it? My guest today did just that - baby, bathwater AND bath. For 30 years, journalist Lucy Kellaway was a columnist on the Financial Times. Then, in the space of just a couple of years she ditched not only that but her home of 15 years, her husband of 25 years - and even her hair! (Not in that order.) In her new book, Re-educated, she talks about the overwhelming urge to remake our lives that often hits women in our 40s and 50s and why she decided to upend her life, chucking in her enviable - and some might say cushy! - highly paid job to retrain for one that er, isn’t… teaching in an inner London secondary school. Over the next 40 minutes Lucy tells me about her newfound freedom, why fear is one of the most important emotions, how her house became a physical symbol of a marriage that no longer worked for her and why going grey was possibly the biggest shift of all. (And don’t get her started on the inequities of internet dating…) You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Re-educated by Lucy Kellaway and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Ever wanted to chuck it all in? I mean ALL of it? My guest today did just that - baby, bathwater AND bath. For 30 years, journalist Lucy Kellaway was a columnist on the Financial Times. Then, in the space of just a couple of years she ditched not only that but her home of 15 years, her husband of 25 years - and even her hair! (Not in that order.)


In her new book, Re-educated, she talks about the overwhelming urge to remake our lives that often hits women in our 40s and 50s and why she decided to upend her life, chucking in her enviable - and some might say cushy! - highly paid job to retrain for one that er, isn’t… teaching in an inner London secondary school. Over the next 40 minutes Lucy tells me about her newfound freedom, why fear is one of the most important emotions, how her house became a physical symbol of a marriage that no longer worked for her and why going grey was possibly the biggest shift of all. (And don’t get her started on the inequities of internet dating…)


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Re-educated by Lucy Kellaway and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2498 no Elif Shafak on the power of older women and why menopause can be the end of shame https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed - and I’ve interviewed A LOT. Writer and academic, Elif Shafak has written 19 books and 12 novels and been shortlisted for countless literary prizes, including the Booker Prize. Known for her bravery and outspokenness in the face of oppressive regimes, she has almost 2million followers on social media and is the best-selling female novelist in Turkey - a country to which she has been unable to return for the past 5 years after being put on trial for, amongst other things, insulting Turkishness. Her latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, about the partition of Cyprus, is also about love, longing, exile and the environment. I think it might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever written, but you’ll have to judge for yourself. Elif talks about what home means to her, the importance of freedom and sharing your truth, the two very different women who made her, the importance of lifelong learning and the art of storytelling, and why menopause signals the end of “ayip” (shame). Oh, and being a middle-aged metalhead! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Island Of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 17 Aug 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Elif Shafak on the power of older women and why menopause can be the end of shame full 5 44 sam baker My guest today is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed - and I’ve interviewed A LOT. Writer and academic, Elif Shafak has written 19 books and 12 novels and been shortlisted for countless literary prizes, including the B... My guest today is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed - and I’ve interviewed A LOT. Writer and academic, Elif Shafak has written 19 books and 12 novels and been shortlisted for countless literary prizes, including the Booker Prize. Known for her bravery and outspokenness in the face of oppressive regimes, she has almost 2million followers on social media and is the best-selling female novelist in Turkey - a country to which she has been unable to return for the past 5 years after being put on trial for, amongst other things, insulting Turkishness. Her latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, about the partition of Cyprus, is also about love, longing, exile and the environment. I think it might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever written, but you’ll have to judge for yourself. Elif talks about what home means to her, the importance of freedom and sharing your truth, the two very different women who made her, the importance of lifelong learning and the art of storytelling, and why menopause signals the end of “ayip” (shame). Oh, and being a middle-aged metalhead! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Island Of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed - and I’ve interviewed A LOT. Writer and academic, Elif Shafak has written 19 books and 12 novels and been shortlisted for countless literary prizes, including the Booker Prize. Known for her bravery and outspokenness in the face of oppressive regimes, she has almost 2million followers on social media and is the best-selling female novelist in Turkey - a country to which she has been unable to return for the past 5 years after being put on trial for, amongst other things, insulting Turkishness.


Her latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, about the partition of Cyprus, is also about love, longing, exile and the environment. I think it might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever written, but you’ll have to judge for yourself.


Elif talks about what home means to her, the importance of freedom and sharing your truth, the two very different women who made her, the importance of lifelong learning and the art of storytelling, and why menopause signals the end of “ayip” (shame). Oh, and being a middle-aged metalhead!


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Island Of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2806 no Paula Hawkins on midlife success and the importance of financial independence https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is a woman who I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of, but you may not think you have. Her name is Paula Hawkins, but you probably know her as the author of the global bestseller The Girl On The Train. A book she wrote in her early 40s after - I’m sure she won’t mind me saying - an awful lot of also-rans. The girl on the train went on to sell 23 million copies, be published in 50 countries and is one of the top 5 selling hardbacks since records began. It was also turned into a film starring Emily Blunt. But does that level of success - and let’s face it, cash - bring with it massively liberating freedom… or the fear of never being able to live up to your own legend? Paula talks about the shock and salvation of sudden mid-life success when you’re totally broke, the importance of being able to “leave if you need to”, the likability curse that plagues women, why she always knew she didn’t want children and her hopes for her third novel, the taut, tense A Slow Fire Burning, which has some of the best older female characters I’ve read in a long time. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 10 Aug 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Paula Hawkins on midlife success and the importance of financial independence full 5 43 sam baker My guest today is a woman who I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of, but you may not think you have. Her name is Paula Hawkins, but you probably know her as the author of the global bestseller The Girl On The Train. A book she wrote in her early 40s after - ... My guest today is a woman who I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of, but you may not think you have. Her name is Paula Hawkins, but you probably know her as the author of the global bestseller The Girl On The Train. A book she wrote in her early 40s after - I’m sure she won’t mind me saying - an awful lot of also-rans. The girl on the train went on to sell 23 million copies, be published in 50 countries and is one of the top 5 selling hardbacks since records began. It was also turned into a film starring Emily Blunt. But does that level of success - and let’s face it, cash - bring with it massively liberating freedom… or the fear of never being able to live up to your own legend? Paula talks about the shock and salvation of sudden mid-life success when you’re totally broke, the importance of being able to “leave if you need to”, the likability curse that plagues women, why she always knew she didn’t want children and her hopes for her third novel, the taut, tense A Slow Fire Burning, which has some of the best older female characters I’ve read in a long time. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is a woman who I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of, but you may not think you have. Her name is Paula Hawkins, but you probably know her as the author of the global bestseller The Girl On The Train. A book she wrote in her early 40s after - I’m sure she won’t mind me saying - an awful lot of also-rans. The girl on the train went on to sell 23 million copies, be published in 50 countries and is one of the top 5 selling hardbacks since records began. It was also turned into a film starring Emily Blunt.


But does that level of success - and let’s face it, cash - bring with it massively liberating freedom… or the fear of never being able to live up to your own legend? Paula talks about the shock and salvation of sudden mid-life success when you’re totally broke, the importance of being able to “leave if you need to”, the likability curse that plagues women, why she always knew she didn’t want children and her hopes for her third novel, the taut, tense A Slow Fire Burning, which has some of the best older female characters I’ve read in a long time.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2101 no Laura Friedman Williams on sex and the newly single 40something mum https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ How does it feel to have your life turned upside down in your mid 40s? That’s what happened to Laura Friedman Williams when, after 27 years with her husband, she discovered he was having an affair. It was something Laura had always thought they’d somehow get past but, confronted with the reality that he was in love with someone else, she knew this was it. They. Their marriage. Life as she knew it, was gone. Faced with the choice of going through the motions or getting back in the saddle, Laura realised it was time to move on. Three years on, her funny, frank, refreshingly rude account of that sexual reinvention, Available, will bring hope to anyone who feels like they’ve just been tossed on the scrap heap. And, crucially, for all those women who are wondering what might happen if they took that leap. (I know you’re out there…!) Laura talks laughing through the pain, finding your identity when you’ve lost yourself in motherhood and marriage, the joy of first time sex second time around, the politics of pubic waxing and learning to love her body at 50. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Available by Laura Friedman-Williams and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 03 Aug 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Laura Friedman Williams on sex and the newly single 40something mum full 5 42 sam baker How does it feel to have your life turned upside down in your mid 40s? That’s what happened to Laura Friedman Williams when, after 27 years with her husband, she discovered he was having an affair. It was something Laura had always thought they’d someh... How does it feel to have your life turned upside down in your mid 40s? That’s what happened to Laura Friedman Williams when, after 27 years with her husband, she discovered he was having an affair. It was something Laura had always thought they’d somehow get past but, confronted with the reality that he was in love with someone else, she knew this was it. They. Their marriage. Life as she knew it, was gone. Faced with the choice of going through the motions or getting back in the saddle, Laura realised it was time to move on. Three years on, her funny, frank, refreshingly rude account of that sexual reinvention, Available, will bring hope to anyone who feels like they’ve just been tossed on the scrap heap. And, crucially, for all those women who are wondering what might happen if they took that leap. (I know you’re out there…!) Laura talks laughing through the pain, finding your identity when you’ve lost yourself in motherhood and marriage, the joy of first time sex second time around, the politics of pubic waxing and learning to love her body at 50. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Available by Laura Friedman-Williams and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How does it feel to have your life turned upside down in your mid 40s? That’s what happened to Laura Friedman Williams when, after 27 years with her husband, she discovered he was having an affair. It was something Laura had always thought they’d somehow get past but, confronted with the reality that he was in love with someone else, she knew this was it. They. Their marriage. Life as she knew it, was gone. Faced with the choice of going through the motions or getting back in the saddle, Laura realised it was time to move on.


Three years on, her funny, frank, refreshingly rude account of that sexual reinvention, Available, will bring hope to anyone who feels like they’ve just been tossed on the scrap heap. And, crucially, for all those women who are wondering what might happen if they took that leap. (I know you’re out there…!) Laura talks laughing through the pain, finding your identity when you’ve lost yourself in motherhood and marriage, the joy of first time sex second time around, the politics of pubic waxing and learning to love her body at 50.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Available by Laura Friedman-Williams and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3136 yes Torrey Peters on finding a roadmap for ageing as a trans woman https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week has spent a fair part of this year at the eye of a storm. Torrey Peters’ novel Detransition, Baby - a gloriously gossipy comedy of manners - was rapturously received when it was published in January, chosen for bookclubs by everyone from Oprah to Roxane Gay, and TV rights were optioned by the team behind Grey’s Anatomy. It was lauded as “the first great trans realist novel” in one review and has been called the true heir to Sex And The City. Then Torrey became the first trans woman long listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and - surprise surprise - the haters came for her.  Torrey tells me about the bonkers year that’s changed her life: writing a surprise bestseller, becoming an unwitting poster girl for trans issues and how fiction became fact for her in the most unexpected way. She’s a total breath of fresh air on the pressure to pass and why society can shove its eyeliner requirements!; candid on the “bracing” experience of being on the receiving end of transphobia; and fascinating on finding a roadmap for ageing as a trans woman and learning to be a stepmom. Want to know why trans women and divorced cis women are natural allies? Listen on. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 27 Jul 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Torrey Peters on finding a roadmap for ageing as a trans woman full 5 41 sam baker My guest this week has spent a fair part of this year at the eye of a storm. Torrey Peters’ novel Detransition, Baby - a gloriously gossipy comedy of manners - was rapturously received when it was published in January, chosen for bookclubs by everyone ... My guest this week has spent a fair part of this year at the eye of a storm. Torrey Peters’ novel Detransition, Baby - a gloriously gossipy comedy of manners - was rapturously received when it was published in January, chosen for bookclubs by everyone from Oprah to Roxane Gay, and TV rights were optioned by the team behind Grey’s Anatomy. It was lauded as “the first great trans realist novel” in one review and has been called the true heir to Sex And The City. Then Torrey became the first trans woman long listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and - surprise surprise - the haters came for her.  Torrey tells me about the bonkers year that’s changed her life: writing a surprise bestseller, becoming an unwitting poster girl for trans issues and how fiction became fact for her in the most unexpected way. She’s a total breath of fresh air on the pressure to pass and why society can shove its eyeliner requirements!; candid on the “bracing” experience of being on the receiving end of transphobia; and fascinating on finding a roadmap for ageing as a trans woman and learning to be a stepmom. Want to know why trans women and divorced cis women are natural allies? Listen on. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week has spent a fair part of this year at the eye of a storm. Torrey Peters’ novel Detransition, Baby - a gloriously gossipy comedy of manners - was rapturously received when it was published in January, chosen for bookclubs by everyone from Oprah to Roxane Gay, and TV rights were optioned by the team behind Grey’s Anatomy. It was lauded as “the first great trans realist novel” in one review and has been called the true heir to Sex And The City. Then Torrey became the first trans woman long listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and - surprise surprise - the haters came for her. 


Torrey tells me about the bonkers year that’s changed her life: writing a surprise bestseller, becoming an unwitting poster girl for trans issues and how fiction became fact for her in the most unexpected way. She’s a total breath of fresh air on the pressure to pass and why society can shove its eyeliner requirements!; candid on the “bracing” experience of being on the receiving end of transphobia; and fascinating on finding a roadmap for ageing as a trans woman and learning to be a stepmom. Want to know why trans women and divorced cis women are natural allies? Listen on.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2507 yes Terri White on work, class and mental health https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week has come a hell of a long way - from the Derbyshire village where she grew up, to London and the editor's seat of Empire magazine, by way of New York where she was one of Folio magazine’s top women in American media. Ostensibly Terri White was living the 'single woman in Manhattan' dream.  But, uber-competent at work, she was clinging by a thread in her personal life, struggling with chronic depression, self-harming and self-medicating with alcohol and prescription pills. When she was admitted to a psychiatric ward it marked the beginning of a remarkable journey that she documents in her extraordinary memoir, Coming Undone. To say it’s raw and unflinching would be a massive understatement. Brace yourself for some extreme honesty as Terri discusses her mental health struggles, being a working class woman in a middle class world, how becoming a mother affected her relationship with her own mother, curing herself of busy busy busy and why she would not go back to 25 if you paid her. Oh, and her extremely complicated relationship with her hair. TRIGGER WARNING: I must stress that if you’re feeling vulnerable there is frank discussion of mental health, sexual abuse, self harm and suicidal ideation. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Terri White's memoir, Coming Undone, and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 20 Jul 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Terri White on work, class and mental health full 5 40 sam baker My guest this week has come a hell of a long way - from the Derbyshire village where she grew up, to London and the editor's seat of Empire magazine, by way of New York where she was one of Folio magazine’s top women in American media. Ostensibly ... My guest this week has come a hell of a long way - from the Derbyshire village where she grew up, to London and the editor's seat of Empire magazine, by way of New York where she was one of Folio magazine’s top women in American media. Ostensibly Terri White was living the 'single woman in Manhattan' dream.  But, uber-competent at work, she was clinging by a thread in her personal life, struggling with chronic depression, self-harming and self-medicating with alcohol and prescription pills. When she was admitted to a psychiatric ward it marked the beginning of a remarkable journey that she documents in her extraordinary memoir, Coming Undone. To say it’s raw and unflinching would be a massive understatement. Brace yourself for some extreme honesty as Terri discusses her mental health struggles, being a working class woman in a middle class world, how becoming a mother affected her relationship with her own mother, curing herself of busy busy busy and why she would not go back to 25 if you paid her. Oh, and her extremely complicated relationship with her hair. TRIGGER WARNING: I must stress that if you’re feeling vulnerable there is frank discussion of mental health, sexual abuse, self harm and suicidal ideation. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Terri White's memoir, Coming Undone, and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week has come a hell of a long way - from the Derbyshire village where she grew up, to London and the editor's seat of Empire magazine, by way of New York where she was one of Folio magazine’s top women in American media. Ostensibly Terri White was living the 'single woman in Manhattan' dream. 


But, uber-competent at work, she was clinging by a thread in her personal life, struggling with chronic depression, self-harming and self-medicating with alcohol and prescription pills. When she was admitted to a psychiatric ward it marked the beginning of a remarkable journey that she documents in her extraordinary memoir, Coming Undone. To say it’s raw and unflinching would be a massive understatement.


Brace yourself for some extreme honesty as Terri discusses her mental health struggles, being a working class woman in a middle class world, how becoming a mother affected her relationship with her own mother, curing herself of busy busy busy and why she would not go back to 25 if you paid her. Oh, and her extremely complicated relationship with her hair.


TRIGGER WARNING: I must stress that if you’re feeling vulnerable there is frank discussion of mental health, sexual abuse, self harm and suicidal ideation.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Terri White's memoir, Coming Undone, and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2939 no Anita Rani on ditching the baggage, owning her anger and why her 40s are her power decade https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Hello, and welcome to season 5 of The Shift, and I could not be happier to kick off this season with this very special guest. What even is the “right sort of girl?” That’s a question my guest this week has long struggled to answer. Growing up in Yorkshire, TV presenter and self-proclaimed misfit Anita Rani always felt that she was somehow *wrong* - a feeling that was exacerbated when she moved to London to break into the media - and found herself too brown, too northern, too female. Oh, and too gobby. A triple threat with bells on. Now 43, she co-fronts two national institutions - Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and BBC’s Country File - and has finally reached a point where she felt able to answer (or at least tackle) the question: who even am I? in her memoir, The Right Sort of Girl. Join Anita and me as we journey from 1970s Bradford to her perch on the top of the media tree via eldest-Punjabi-daughter-guilt, never ever ever talking about periods, grunge and Oprah-worship. On the way, Anita tells me why south asian women are badasses, why shapeshifting to fit other people’s expectations is a waste of energy and how she learnt to own her anger. This is a celebration of being in your 40s, being yourself and finding your purpose and I’m pretty sure that you, like me, will love her for it.  You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Anita Rani's memoir, The Right Sort of Girl, and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 13 Jul 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Anita Rani on ditching the baggage, owning her anger and why her 40s are her power decade full 5 39 sam baker Hello, and welcome to season 5 of The Shift, and I could not be happier to kick off this season with this very special guest.What even is the “right sort of girl?” That’s a question my guest this week has long struggled to answer. Growing up in York... Hello, and welcome to season 5 of The Shift, and I could not be happier to kick off this season with this very special guest. What even is the “right sort of girl?” That’s a question my guest this week has long struggled to answer. Growing up in Yorkshire, TV presenter and self-proclaimed misfit Anita Rani always felt that she was somehow *wrong* - a feeling that was exacerbated when she moved to London to break into the media - and found herself too brown, too northern, too female. Oh, and too gobby. A triple threat with bells on. Now 43, she co-fronts two national institutions - Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and BBC’s Country File - and has finally reached a point where she felt able to answer (or at least tackle) the question: who even am I? in her memoir, The Right Sort of Girl. Join Anita and me as we journey from 1970s Bradford to her perch on the top of the media tree via eldest-Punjabi-daughter-guilt, never ever ever talking about periods, grunge and Oprah-worship. On the way, Anita tells me why south asian women are badasses, why shapeshifting to fit other people’s expectations is a waste of energy and how she learnt to own her anger. This is a celebration of being in your 40s, being yourself and finding your purpose and I’m pretty sure that you, like me, will love her for it.  You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Anita Rani's memoir, The Right Sort of Girl, and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hello, and welcome to season 5 of The Shift, and I could not be happier to kick off this season with this very special guest.


What even is the “right sort of girl?” That’s a question my guest this week has long struggled to answer. Growing up in Yorkshire, TV presenter and self-proclaimed misfit Anita Rani always felt that she was somehow *wrong* - a feeling that was exacerbated when she moved to London to break into the media - and found herself too brown, too northern, too female. Oh, and too gobby. A triple threat with bells on. Now 43, she co-fronts two national institutions - Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and BBC’s Country File - and has finally reached a point where she felt able to answer (or at least tackle) the question: who even am I? in her memoir, The Right Sort of Girl.


Join Anita and me as we journey from 1970s Bradford to her perch on the top of the media tree via eldest-Punjabi-daughter-guilt, never ever ever talking about periods, grunge and Oprah-worship. On the way, Anita tells me why south asian women are badasses, why shapeshifting to fit other people’s expectations is a waste of energy and how she learnt to own her anger. This is a celebration of being in your 40s, being yourself and finding your purpose and I’m pretty sure that you, like me, will love her for it. 


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Anita Rani's memoir, The Right Sort of Girl, and the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by me!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2701 no Dr Jen Gunter on menopause, mental health and why we all need a meno-party https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ The best way I can think of to describe this week’s guest is that she’s a women’s health vigilante. (A vagina vigilante if you will!) Dubbed twitter’s resident gynaecologist, and the nemesis of snake oil salesmen everywhere, Dr Jen Gunter is the living embodiment of “information is power”. She has made it her life’s mission to give you the information you need to make life better for you - and for your vagina.  Best known for her book The Vagina Bible, and publicly taking Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop to task for, amongst other things, flogging jade eggs. “Dear Ms Paltrow,” she wrote back in 2017, “It is the biggest load of garbage I have read on your site since vaginal steaming.” Now Jen is bringing that same, erm, direct approach to the menopause with her new book, The Menopause Manifesto. A banger of a book that tells you everything you could possibly need to know and plenty of stuff you don’t but will be glad you do. Jen is characteristically no-bull as she talks menopause, mental health, why we all need to know WTF is going on and why women need more menopausal role models. And whatever you do, don’t get her started on manufacturers who think shoving “meno” in front of a product name is a licence to print money…! Join me and Jen as we cross the crimson bridge and throw ourselves a meno partiy! Welcome to the order of menopause! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Menopause Manifesto by Dr Jen Gunter. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 15 Jun 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Dr Jen Gunter on menopause, mental health and why we all need a meno-party full 4 38 sam baker The best way I can think of to describe this week’s guest is that she’s a women’s health vigilante. (A vagina vigilante if you will!) Dubbed twitter’s resident gynaecologist, and the nemesis of snake oil salesmen everywhere, Dr Jen Gunter is the living... The best way I can think of to describe this week’s guest is that she’s a women’s health vigilante. (A vagina vigilante if you will!) Dubbed twitter’s resident gynaecologist, and the nemesis of snake oil salesmen everywhere, Dr Jen Gunter is the living embodiment of “information is power”. She has made it her life’s mission to give you the information you need to make life better for you - and for your vagina.  Best known for her book The Vagina Bible, and publicly taking Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop to task for, amongst other things, flogging jade eggs. “Dear Ms Paltrow,” she wrote back in 2017, “It is the biggest load of garbage I have read on your site since vaginal steaming.” Now Jen is bringing that same, erm, direct approach to the menopause with her new book, The Menopause Manifesto. A banger of a book that tells you everything you could possibly need to know and plenty of stuff you don’t but will be glad you do. Jen is characteristically no-bull as she talks menopause, mental health, why we all need to know WTF is going on and why women need more menopausal role models. And whatever you do, don’t get her started on manufacturers who think shoving “meno” in front of a product name is a licence to print money…! Join me and Jen as we cross the crimson bridge and throw ourselves a meno partiy! Welcome to the order of menopause! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Menopause Manifesto by Dr Jen Gunter. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The best way I can think of to describe this week’s guest is that she’s a women’s health vigilante. (A vagina vigilante if you will!) Dubbed twitter’s resident gynaecologist, and the nemesis of snake oil salesmen everywhere, Dr Jen Gunter is the living embodiment of “information is power”. She has made it her life’s mission to give you the information you need to make life better for you - and for your vagina. 


Best known for her book The Vagina Bible, and publicly taking Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop to task for, amongst other things, flogging jade eggs. “Dear Ms Paltrow,” she wrote back in 2017, “It is the biggest load of garbage I have read on your site since vaginal steaming.” Now Jen is bringing that same, erm, direct approach to the menopause with her new book, The Menopause Manifesto. A banger of a book that tells you everything you could possibly need to know and plenty of stuff you don’t but will be glad you do.


Jen is characteristically no-bull as she talks menopause, mental health, why we all need to know WTF is going on and why women need more menopausal role models. And whatever you do, don’t get her started on manufacturers who think shoving “meno” in front of a product name is a licence to print money…! Join me and Jen as we cross the crimson bridge and throw ourselves a meno partiy! Welcome to the order of menopause!


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Menopause Manifesto by Dr Jen Gunter.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2831 yes Esther Freud on motherhood, guilt and upending your life in your 50s https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ How does it feel to come from a family with a legend? If you’re today’s guest, novelist and playwright Esther Freud (daughter of painter Lucian Freud and great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud) you work with that legacy to produce some of the finest novels of the last thirty years. Her first Hideous Kinky, based on her unusual childhood, was made into a film starring Kate Winslet and after the follow-up, Peerless Flats, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young Novelists. Scroll forward a couple of decades and her ninth novel, I Couldn’t Love You More, comes full circle, this time exploring aspects of her family’s history through the lens of three generations of mothers. (Bring tissues!) Over the next 40 minutes Esther talks candidly about motherhood, guilt, shame, the way women are constantly judged, her own entangled family history, how the onset of menopause made her question everything and why now 57 she’s happier than ever.  CONTENT WARNING: There’s some conversation about forced adoption and Ireland’s mother and baby homes that some people may find upsetting. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and I Couldn't Love You More by Esther Freud. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 08 Jun 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Esther Freud on motherhood, guilt and upending your life in your 50s full 4 37 sam baker How does it feel to come from a family with a legend? If you’re today’s guest, novelist and playwright Esther Freud (daughter of painter Lucian Freud and great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud) you work with that legacy to produce some of the finest nove... How does it feel to come from a family with a legend? If you’re today’s guest, novelist and playwright Esther Freud (daughter of painter Lucian Freud and great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud) you work with that legacy to produce some of the finest novels of the last thirty years. Her first Hideous Kinky, based on her unusual childhood, was made into a film starring Kate Winslet and after the follow-up, Peerless Flats, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young Novelists. Scroll forward a couple of decades and her ninth novel, I Couldn’t Love You More, comes full circle, this time exploring aspects of her family’s history through the lens of three generations of mothers. (Bring tissues!) Over the next 40 minutes Esther talks candidly about motherhood, guilt, shame, the way women are constantly judged, her own entangled family history, how the onset of menopause made her question everything and why now 57 she’s happier than ever.  CONTENT WARNING: There’s some conversation about forced adoption and Ireland’s mother and baby homes that some people may find upsetting. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and I Couldn't Love You More by Esther Freud. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How does it feel to come from a family with a legend? If you’re today’s guest, novelist and playwright Esther Freud (daughter of painter Lucian Freud and great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud) you work with that legacy to produce some of the finest novels of the last thirty years. Her first Hideous Kinky, based on her unusual childhood, was made into a film starring Kate Winslet and after the follow-up, Peerless Flats, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young Novelists. Scroll forward a couple of decades and her ninth novel, I Couldn’t Love You More, comes full circle, this time exploring aspects of her family’s history through the lens of three generations of mothers. (Bring tissues!)


Over the next 40 minutes Esther talks candidly about motherhood, guilt, shame, the way women are constantly judged, her own entangled family history, how the onset of menopause made her question everything and why now 57 she’s happier than ever. 


CONTENT WARNING: There’s some conversation about forced adoption and Ireland’s mother and baby homes that some people may find upsetting.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and I Couldn't Love You More by Esther Freud.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2506 no Kate Mosse: why caring is a feminist issue (from the archives) https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This is a replay of an episode published at the start of the year in which Kate Mosse talked about her experience of caring for both her own elderly parents, and her husband's mother. I'm replaying it now to coincide with the publication of her memoir, An Extra Pair of Hands, in which she writes movingly about that experience and its profound effect on her family. Kate is also founder of the Women's Prize for Fiction, now in its 26th year, and a bestselling author of seven novels and two short story collections. She is kind, funny and candid as she talks about how easily women's history is erased (and why we should never forget the women who went before us), her “other” job as a full-time carer - and why caring is a feminist issue - the devaluing of women’s work, being a pathological optimist and why she CANNOT WAIT to be 60. Trigger Warning: Kate also speaks honestly about bereavement and grief, three quarters of the way through the episode. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and An Extra Pair of Hands by Kate Mosse. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Thu, 03 Jun 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Kate Mosse: why caring is a feminist issue (from the archives) bonus 4 36 sam baker This is a replay of an episode published at the start of the year in which Kate Mosse talked about her experience of caring for both her own elderly parents, and her husband's mother. I'm replaying it now to coincide with the publication of h... This is a replay of an episode published at the start of the year in which Kate Mosse talked about her experience of caring for both her own elderly parents, and her husband's mother. I'm replaying it now to coincide with the publication of her memoir, An Extra Pair of Hands, in which she writes movingly about that experience and its profound effect on her family. Kate is also founder of the Women's Prize for Fiction, now in its 26th year, and a bestselling author of seven novels and two short story collections. She is kind, funny and candid as she talks about how easily women's history is erased (and why we should never forget the women who went before us), her “other” job as a full-time carer - and why caring is a feminist issue - the devaluing of women’s work, being a pathological optimist and why she CANNOT WAIT to be 60. Trigger Warning: Kate also speaks honestly about bereavement and grief, three quarters of the way through the episode. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and An Extra Pair of Hands by Kate Mosse. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a replay of an episode published at the start of the year in which Kate Mosse talked about her experience of caring for both her own elderly parents, and her husband's mother. I'm replaying it now to coincide with the publication of her memoir, An Extra Pair of Hands, in which she writes movingly about that experience and its profound effect on her family.


Kate is also founder of the Women's Prize for Fiction, now in its 26th year, and a bestselling author of seven novels and two short story collections. She is kind, funny and candid as she talks about how easily women's history is erased (and why we should never forget the women who went before us), her “other” job as a full-time carer - and why caring is a feminist issue - the devaluing of women’s work, being a pathological optimist and why she CANNOT WAIT to be 60. Trigger Warning: Kate also speaks honestly about bereavement and grief, three quarters of the way through the episode.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and An Extra Pair of Hands by Kate Mosse.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2611 no Pragya Agarwal on shame, surrogacy and the many faces of motherhood https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week’s guest is the behavioural and data scientist, Dr Pragya Agarwal. A passionate campaigner for gender and race equality, Pragya is the author of the much-praised Sway, about unravelling unconscious bias, and the host of of the podcast, Wish We Knew What to Say: talking with children about race.  Pragya is also - and I tell you this only because it’s relevant to today’s conversation - the mother of three daughters, the first is now in her early twenties, her twins, now aged five. It’s that journey - from one sort of mother to another that led to her new book, (M)Otherhood: a moving (and rigorous!) personal exploration into what it means to be (or not be) a mother when you don’t fit society’s mould. Over the next 45 minutes Pragya blows my mind with her braininess about everything from the myth of choice and learning to embrace ambivalence, body image, being a good girl, how motherhood changed her relationship with her own mother and why she wished she was her father’s son. A self-confessed worrier, she also talks candidly about how brown women are invisible when it comes to fertility, premature menopause and her ultimate decision to pursue surrogacy. CONTENT WARNING: there is some discussion of infertility You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and (M)Otherhood by Pragya Agarwal. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Pragya Agarwal on shame, surrogacy and the many faces of motherhood full 4 35 sam baker This week’s guest is the behavioural and data scientist, Dr Pragya Agarwal. A passionate campaigner for gender and race equality, Pragya is the author of the much-praised Sway, about unravelling unconscious bias, and the host of of the podcast, Wish We... This week’s guest is the behavioural and data scientist, Dr Pragya Agarwal. A passionate campaigner for gender and race equality, Pragya is the author of the much-praised Sway, about unravelling unconscious bias, and the host of of the podcast, Wish We Knew What to Say: talking with children about race.  Pragya is also - and I tell you this only because it’s relevant to today’s conversation - the mother of three daughters, the first is now in her early twenties, her twins, now aged five. It’s that journey - from one sort of mother to another that led to her new book, (M)Otherhood: a moving (and rigorous!) personal exploration into what it means to be (or not be) a mother when you don’t fit society’s mould. Over the next 45 minutes Pragya blows my mind with her braininess about everything from the myth of choice and learning to embrace ambivalence, body image, being a good girl, how motherhood changed her relationship with her own mother and why she wished she was her father’s son. A self-confessed worrier, she also talks candidly about how brown women are invisible when it comes to fertility, premature menopause and her ultimate decision to pursue surrogacy. CONTENT WARNING: there is some discussion of infertility You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and (M)Otherhood by Pragya Agarwal. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week’s guest is the behavioural and data scientist, Dr Pragya Agarwal. A passionate campaigner for gender and race equality, Pragya is the author of the much-praised Sway, about unravelling unconscious bias, and the host of of the podcast, Wish We Knew What to Say: talking with children about race. 


Pragya is also - and I tell you this only because it’s relevant to today’s conversation - the mother of three daughters, the first is now in her early twenties, her twins, now aged five. It’s that journey - from one sort of mother to another that led to her new book, (M)Otherhood: a moving (and rigorous!) personal exploration into what it means to be (or not be) a mother when you don’t fit society’s mould.


Over the next 45 minutes Pragya blows my mind with her braininess about everything from the myth of choice and learning to embrace ambivalence, body image, being a good girl, how motherhood changed her relationship with her own mother and why she wished she was her father’s son.


A self-confessed worrier, she also talks candidly about how brown women are invisible when it comes to fertility, premature menopause and her ultimate decision to pursue surrogacy.


CONTENT WARNING: there is some discussion of infertility


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and (M)Otherhood by Pragya Agarwal.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2749 no Annie Mac on turning 40 and why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is a business woman, broadcaster, curator, tastemaker and DJ. She headlines festivals, hosts one of BBC Radio 1’s flagship shows, was Europe’s biggest female DJ and has her own hit podcast Changes with Annie Macmanus. And now, as if that wasn’t e-bloody-nough (bc let’s not forget the two kids), Annie has written her first novel, Mother Mother. Oh and she’s cool. And nice. (In the best possible way. Not in the I’m too lazy to think of a proper adjective kind of way.) Over the next 45 minutes, Annie talks about the unexpected impact of turning 40, growing up with her fans and why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with. Although this was recorded before she resigned from her job hosting Radio 1's flagship show, she’s candid about saying goodbye to DJing and how it feels to start again professionally, why she’s a control-fan and how she learnt to be comfortable in her own skin. Plus she gives me a lesson in radical no-ness! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 25 May 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Annie Mac on turning 40 and why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with full 4 34 sam baker My guest this week is a business woman, broadcaster, curator, tastemaker and DJ. She headlines festivals, hosts one of BBC Radio 1’s flagship shows, was Europe’s biggest female DJ and has her own hit podcast Changes with Annie Mac. And now, as if that ... My guest this week is a business woman, broadcaster, curator, tastemaker and DJ. She headlines festivals, hosts one of BBC Radio 1’s flagship shows, was Europe’s biggest female DJ and has her own hit podcast Changes with Annie Macmanus. And now, as if that wasn’t e-bloody-nough (bc let’s not forget the two kids), Annie has written her first novel, Mother Mother. Oh and she’s cool. And nice. (In the best possible way. Not in the I’m too lazy to think of a proper adjective kind of way.) Over the next 45 minutes, Annie talks about the unexpected impact of turning 40, growing up with her fans and why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with. Although this was recorded before she resigned from her job hosting Radio 1's flagship show, she’s candid about saying goodbye to DJing and how it feels to start again professionally, why she’s a control-fan and how she learnt to be comfortable in her own skin. Plus she gives me a lesson in radical no-ness! You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is a business woman, broadcaster, curator, tastemaker and DJ. She headlines festivals, hosts one of BBC Radio 1’s flagship shows, was Europe’s biggest female DJ and has her own hit podcast Changes with Annie Macmanus. And now, as if that wasn’t e-bloody-nough (bc let’s not forget the two kids), Annie has written her first novel, Mother Mother. Oh and she’s cool. And nice. (In the best possible way. Not in the I’m too lazy to think of a proper adjective kind of way.)


Over the next 45 minutes, Annie talks about the unexpected impact of turning 40, growing up with her fans and why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with. Although this was recorded before she resigned from her job hosting Radio 1's flagship show, she’s candid about saying goodbye to DJing and how it feels to start again professionally, why she’s a control-fan and how she learnt to be comfortable in her own skin. Plus she gives me a lesson in radical no-ness!


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2548 no Mona Eltahawy on anger, ambition and ageing disgracefully https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ The phrase force-of-nature was created to describe this week’s guest. Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy has been fighting back and refusing to shut up for the best part of 50 years. She has been assaulted and detained in Tahir Square, banned from an Australian TV network, and has made it her business to be the scourge of the pale male, and stale everywhere. She is also a huge source of inspiration for women and girls the world over through her Feminist Giant newsletter. In her new book - The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, a fierce, fearless and utterly uninhibited manifesto and call to arms - she tackles head on all the things women are taught from an early age and encourages us to stick two fingers up to the lot of them. Mona doesn’t want equality - she wants to set us free. She wants us to be the star of our own lives. She wants us to sin! Mona is unashamedly political as she talks anger, perimenopause, ambition, ageing disgracefully, going grey and why she believes it’s up to us to decide how we want to emerge on the other side of menopause. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Seven Necessary Sins For Women And Girls by Mona Eltahawy. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 18 May 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Mona Eltahawy on anger, ambition and ageing disgracefully full 4 33 sam baker The phrase force-of-nature was created to describe this week’s guest. Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy has been fighting back and refusing to shut up for the best part of 50 years. She has been assaulted and detained in Tahir Square, banned f... The phrase force-of-nature was created to describe this week’s guest. Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy has been fighting back and refusing to shut up for the best part of 50 years. She has been assaulted and detained in Tahir Square, banned from an Australian TV network, and has made it her business to be the scourge of the pale male, and stale everywhere. She is also a huge source of inspiration for women and girls the world over through her Feminist Giant newsletter. In her new book - The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, a fierce, fearless and utterly uninhibited manifesto and call to arms - she tackles head on all the things women are taught from an early age and encourages us to stick two fingers up to the lot of them. Mona doesn’t want equality - she wants to set us free. She wants us to be the star of our own lives. She wants us to sin! Mona is unashamedly political as she talks anger, perimenopause, ambition, ageing disgracefully, going grey and why she believes it’s up to us to decide how we want to emerge on the other side of menopause. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Seven Necessary Sins For Women And Girls by Mona Eltahawy. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The phrase force-of-nature was created to describe this week’s guest. Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy has been fighting back and refusing to shut up for the best part of 50 years. She has been assaulted and detained in Tahir Square, banned from an Australian TV network, and has made it her business to be the scourge of the pale male, and stale everywhere. She is also a huge source of inspiration for women and girls the world over through her Feminist Giant newsletter.


In her new book - The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, a fierce, fearless and utterly uninhibited manifesto and call to arms - she tackles head on all the things women are taught from an early age and encourages us to stick two fingers up to the lot of them. Mona doesn’t want equality - she wants to set us free. She wants us to be the star of our own lives. She wants us to sin!


Mona is unashamedly political as she talks anger, perimenopause, ambition, ageing disgracefully, going grey and why she believes it’s up to us to decide how we want to emerge on the other side of menopause.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Seven Necessary Sins For Women And Girls by Mona Eltahawy.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2832 yes Alison Bechdel on her search for inner and outer strength. Plus tarot https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoir about coming out and her father’s death, became a bestseller and was turned into an award-winning musical. Her new autobiographical graphic novel, The Secret To Superhuman Strength is a funny-not funny exploration of her own search for inner and outer strength through the lens of 60 years of fitness fads. Alison and I go on a “rambling stroll” through the six decades of her life as we chat about everything from tarot to very much not being a team player. Alison talks candidly about escaping self-consciousness, coming to terms with ageing, why men are scared of women who can do push ups and why she’s forever nine years old. And together we come up with a Bechdel test for women over 40. Challenge you to come up with a movie that passes it. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Secret To Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 11 May 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Alison Bechdel on her search for inner and outer strength. Plus tarot full 4 32 sam baker My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoi... My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoir about coming out and her father’s death, became a bestseller and was turned into an award-winning musical. Her new autobiographical graphic novel, The Secret To Superhuman Strength is a funny-not funny exploration of her own search for inner and outer strength through the lens of 60 years of fitness fads. Alison and I go on a “rambling stroll” through the six decades of her life as we chat about everything from tarot to very much not being a team player. Alison talks candidly about escaping self-consciousness, coming to terms with ageing, why men are scared of women who can do push ups and why she’s forever nine years old. And together we come up with a Bechdel test for women over 40. Challenge you to come up with a movie that passes it. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Secret To Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoir about coming out and her father’s death, became a bestseller and was turned into an award-winning musical. Her new autobiographical graphic novel, The Secret To Superhuman Strength is a funny-not funny exploration of her own search for inner and outer strength through the lens of 60 years of fitness fads.


Alison and I go on a “rambling stroll” through the six decades of her life as we chat about everything from tarot to very much not being a team player. Alison talks candidly about escaping self-consciousness, coming to terms with ageing, why men are scared of women who can do push ups and why she’s forever nine years old.


And together we come up with a Bechdel test for women over 40. Challenge you to come up with a movie that passes it.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Secret To Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2385 no Anya Hindmarch on beating self doubt and why fashion needs to take some responsibility https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Entrepreneur and fashion designer Anya Hindmarch is the queen of practicality. The bags for which her eponymous label is famous have long been adored for their pockets, compartments, zips and the fact they’re not weighed down with hardware - I mean seriously who wants a bag that’s too heavy to carry when it’s EMPTY?! It’s that super-sensible but fun, creative approach that saw her lauded as Accessories Designer of the year at the British Fashion Awards. So it’s no surprise that her never-fail piece of advice - if In doubt, wash your hair - has become the title of her first book - Part life manual, part memoir, part business book and all “let’s be having you”. It also sums her up perfectly - light-hearted on the surface yet with a fiercely common sensical core. Anya joined me over zoom (where else?!) to talk self-doubt and learning to have faith in your own ability, bringing inclusivity and responsibility to the fashion industry, why emotion is a female superpower, being proudly not cool and why she’s passionate about pockets. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and If In Doubt Wash Your Hair by Anya Hindmarch. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 04 May 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Anya Hindmarch on beating self doubt and why fashion needs to take some responsibility full 4 31 sam baker Entrepreneur and fashion designer Anya Hindmarch is the queen of practicality. The bags for which her eponymous label is famous have long been adored for their pockets, compartments, zips and the fact they’re not weighed down with hardware - I mean se... Entrepreneur and fashion designer Anya Hindmarch is the queen of practicality. The bags for which her eponymous label is famous have long been adored for their pockets, compartments, zips and the fact they’re not weighed down with hardware - I mean seriously who wants a bag that’s too heavy to carry when it’s EMPTY?! It’s that super-sensible but fun, creative approach that saw her lauded as Accessories Designer of the year at the British Fashion Awards. So it’s no surprise that her never-fail piece of advice - if In doubt, wash your hair - has become the title of her first book - Part life manual, part memoir, part business book and all “let’s be having you”. It also sums her up perfectly - light-hearted on the surface yet with a fiercely common sensical core. Anya joined me over zoom (where else?!) to talk self-doubt and learning to have faith in your own ability, bringing inclusivity and responsibility to the fashion industry, why emotion is a female superpower, being proudly not cool and why she’s passionate about pockets. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and If In Doubt Wash Your Hair by Anya Hindmarch. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Entrepreneur and fashion designer Anya Hindmarch is the queen of practicality. The bags for which her eponymous label is famous have long been adored for their pockets, compartments, zips and the fact they’re not weighed down with hardware - I mean seriously who wants a bag that’s too heavy to carry when it’s EMPTY?! It’s that super-sensible but fun, creative approach that saw her lauded as Accessories Designer of the year at the British Fashion Awards. So it’s no surprise that her never-fail piece of advice - if In doubt, wash your hair - has become the title of her first book - Part life manual, part memoir, part business book and all “let’s be having you”.


It also sums her up perfectly - light-hearted on the surface yet with a fiercely common sensical core. Anya joined me over zoom (where else?!) to talk self-doubt and learning to have faith in your own ability, bringing inclusivity and responsibility to the fashion industry, why emotion is a female superpower, being proudly not cool and why she’s passionate about pockets.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and If In Doubt Wash Your Hair by Anya Hindmarch.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2698 no Tamsin Calidas: the truth about the "escape to the country" dream https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week’s guest is a writer, photographer, sheep rearer (pretty sure that’s not the right word for it), crofter and expert at the dark art of being alone. Tamsin Calidas lived a relatively anonymous life on a small Scottish island, until she wrote her memoir, I am an island, about her experience of moving from London to the comparatively remote Hebrides. In doing so, she was living the dream of every midlife woman I know. Or was she? From her stone croft (no heating - and on the day we talk, bloody freezing!) Tamsin is disarmingly honest about infertility, becoming perimenopausal in her thirties and adapting to life as an older single woman in a community built on family. She also talks about living in nature, how wild swimming saved her and the benefits of choosing the harder path. She was speaking to me from the Hebrides, so apologies for the occasionally shonky sound. CONTENT WARNING: infertility. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and I Am An Island by Tamsin Calidas. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 27 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Tamsin Calidas: the truth about the "escape to the country" dream full 4 30 sam baker This week’s guest is a writer, photographer, sheep rearer (pretty sure that’s not the right word for it), crofter and expert at the dark art of being alone. Tamsin Calidas lived a relatively anonymous life on a small Scottish island, until she wrote he... This week’s guest is a writer, photographer, sheep rearer (pretty sure that’s not the right word for it), crofter and expert at the dark art of being alone. Tamsin Calidas lived a relatively anonymous life on a small Scottish island, until she wrote her memoir, I am an island, about her experience of moving from London to the comparatively remote Hebrides. In doing so, she was living the dream of every midlife woman I know. Or was she? From her stone croft (no heating - and on the day we talk, bloody freezing!) Tamsin is disarmingly honest about infertility, becoming perimenopausal in her thirties and adapting to life as an older single woman in a community built on family. She also talks about living in nature, how wild swimming saved her and the benefits of choosing the harder path. She was speaking to me from the Hebrides, so apologies for the occasionally shonky sound. CONTENT WARNING: infertility. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and I Am An Island by Tamsin Calidas. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week’s guest is a writer, photographer, sheep rearer (pretty sure that’s not the right word for it), crofter and expert at the dark art of being alone. Tamsin Calidas lived a relatively anonymous life on a small Scottish island, until she wrote her memoir, I am an island, about her experience of moving from London to the comparatively remote Hebrides.


In doing so, she was living the dream of every midlife woman I know. Or was she?


From her stone croft (no heating - and on the day we talk, bloody freezing!) Tamsin is disarmingly honest about infertility, becoming perimenopausal in her thirties and adapting to life as an older single woman in a community built on family. She also talks about living in nature, how wild swimming saved her and the benefits of choosing the harder path. She was speaking to me from the Hebrides, so apologies for the occasionally shonky sound.


CONTENT WARNING: infertility.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and I Am An Island by Tamsin Calidas.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2365 no Tracey Thorn on being a woman in a bloke’s world, hormones and going statement grey https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children.  Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is my favourite yet. Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!). You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and My Rock'n'Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 20 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Tracey Thorn on being a woman in a bloke’s world, hormones and going statement grey full 4 29 sam baker Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The ... Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children.  Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is my favourite yet. Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!). You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and My Rock'n'Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children. 

Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is my favourite yet.


Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!).


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and My Rock'n'Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2597 no Mel Giedroyc on starting a new career at 51 and being a menopause dodger https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ I am thrilled to kick off season four - season bloody four! - of The Shift with today’s guest, Mel Giedroyc (and yes I did practice saying that 935 times). Mel is (she reckons) the more punctual half of beloved comedy duo, Mel and Sue, an actress, writer and, drum roll, NATIONAL TREASURE thanks to the best part of seven years spent eating cake. (Nice gig if you can get it) And now - bloody over-achiever - she’s written her debut novel, The Best Things, which is as warm, hilarious and full of pin-sharp observation as you’d expect. Mel talks ironing - and asks the big question: who actually irons? The terror of hitting the financial skids and walking away from the Bake Off payday. Being a menopause-dodger and the importance of bringing more perimenopausal characters to our screens. AND writing her first novel at 51. 51! There is hope for us all! (Or is Mel just exceptional... I'll leave it to you to decide.) Either way there's tons of juvenile humour and plenty of sniggering. You have been warned. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Best Things by Mel Giedroyc. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0000 Mel Giedroyc on starting a new career at 51 and being a menopause dodger full 4 28 sam baker I am thrilled to kick off season four - season bloody four! - of The Shift with today’s guest, Mel Giedroyc (and yes I did practice that 935 times). Mel is (she reckons) the more punctual half of beloved comedy duo, Mel and Sue, an actress, writer and,... I am thrilled to kick off season four - season bloody four! - of The Shift with today’s guest, Mel Giedroyc (and yes I did practice saying that 935 times). Mel is (she reckons) the more punctual half of beloved comedy duo, Mel and Sue, an actress, writer and, drum roll, NATIONAL TREASURE thanks to the best part of seven years spent eating cake. (Nice gig if you can get it) And now - bloody over-achiever - she’s written her debut novel, The Best Things, which is as warm, hilarious and full of pin-sharp observation as you’d expect. Mel talks ironing - and asks the big question: who actually irons? The terror of hitting the financial skids and walking away from the Bake Off payday. Being a menopause-dodger and the importance of bringing more perimenopausal characters to our screens. AND writing her first novel at 51. 51! There is hope for us all! (Or is Mel just exceptional... I'll leave it to you to decide.) Either way there's tons of juvenile humour and plenty of sniggering. You have been warned. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Best Things by Mel Giedroyc. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices I am thrilled to kick off season four - season bloody four! - of The Shift with today’s guest, Mel Giedroyc (and yes I did practice saying that 935 times). Mel is (she reckons) the more punctual half of beloved comedy duo, Mel and Sue, an actress, writer and, drum roll, NATIONAL TREASURE thanks to the best part of seven years spent eating cake. (Nice gig if you can get it) And now - bloody over-achiever - she’s written her debut novel, The Best Things, which is as warm, hilarious and full of pin-sharp observation as you’d expect.


Mel talks ironing - and asks the big question: who actually irons? The terror of hitting the financial skids and walking away from the Bake Off payday. Being a menopause-dodger and the importance of bringing more perimenopausal characters to our screens. AND writing her first novel at 51. 51! There is hope for us all! (Or is Mel just exceptional... I'll leave it to you to decide.) Either way there's tons of juvenile humour and plenty of sniggering. You have been warned.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Best Things by Mel Giedroyc.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2938 no Lindsey Hilsum on Marie Colvin, menopause in a warzone and why going grey is NOT brave https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012. Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years… You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 23 Mar 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Lindsey Hilsum on Marie Colvin, menopause in a warzone and why going grey is NOT brave full 3 27 sam baker You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed forei... You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012. Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years… You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012.


Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years…


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2456 no Sadie Frost and Frances Ruffelle on 40 years of friendship - and why it's more important than love https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guests this week have both lived fascinating lives. Both have experienced ups and downs. Both are now 55 and have found themselves in this place in life that has brought them a surprising new power. Actress, producer, businesswoman and compulsive learner Sadie Frost and award winning actress and singer/songwriter Frances Ruffelle first met at school in 1976 (when they were the scruffy, noisy, naughty ones at the back!) and have been firm friends ever since. They are also both yoga addicts, so it made perfect sense for them to launch their new business, Yin & Tonic, that combines short soothing routines with mindful music. I zoomed in with the life long besties to talk about how their 45 year friendship is more important than any marriage, being in the middle of the “muddy soup” of menopause (insomnia!) and why Sadie’s looking forward to finally “leaving home” at 55. And yoga, of course. I also got raging house envy. Find Yin & Tonic's yoga sessions on youtube. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 16 Mar 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Sadie Frost and Frances Ruffelle on 40 years of friendship - and why it's more important than love full 3 26 sam baker My guests this week have both lived fascinating lives. Both have experienced ups and downs. Both are now 55 and have found themselves in this place in life that has brought them a surprising new power. Actress, producer, businesswoman and compulsive le... My guests this week have both lived fascinating lives. Both have experienced ups and downs. Both are now 55 and have found themselves in this place in life that has brought them a surprising new power. Actress, producer, businesswoman and compulsive learner Sadie Frost and award winning actress and singer/songwriter Frances Ruffelle first met at school in 1976 (when they were the scruffy, noisy, naughty ones at the back!) and have been firm friends ever since. They are also both yoga addicts, so it made perfect sense for them to launch their new business, Yin & Tonic, that combines short soothing routines with mindful music. I zoomed in with the life long besties to talk about how their 45 year friendship is more important than any marriage, being in the middle of the “muddy soup” of menopause (insomnia!) and why Sadie’s looking forward to finally “leaving home” at 55. And yoga, of course. I also got raging house envy. Find Yin & Tonic's yoga sessions on youtube. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guests this week have both lived fascinating lives. Both have experienced ups and downs. Both are now 55 and have found themselves in this place in life that has brought them a surprising new power. Actress, producer, businesswoman and compulsive learner Sadie Frost and award winning actress and singer/songwriter Frances Ruffelle first met at school in 1976 (when they were the scruffy, noisy, naughty ones at the back!) and have been firm friends ever since.


They are also both yoga addicts, so it made perfect sense for them to launch their new business, Yin & Tonic, that combines short soothing routines with mindful music. I zoomed in with the life long besties to talk about how their 45 year friendship is more important than any marriage, being in the middle of the “muddy soup” of menopause (insomnia!) and why Sadie’s looking forward to finally “leaving home” at 55. And yoga, of course. I also got raging house envy.


Find Yin & Tonic's yoga sessions on youtube.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2525 no Nana-Ama Danquah on the triple burden of mental health, menopause and being black https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest today is the Ghanaian American writer Nana-Ama Danquah. Nana-Ama found herself in the public eye when, in the late 90s, she published her memoir Willow Weep For Me about suffering from clinical depression - one of the first books to openly discuss black women’s mental health experience. Critically acclaimed by the likes of the late, great Maya Angelou, its description of the shame, dismissal, denial and out and out despair experienced by many black women started a much-needed conversation that was widely credited with “saving lives”. (It's currently not published in the UK - publishers I AM LOOKING AT YOU!) Now 53, Nana-Ama joined me from her home in (sunny) California (grrr) to talk about the double - in fact, make that triple - burden of mental health, menopause and being black, why black women are driving change right now, how menopause turned her into a hot mess and how she’s finally learnt the joy of doing what you do until you die. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker. Willow Weep For Me by Nana-Ama Danquah is not published in the UK, but you can buy it from amazon.co.uk or abebooks.co.uk. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 Mar 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Nana-Ama Danquah on the triple burden of mental health, menopause and being black full 3 25 sam baker My guest today is the Ghanaian American writer Nana-Ama Danquah. Nana-Ama found herself in the public eye when, in the late 90s, she published her memoir Willow Weep For Me about suffering from clinical depression - one of the first books to openly dis... My guest today is the Ghanaian American writer Nana-Ama Danquah. Nana-Ama found herself in the public eye when, in the late 90s, she published her memoir Willow Weep For Me about suffering from clinical depression - one of the first books to openly discuss black women’s mental health experience. Critically acclaimed by the likes of the late, great Maya Angelou, its description of the shame, dismissal, denial and out and out despair experienced by many black women started a much-needed conversation that was widely credited with “saving lives”. (It's currently not published in the UK - publishers I AM LOOKING AT YOU!) Now 53, Nana-Ama joined me from her home in (sunny) California (grrr) to talk about the double - in fact, make that triple - burden of mental health, menopause and being black, why black women are driving change right now, how menopause turned her into a hot mess and how she’s finally learnt the joy of doing what you do until you die. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker. Willow Weep For Me by Nana-Ama Danquah is not published in the UK, but you can buy it from amazon.co.uk or abebooks.co.uk. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest today is the Ghanaian American writer Nana-Ama Danquah. Nana-Ama found herself in the public eye when, in the late 90s, she published her memoir Willow Weep For Me about suffering from clinical depression - one of the first books to openly discuss black women’s mental health experience. Critically acclaimed by the likes of the late, great Maya Angelou, its description of the shame, dismissal, denial and out and out despair experienced by many black women started a much-needed conversation that was widely credited with “saving lives”. (It's currently not published in the UK - publishers I AM LOOKING AT YOU!)


Now 53, Nana-Ama joined me from her home in (sunny) California (grrr) to talk about the double - in fact, make that triple - burden of mental health, menopause and being black, why black women are driving change right now, how menopause turned her into a hot mess and how she’s finally learnt the joy of doing what you do until you die.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker. Willow Weep For Me by Nana-Ama Danquah is not published in the UK, but you can buy it from amazon.co.uk or abebooks.co.uk.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2833 no Isabel Allende on feminism, anger and being "fatally heterosexual" https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. In her latest, The Soul of A Woman, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want? From her home in Northern California, Isabel explains why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up by the end of this podcast! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 02 Mar 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Isabel Allende on feminism, anger and being "fatally heterosexual" full 3 24 sam baker The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash ... The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. In her latest, The Soul of A Woman, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want? From her home in Northern California, Isabel explains why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up by the end of this podcast! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. In her latest, The Soul of A Woman, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want?


From her home in Northern California, Isabel explains why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up by the end of this podcast!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2241 no Rosie Green: a how to cope with mid-life crisis special https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week is a bit of a “how to cope when your life spirals out of control and goes tits up!” Special! And my guest, journalist Rosie Green, is an unwilling expert on midlife chaos. She was 44 (there’s that age again…) when her contented, settled, literally roses-round-the-door family life was pulled out from under her when her husband and partner of 26 years told her he didn’t love her any more - well, he did, but “like a friend”. Yep, I know. Three years on, Rosie has flipped the pain of that heartbreak around, rebuilding her life and her career. One of the results is her new book, How To Heal A Broken Heart - and even though it’s specifically about being dumped in midlife, you’ll also find it useful if you’re experiencing any kind of cataclysmic shift that shatters your sense of self. Listen on as Rosie bares her soul and explains how she got back in the saddle - domestically, professionally and sexually. And because she's a generous kinda gal, Rosie also throws in some midlife beauty tips. Well, why wouldn't you? The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and How To Heal A Broken Heart by Rosie Green. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 23 Feb 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Rosie Green: a how to cope with mid-life crisis special full 3 23 sam baker This week is a bit of a “how to cope when your life spirals out of control and goes tits up!” Special! And my guest, journalist Rosie Green, is an unwilling expert on midlife chaos. She was 44 (there’s that age again…) when her contented, settled, lite... This week is a bit of a “how to cope when your life spirals out of control and goes tits up!” Special! And my guest, journalist Rosie Green, is an unwilling expert on midlife chaos. She was 44 (there’s that age again…) when her contented, settled, literally roses-round-the-door family life was pulled out from under her when her husband and partner of 26 years told her he didn’t love her any more - well, he did, but “like a friend”. Yep, I know. Three years on, Rosie has flipped the pain of that heartbreak around, rebuilding her life and her career. One of the results is her new book, How To Heal A Broken Heart - and even though it’s specifically about being dumped in midlife, you’ll also find it useful if you’re experiencing any kind of cataclysmic shift that shatters your sense of self. Listen on as Rosie bares her soul and explains how she got back in the saddle - domestically, professionally and sexually. And because she's a generous kinda gal, Rosie also throws in some midlife beauty tips. Well, why wouldn't you? The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and How To Heal A Broken Heart by Rosie Green. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week is a bit of a “how to cope when your life spirals out of control and goes tits up!” Special! And my guest, journalist Rosie Green, is an unwilling expert on midlife chaos. She was 44 (there’s that age again…) when her contented, settled, literally roses-round-the-door family life was pulled out from under her when her husband and partner of 26 years told her he didn’t love her any more - well, he did, but “like a friend”. Yep, I know.


Three years on, Rosie has flipped the pain of that heartbreak around, rebuilding her life and her career. One of the results is her new book, How To Heal A Broken Heart - and even though it’s specifically about being dumped in midlife, you’ll also find it useful if you’re experiencing any kind of cataclysmic shift that shatters your sense of self. Listen on as Rosie bares her soul and explains how she got back in the saddle - domestically, professionally and sexually.


And because she's a generous kinda gal, Rosie also throws in some midlife beauty tips. Well, why wouldn't you?


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and How To Heal A Broken Heart by Rosie Green.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2854 no Sarah Pinborough on why women need to get comfortable talking about money https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Like many women, my guest this week has lived a lot of lives in one. Married and divorced in her 20s, Sarah Pinborough left a career in teaching, became a horror writer and taught herself to script write, but it was when she turned her hand to psychological thrillers, when she was 44 (remember that age, it’s definitely significant!), that things went ‘a little nuts’. That book, Behind Her Eyes, went onto sell a million copies and is now coming to Netflix as a highly bingeable series (18 February 2021 - get it on your watchlist). Sarah is honestly the only person (OK, woman) I have ever interviewed who has spoken so freely and frankly about money, how it changed her life in her mid-40s and why it can vanish as quickly as it arrived. She made me realise that knowing your financial worth is quite rare even in successful women - and we need to get a lot more comfortable talking about cash. I was quite shocked by how uncomfortable Sarah’s frankness made me feel. (Not to mention unattractively jealous!) This one is a real thought-provoker. She's also gives some fascinating insider info on the way women (especially older women) are portrayed on screen - when they're portrayed at all - and weighs in on the "why is Hugh Grant allowed to look 60 when Nicole Kidman has to pass for 30" debate spawned by The Undoing. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 16 Feb 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Sarah Pinborough on why women need to get comfortable talking about money full 3 22 sam baker Like many women, my guest this week has lived a lot of lives in one. Married and divorced in her 20s, Sarah Pinborough left a career in teaching, became a horror writer and taught herself to script write, but it was when she turned her hand to psycholo... Like many women, my guest this week has lived a lot of lives in one. Married and divorced in her 20s, Sarah Pinborough left a career in teaching, became a horror writer and taught herself to script write, but it was when she turned her hand to psychological thrillers, when she was 44 (remember that age, it’s definitely significant!), that things went ‘a little nuts’. That book, Behind Her Eyes, went onto sell a million copies and is now coming to Netflix as a highly bingeable series (18 February 2021 - get it on your watchlist). Sarah is honestly the only person (OK, woman) I have ever interviewed who has spoken so freely and frankly about money, how it changed her life in her mid-40s and why it can vanish as quickly as it arrived. She made me realise that knowing your financial worth is quite rare even in successful women - and we need to get a lot more comfortable talking about cash. I was quite shocked by how uncomfortable Sarah’s frankness made me feel. (Not to mention unattractively jealous!) This one is a real thought-provoker. She's also gives some fascinating insider info on the way women (especially older women) are portrayed on screen - when they're portrayed at all - and weighs in on the "why is Hugh Grant allowed to look 60 when Nicole Kidman has to pass for 30" debate spawned by The Undoing. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Like many women, my guest this week has lived a lot of lives in one. Married and divorced in her 20s, Sarah Pinborough left a career in teaching, became a horror writer and taught herself to script write, but it was when she turned her hand to psychological thrillers, when she was 44 (remember that age, it’s definitely significant!), that things went ‘a little nuts’.


That book, Behind Her Eyes, went onto sell a million copies and is now coming to Netflix as a highly bingeable series (18 February 2021 - get it on your watchlist). Sarah is honestly the only person (OK, woman) I have ever interviewed who has spoken so freely and frankly about money, how it changed her life in her mid-40s and why it can vanish as quickly as it arrived. She made me realise that knowing your financial worth is quite rare even in successful women - and we need to get a lot more comfortable talking about cash. I was quite shocked by how uncomfortable Sarah’s frankness made me feel. (Not to mention unattractively jealous!) This one is a real thought-provoker. She's also gives some fascinating insider info on the way women (especially older women) are portrayed on screen - when they're portrayed at all - and weighs in on the "why is Hugh Grant allowed to look 60 when Nicole Kidman has to pass for 30" debate spawned by The Undoing.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2264 yes Alexandra Heminsley on body image, identity and building an LGBTQ+ family https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Where to start with the last decade of this week's guest's life? After struggling to get pregnant, Alexandra Heminsley finally conceived at 40 after unsuccessful rounds of IVF. You might hope that was the end of the stress. But no. First came the DNA test that questioned whether the embryo was really hers and then, as she tried to adapt to life as the mother of a much longed-for newborn, her husband D reached a point where they felt they had no choice but to transition. Oh, and She was also assaulted on public transport whilst heavily pregnant. In her compassionate and brave new memoir, Some Body To Love, Alex explores how it feels to be gaslit by your own body, how she finally found peace with hers and what it even means to be a parent. If you’re struggling with your own body image, feel you’ve lost your sense of self or are coping with radical - or even not so radical - change, you may find some solace here. (Also, Trigger Warning: I should tell you that Alex talks frankly about infertility, miscarriage, sexual assault and her experience of her partner transitioning.) The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Some Body To Love by Alexandra Heminsley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 Feb 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Alexandra Heminsley on body image, identity and building an LGBTQ+ family full 3 21 sam baker Where to start with the last decade of this week's guest's life? After struggling to get pregnant, Alexandra Heminsley finally conceived at 40 after unsuccessful rounds of IVF. You might hope that was the end of the stress. But no. First came... Where to start with the last decade of this week's guest's life? After struggling to get pregnant, Alexandra Heminsley finally conceived at 40 after unsuccessful rounds of IVF. You might hope that was the end of the stress. But no. First came the DNA test that questioned whether the embryo was really hers and then, as she tried to adapt to life as the mother of a much longed-for newborn, her husband D reached a point where they felt they had no choice but to transition. Oh, and She was also assaulted on public transport whilst heavily pregnant. In her compassionate and brave new memoir, Some Body To Love, Alex explores how it feels to be gaslit by your own body, how she finally found peace with hers and what it even means to be a parent. If you’re struggling with your own body image, feel you’ve lost your sense of self or are coping with radical - or even not so radical - change, you may find some solace here. (Also, Trigger Warning: I should tell you that Alex talks frankly about infertility, miscarriage, sexual assault and her experience of her partner transitioning.) The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Some Body To Love by Alexandra Heminsley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Where to start with the last decade of this week's guest's life? After struggling to get pregnant, Alexandra Heminsley finally conceived at 40 after unsuccessful rounds of IVF. You might hope that was the end of the stress. But no. First came the DNA test that questioned whether the embryo was really hers and then, as she tried to adapt to life as the mother of a much longed-for newborn, her husband D reached a point where they felt they had no choice but to transition. Oh, and She was also assaulted on public transport whilst heavily pregnant.


In her compassionate and brave new memoir, Some Body To Love, Alex explores how it feels to be gaslit by your own body, how she finally found peace with hers and what it even means to be a parent. If you’re struggling with your own body image, feel you’ve lost your sense of self or are coping with radical - or even not so radical - change, you may find some solace here. (Also, Trigger Warning: I should tell you that Alex talks frankly about infertility, miscarriage, sexual assault and her experience of her partner transitioning.)


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Some Body To Love by Alexandra Heminsley.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2641 no Kate Mosse on why caring is a feminist issue https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ You’d be hard pushed to think of anyone who has done more for women writers than this week’s guest. Twenty five years ago, Kate Mosse was working in publishing when she looked around and realised that everyone on all the awards shortlists looked familiar - pale, male and stale. The result - the Women’s Prize for Fiction - has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, and given a much-needed voice to women’s writing. Kate is also a bestselling author of 7 novels and 2 short story collections including the millions-selling global smash hit Labyrinth and her new book, The City of Tears. Kate is kind, funny and candid as she talks about how easily women's history is erased (and why we should never forget the women who went before us), her “other” job as a full-time carer - and why caring is a feminist issue - the devaluing of women’s work, being a pathological optimist and why she CANNOT WAIT to be 60. Trigger Warning: Kate also speaks honestly about bereavement and grief, three quarters of the way through the episode. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The City of Tears by Kate Mosse. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 02 Feb 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Kate Mosse on why caring is a feminist issue full 3 20 sam baker You’d be hard pushed to think of anyone who has done more for women writers than this week’s guest. Twenty five years ago, Kate Mosse was working in publishing when she looked around and realised that everyone on all the awards shortlists looked famili... You’d be hard pushed to think of anyone who has done more for women writers than this week’s guest. Twenty five years ago, Kate Mosse was working in publishing when she looked around and realised that everyone on all the awards shortlists looked familiar - pale, male and stale. The result - the Women’s Prize for Fiction - has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, and given a much-needed voice to women’s writing. Kate is also a bestselling author of 7 novels and 2 short story collections including the millions-selling global smash hit Labyrinth and her new book, The City of Tears. Kate is kind, funny and candid as she talks about how easily women's history is erased (and why we should never forget the women who went before us), her “other” job as a full-time carer - and why caring is a feminist issue - the devaluing of women’s work, being a pathological optimist and why she CANNOT WAIT to be 60. Trigger Warning: Kate also speaks honestly about bereavement and grief, three quarters of the way through the episode. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The City of Tears by Kate Mosse. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices You’d be hard pushed to think of anyone who has done more for women writers than this week’s guest. Twenty five years ago, Kate Mosse was working in publishing when she looked around and realised that everyone on all the awards shortlists looked familiar - pale, male and stale. The result - the Women’s Prize for Fiction - has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, and given a much-needed voice to women’s writing.


Kate is also a bestselling author of 7 novels and 2 short story collections including the millions-selling global smash hit Labyrinth and her new book, The City of Tears. Kate is kind, funny and candid as she talks about how easily women's history is erased (and why we should never forget the women who went before us), her “other” job as a full-time carer - and why caring is a feminist issue - the devaluing of women’s work, being a pathological optimist and why she CANNOT WAIT to be 60. Trigger Warning: Kate also speaks honestly about bereavement and grief, three quarters of the way through the episode.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The City of Tears by Kate Mosse.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2611 no Salena Godden on why 40-plus is where the party is https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week's guest is acclaimed poet, author and activist, Salena Godden. Now in her late 40s, Salena has been writing and performing since 1994 when she moved to London seeking the bright lights and never looked back. In her evocative debut novel, Mrs Death Misses Death, the self-confessed “dreamer” brings death to life as a middle-aged black woman and combines prose, poetry and non-fiction to tell the stories of the invisible women society prefers to ignore. Over the next half hour, the woman once described as “everything the Daily Mail is terrified of” talks about "not being here for babies” (and how glad is she that she’ll never be asked THAT question again), being in the midst of “all the weather”, why she thinks menopause is a return to the magic of childhood and why 40+ is where the party is. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 26 Jan 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Salena Godden on why 40-plus is where the party is full 3 19 sam baker This week's guest is acclaimed poet, author and activist, Salena Godden. Now in her late 40s, Salena has been writing and performing since 1994 when she moved to London seeking the bright lights and never looked back. In her evocative debut novel,... This week's guest is acclaimed poet, author and activist, Salena Godden. Now in her late 40s, Salena has been writing and performing since 1994 when she moved to London seeking the bright lights and never looked back. In her evocative debut novel, Mrs Death Misses Death, the self-confessed “dreamer” brings death to life as a middle-aged black woman and combines prose, poetry and non-fiction to tell the stories of the invisible women society prefers to ignore. Over the next half hour, the woman once described as “everything the Daily Mail is terrified of” talks about "not being here for babies” (and how glad is she that she’ll never be asked THAT question again), being in the midst of “all the weather”, why she thinks menopause is a return to the magic of childhood and why 40+ is where the party is. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week's guest is acclaimed poet, author and activist, Salena Godden. Now in her late 40s, Salena has been writing and performing since 1994 when she moved to London seeking the bright lights and never looked back. In her evocative debut novel, Mrs Death Misses Death, the self-confessed “dreamer” brings death to life as a middle-aged black woman and combines prose, poetry and non-fiction to tell the stories of the invisible women society prefers to ignore.


Over the next half hour, the woman once described as “everything the Daily Mail is terrified of” talks about "not being here for babies” (and how glad is she that she’ll never be asked THAT question again), being in the midst of “all the weather”, why she thinks menopause is a return to the magic of childhood and why 40+ is where the party is.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2093 no Philippa Perry on getting hold of the "steering wheel of life" https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ How's 2021 for you so far?! I know, right? Well, who better to grab us by the scruff of the neck at just the point our meagre enthusiasm is starting to wear off than Philippa Perry? Philippa has been a psychotherapist for 20 years. She’s also an agony aunt, presenter and author of the bestseller, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad you did) - a clever, funny - and SANE - guide that acknowledges ‘they f*ck you up, your mum and dad’, and then helps you try not to do the same. Philippa is completely fascinating as she talks about “getting hold of the steering wheel of life”, why plummeting oestrogen levels made her “homicidal not suicidal”, why women should stop playing “mine’s smaller than yours” and her own battle to silence her inner critic. And if you want to know how to make a sweary cushion you’ve come to the right place. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too and The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read and Couch Fiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 19 Jan 2021 01:00:00 -0000 Philippa Perry on getting hold of the "steering wheel of life" full 3 18 sam baker How's 2021 for you so far?! I know, right? Well, who better to grab us by the scruff of the neck at just the point our meagre enthusiasm is starting to wear off than Philippa Perry? Philippa has been a psychotherapist for 20 years. She’s also an a... How's 2021 for you so far?! I know, right? Well, who better to grab us by the scruff of the neck at just the point our meagre enthusiasm is starting to wear off than Philippa Perry? Philippa has been a psychotherapist for 20 years. She’s also an agony aunt, presenter and author of the bestseller, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad you did) - a clever, funny - and SANE - guide that acknowledges ‘they f*ck you up, your mum and dad’, and then helps you try not to do the same. Philippa is completely fascinating as she talks about “getting hold of the steering wheel of life”, why plummeting oestrogen levels made her “homicidal not suicidal”, why women should stop playing “mine’s smaller than yours” and her own battle to silence her inner critic. And if you want to know how to make a sweary cushion you’ve come to the right place. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too and The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read and Couch Fiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How's 2021 for you so far?! I know, right? Well, who better to grab us by the scruff of the neck at just the point our meagre enthusiasm is starting to wear off than Philippa Perry? Philippa has been a psychotherapist for 20 years. She’s also an agony aunt, presenter and author of the bestseller, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad you did) - a clever, funny - and SANE - guide that acknowledges ‘they f*ck you up, your mum and dad’, and then helps you try not to do the same.


Philippa is completely fascinating as she talks about “getting hold of the steering wheel of life”, why plummeting oestrogen levels made her “homicidal not suicidal”, why women should stop playing “mine’s smaller than yours” and her own battle to silence her inner critic. And if you want to know how to make a sweary cushion you’ve come to the right place.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too and The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read and Couch Fiction.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2361 yes Season 3 of The Shift with Sam Baker is back!! https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/episodes/season3oftheshiftwithsambakerisback- How can it possibly be season three already?! Time flies when you're locked indoors binge-watching repeats! After full and frank conversations about life after 40 (and I DO mean full and frank!) in the first two seasons with the likes of Marian Keyes, Emma Freud, Jojo Moyes, Jo Whiley, Sara Collins, Bryony Gordon, Jodi Picoult, Gabby Logan and many more, we're back with lots more chat about everything from hormones to cash flow, body image to the portrayal of midlife women on screen to the triple burden of menopause, mental health and being black. Guests to look out for include therapist Philippa Perry, poet Salena Godden, bestselling novelists Isabel Allende and Kate Mosse and international reporter Lindsey Hilsum. PLUS I might have a couple of surprises up my sleeve... The Shift with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. We'd love to know what you think so please do rate and review - or message me on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can find all the books featured and recommended on The Shift with Sam Baker on Bookshop.org. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 18 Jan 2021 16:04:38 -0000 Season 3 of The Shift with Sam Baker is back!! full 3 17 sam baker How can it possibly be season three already?! Time flies when you're locked indoors binge-watching repeats! After full and frank conversations about life after 40 (and I DO mean full and frank!) in the first two seasons with the likes of Marian Ke... How can it possibly be season three already?! Time flies when you're locked indoors binge-watching repeats! After full and frank conversations about life after 40 (and I DO mean full and frank!) in the first two seasons with the likes of Marian Keyes, Emma Freud, Jojo Moyes, Jo Whiley, Sara Collins, Bryony Gordon, Jodi Picoult, Gabby Logan and many more, we're back with lots more chat about everything from hormones to cash flow, body image to the portrayal of midlife women on screen to the triple burden of menopause, mental health and being black. Guests to look out for include therapist Philippa Perry, poet Salena Godden, bestselling novelists Isabel Allende and Kate Mosse and international reporter Lindsey Hilsum. PLUS I might have a couple of surprises up my sleeve... The Shift with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. We'd love to know what you think so please do rate and review - or message me on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. You can find all the books featured and recommended on The Shift with Sam Baker on Bookshop.org. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How can it possibly be season three already?! Time flies when you're locked indoors binge-watching repeats! After full and frank conversations about life after 40 (and I DO mean full and frank!) in the first two seasons with the likes of Marian Keyes, Emma Freud, Jojo Moyes, Jo Whiley, Sara Collins, Bryony Gordon, Jodi Picoult, Gabby Logan and many more, we're back with lots more chat about everything from hormones to cash flow, body image to the portrayal of midlife women on screen to the triple burden of menopause, mental health and being black. Guests to look out for include therapist Philippa Perry, poet Salena Godden, bestselling novelists Isabel Allende and Kate Mosse and international reporter Lindsey Hilsum. PLUS I might have a couple of surprises up my sleeve...


The Shift with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. We'd love to know what you think so please do rate and review - or message me on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


You can find all the books featured and recommended on The Shift with Sam Baker on Bookshop.org.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 143 no Gabby Logan on resilience, reclaiming middle age – and why equality begins at home https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week has hosted everything from Final Score to the Six Nations to the Olympics. Formerly an international gymnast, Gabby Logan moved into broadcasting in her early 20s and neither she – nor the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting – have looked back. Now 47, she’s launched The Mid-Point, a podcast about midlife career change and becoming more comfortable in your own skin.  Join us as Gabby talks resilience, reclaiming “middle age”, competitive coping, cooking for Mary Berry and why equality begins at home. Oh, and how it feels to be the Dame Judi Dench of sports broadcasting! And… There’s SO MUCH more. You’ll just have to listen on… The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out in hardback and available to buy here. Listen to series one of The Mid•point with Gabby Logan on apple podcasts, spotify and wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 08 Dec 2020 01:00:00 -0000 Gabby Logan on resilience, reclaiming middle age – and why equality begins at home full 2 16 sam baker My guest this week has hosted everything from Final Score to the Six Nations to the Olympics. Formerly an international gymnast, Gabby Logan moved into broadcasting in her early 20s and neither she – nor the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting ... My guest this week has hosted everything from Final Score to the Six Nations to the Olympics. Formerly an international gymnast, Gabby Logan moved into broadcasting in her early 20s and neither she – nor the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting – have looked back. Now 47, she’s launched The Mid-Point, a podcast about midlife career change and becoming more comfortable in your own skin.  Join us as Gabby talks resilience, reclaiming “middle age”, competitive coping, cooking for Mary Berry and why equality begins at home. Oh, and how it feels to be the Dame Judi Dench of sports broadcasting! And… There’s SO MUCH more. You’ll just have to listen on… The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out in hardback and available to buy here. Listen to series one of The Mid•point with Gabby Logan on apple podcasts, spotify and wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week has hosted everything from Final Score to the Six Nations to the Olympics. Formerly an international gymnast, Gabby Logan moved into broadcasting in her early 20s and neither she – nor the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting – have looked back. Now 47, she’s launched The Mid-Point, a podcast about midlife career change and becoming more comfortable in your own skin. 


Join us as Gabby talks resilience, reclaiming “middle age”, competitive coping, cooking for Mary Berry and why equality begins at home. Oh, and how it feels to be the Dame Judi Dench of sports broadcasting! And… There’s SO MUCH more. You’ll just have to listen on…


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


• The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out in hardback and available to buy here.


Listen to series one of The Mid•point with Gabby Logan on apple podcasts, spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2930 no Erica Davies is here to help you rediscover your fashion mojo https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Feel like your wardrobe has turned against you? Your body’s gone awol and you've mislaid your style mojo? This week’s guest is the answer to your sartorial prayers. Fashion journalist and lifestyle blogger Erica Davies’s career spans two decades: at 24 she was the youngest ever national newspaper fashion editor, on The Sun. At 44 she is a legit Instagram influencer – one of very few representing the legion women between 30 and 80! - has over 150,000 followers and has just captured her styling wisdom in a book: Leopard is a neutral. And no, she’s not loaded and she’s not a size 8. She’s a working mum of two with a body to match. Which is why her book is SO useful. Listen on for her advice on what to do when you feel like the fashion industry is shoving you out the door into granny clothes, how to regain your style identity and why fashion rules are, well, frankly, BS. Plus she shares her shopping tricks, personal style icons and the superpower that means she hardly ever sends anything back. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out in hardback and available to buy here. • Leopard is a neutral by Erica Davies is out in hardback and available to buy here. Follow Erica on instagram @erica_davies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 01 Dec 2020 01:00:00 -0000 Erica Davies is here to help you rediscover your fashion mojo full 2 15 sam baker Feel like your wardrobe has turned against you? Your body’s gone awol and you've mislaid your style mojo? This week’s guest is the answer to your sartorial prayers. Fashion journalist Erica Davies’s career spans two decades: at 24 she was the youn... Feel like your wardrobe has turned against you? Your body’s gone awol and you've mislaid your style mojo? This week’s guest is the answer to your sartorial prayers. Fashion journalist and lifestyle blogger Erica Davies’s career spans two decades: at 24 she was the youngest ever national newspaper fashion editor, on The Sun. At 44 she is a legit Instagram influencer – one of very few representing the legion women between 30 and 80! - has over 150,000 followers and has just captured her styling wisdom in a book: Leopard is a neutral. And no, she’s not loaded and she’s not a size 8. She’s a working mum of two with a body to match. Which is why her book is SO useful. Listen on for her advice on what to do when you feel like the fashion industry is shoving you out the door into granny clothes, how to regain your style identity and why fashion rules are, well, frankly, BS. Plus she shares her shopping tricks, personal style icons and the superpower that means she hardly ever sends anything back. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out in hardback and available to buy here. • Leopard is a neutral by Erica Davies is out in hardback and available to buy here. Follow Erica on instagram @erica_davies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Feel like your wardrobe has turned against you? Your body’s gone awol and you've mislaid your style mojo? This week’s guest is the answer to your sartorial prayers. Fashion journalist and lifestyle blogger Erica Davies’s career spans two decades: at 24 she was the youngest ever national newspaper fashion editor, on The Sun. At 44 she is a legit Instagram influencer – one of very few representing the legion women between 30 and 80! - has over 150,000 followers and has just captured her styling wisdom in a book: Leopard is a neutral.


And no, she’s not loaded and she’s not a size 8. She’s a working mum of two with a body to match. Which is why her book is SO useful. Listen on for her advice on what to do when you feel like the fashion industry is shoving you out the door into granny clothes, how to regain your style identity and why fashion rules are, well, frankly, BS. Plus she shares her shopping tricks, personal style icons and the superpower that means she hardly ever sends anything back.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


• The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out in hardback and available to buy here.

• Leopard is a neutral by Erica Davies is out in hardback and available to buy here.


Follow Erica on instagram @erica_davies


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2546 no Maggie O'Farrell on imposter syndrome and why she didn't think she was "the marrying kind" https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week’s guest is the award-winning novelist, Maggie O’Farrell. The author of eight novels, most recently the stunning Women’s Prize winner, Hamnet, and one of my favourite memoirs of all time, I Am, I Am, I am. And now she’s written a children’s book, the absolutely gorgeous Where Snow Angels Go, which is a banker for a Christmas Day teatime animation a la The Snowman if ever I saw one.  While Maggie noses through my bookcase and plays with Sausage the (tail-less) cat, we talk being a social media refusenik, giving voice to women’s stories, saying good riddance to the male gaze, why she never thought she was the marrying kind. Oh, and why she still secretly fears someone might take her Women’s Prize away! Frankly, if Maggie O’Farrell has imposter syndrome, what hope is there for the rest of us? The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out in hardback and available to buy here. • Where Snow Angels go by Maggie O’Farrell and Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini is out in hardback and available to buy here - the perfect stocking filler! • Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell is out in hardback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 24 Nov 2020 01:00:00 -0000 Maggie O'Farrell on imposter syndrome and why she didn't think she was "the marrying kind" full 2 14 sam baker This week’s guest is the award-winning novelist, Maggie O’Farrell. The author of eight novels, most recently the stunning Women’s Prize winner, Hamnet, and one of my favourite memoirs of all time, I Am, I Am, I am. And now she’s written a children’s bo... This week’s guest is the award-winning novelist, Maggie O’Farrell. The author of eight novels, most recently the stunning Women’s Prize winner, Hamnet, and one of my favourite memoirs of all time, I Am, I Am, I am. And now she’s written a children’s book, the absolutely gorgeous Where Snow Angels Go, which is a banker for a Christmas Day teatime animation a la The Snowman if ever I saw one.  While Maggie noses through my bookcase and plays with Sausage the (tail-less) cat, we talk being a social media refusenik, giving voice to women’s stories, saying good riddance to the male gaze, why she never thought she was the marrying kind. Oh, and why she still secretly fears someone might take her Women’s Prize away! Frankly, if Maggie O’Farrell has imposter syndrome, what hope is there for the rest of us? The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out in hardback and available to buy here. • Where Snow Angels go by Maggie O’Farrell and Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini is out in hardback and available to buy here - the perfect stocking filler! • Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell is out in hardback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week’s guest is the award-winning novelist, Maggie O’Farrell. The author of eight novels, most recently the stunning Women’s Prize winner, Hamnet, and one of my favourite memoirs of all time, I Am, I Am, I am. And now she’s written a children’s book, the absolutely gorgeous Where Snow Angels Go, which is a banker for a Christmas Day teatime animation a la The Snowman if ever I saw one. 


While Maggie noses through my bookcase and plays with Sausage the (tail-less) cat, we talk being a social media refusenik, giving voice to women’s stories, saying good riddance to the male gaze, why she never thought she was the marrying kind. Oh, and why she still secretly fears someone might take her Women’s Prize away! Frankly, if Maggie O’Farrell has imposter syndrome, what hope is there for the rest of us?


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


• The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out in hardback and available to buy here.

• Where Snow Angels go by Maggie O’Farrell and Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini is out in hardback and available to buy here - the perfect stocking filler!

• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell is out in hardback and available to buy here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2559 no Denise Mina on the feminism, HRT and how to be assertive https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week’s episode comes to you from the Glasgow kitchen of straight talking crime writer Denise Mina. (Lockdown let up long enough for me to leave the house - yay!) She’s written 15 novels, including the award-winning The Long Drop, and her last, Conviction, was scooped up by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Bookclub. But her latest, The Less Dead, based on a real life Glasgow serial killer, focusses on what makes a “good” victim versus a “bad” one, and takes her right back to her political roots. Over an enormous pot of strong tea (she truly has the biggest tea pot I have ever seen) Denise and I go to all the places. And I mean ALL OF THEM. I could have stayed there all day. From sexism in crime fiction and what it was like growing up in the 1980s to channelling her anger, plus HRT, withering vaginas and creaking joints and so much more... Plus Denise tries (in vain) to teach me the art of confrontation; all while taking a delivery from John Lewis and baking a mean pecan pie - but don’t tell her I told you so! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here. • The Less Dead by Denise Mina is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 17 Nov 2020 01:00:00 -0000 Denise Mina on the feminism, HRT and how to be assertive full 2 13 sam baker This week’s episode comes to you from the Glasgow kitchen of straight talking crime writer Denise Mina. (Lockdown let up long enough for me to leave the house - yay!) She’s written 15 novels, including the award-winning The Long Drop, and her last, C... This week’s episode comes to you from the Glasgow kitchen of straight talking crime writer Denise Mina. (Lockdown let up long enough for me to leave the house - yay!) She’s written 15 novels, including the award-winning The Long Drop, and her last, Conviction, was scooped up by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Bookclub. But her latest, The Less Dead, based on a real life Glasgow serial killer, focusses on what makes a “good” victim versus a “bad” one, and takes her right back to her political roots. Over an enormous pot of strong tea (she truly has the biggest tea pot I have ever seen) Denise and I go to all the places. And I mean ALL OF THEM. I could have stayed there all day. From sexism in crime fiction and what it was like growing up in the 1980s to channelling her anger, plus HRT, withering vaginas and creaking joints and so much more... Plus Denise tries (in vain) to teach me the art of confrontation; all while taking a delivery from John Lewis and baking a mean pecan pie - but don’t tell her I told you so! The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here. • The Less Dead by Denise Mina is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week’s episode comes to you from the Glasgow kitchen of straight talking crime writer Denise Mina. (Lockdown let up long enough for me to leave the house - yay!) She’s written 15 novels, including the award-winning The Long Drop, and her last, Conviction, was scooped up by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Bookclub. But her latest, The Less Dead, based on a real life Glasgow serial killer, focusses on what makes a “good” victim versus a “bad” one, and takes her right back to her political roots.


Over an enormous pot of strong tea (she truly has the biggest tea pot I have ever seen) Denise and I go to all the places. And I mean ALL OF THEM. I could have stayed there all day. From sexism in crime fiction and what it was like growing up in the 1980s to channelling her anger, plus HRT, withering vaginas and creaking joints and so much more... Plus Denise tries (in vain) to teach me the art of confrontation; all while taking a delivery from John Lewis and baking a mean pecan pie - but don’t tell her I told you so!


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


• The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here.

• The Less Dead by Denise Mina is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3013 yes Meg Mathews on menopause, osteoporosis and feeling like she'd "lost it" https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week’s guest has been in the tabloids since her early teens. In fact, like me, you’re probably guilty of thinking you know all about Meg Mathews just because you read about her marriage to Noel Gallagher, her partying with the “primrose hill set” and her journey off the rails and back on again. But she’s set out to prove us all wrong with her campaign to put an end to the menopause taboo and a new book, The New Hot. In her immaculate North London living room, Meg talked to me with brutal honesty about the symptoms that almost stole her sanity, “losing the will to live” and - trigger warning - how watching her mum die from osteoporosis made her determined the same would never happen to her - or her daughter Anais. Meg is bold, brave and candid and you may find some of her experience upsetting, but this is a must-listen if you’re either in the throes of perimenopause or forty something and feeling like you’ve lost your marbles! (There is also some vagina talk – which is only to be expected if you put Meg and me in the same room for more than five minutes!) The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here. • The New Hot by Meg Mathews is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Find out more at megsmenopause.com. Get more information at menopausedoctor.co.uk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 10 Nov 2020 01:00:00 -0000 Meg Mathews on menopause, osteoporosis and feeling like she'd "lost it" full 2 12 sam baker This week’s guest has been in the tabloids since her early teens. In fact, like me, you’re probably guilty of thinking you know all about Meg Mathews just because you read about her marriage to Noel Gallagher, her partying with the “primrose hill set” ... This week’s guest has been in the tabloids since her early teens. In fact, like me, you’re probably guilty of thinking you know all about Meg Mathews just because you read about her marriage to Noel Gallagher, her partying with the “primrose hill set” and her journey off the rails and back on again. But she’s set out to prove us all wrong with her campaign to put an end to the menopause taboo and a new book, The New Hot. In her immaculate North London living room, Meg talked to me with brutal honesty about the symptoms that almost stole her sanity, “losing the will to live” and - trigger warning - how watching her mum die from osteoporosis made her determined the same would never happen to her - or her daughter Anais. Meg is bold, brave and candid and you may find some of her experience upsetting, but this is a must-listen if you’re either in the throes of perimenopause or forty something and feeling like you’ve lost your marbles! (There is also some vagina talk – which is only to be expected if you put Meg and me in the same room for more than five minutes!) The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here. • The New Hot by Meg Mathews is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Find out more at megsmenopause.com. Get more information at menopausedoctor.co.uk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week’s guest has been in the tabloids since her early teens. In fact, like me, you’re probably guilty of thinking you know all about Meg Mathews just because you read about her marriage to Noel Gallagher, her partying with the “primrose hill set” and her journey off the rails and back on again. But she’s set out to prove us all wrong with her campaign to put an end to the menopause taboo and a new book, The New Hot.


In her immaculate North London living room, Meg talked to me with brutal honesty about the symptoms that almost stole her sanity, “losing the will to live” and - trigger warning - how watching her mum die from osteoporosis made her determined the same would never happen to her - or her daughter Anais. Meg is bold, brave and candid and you may find some of her experience upsetting, but this is a must-listen if you’re either in the throes of perimenopause or forty something and feeling like you’ve lost your marbles! (There is also some vagina talk – which is only to be expected if you put Meg and me in the same room for more than five minutes!)


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


• The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here.

• The New Hot by Meg Mathews is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Find out more at megsmenopause.com.


Get more information at menopausedoctor.co.uk.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2829 no Jodi Picoult on sexism, Donald Trump and why everyone has a "what if?" moment https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week I’m chatting to a woman who is the very definition of a Bestseller. Jodi Picoult has written 24 global smash hits (including A Spark of Light and Small Great Things) all with her inimitable mix of hard hitting issues and intimate personal stories, and her last eight novels have debuted at No 1 in the New York Times bestseller list. Her new novel, The Book of Two Ways, is a page turning exploration of life, death, grief and the biggest question of all - what would our lives look like if we’d taken a different path? Who doesn’t wonder that sometimes/often/all the time?* (*delete as applicable!)? Over a cup of coffee as big as her head, Jodi shares her own ‘what if’ moment, why covid-19 makes her fear for women’s position in society and why she’s angrier than ever. Put it this way she’s a fierce defender of women’s rights and an outspoken critic of Donald Trump…!  (Jodi was sitting in her attic on America's East coast so apologies in advance if the transatlantic quality is occasionally a bit shonky.) The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here. • The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Jodi's book recommendation: Beach Read by Emily Henry is available to buy in paperback. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 03 Nov 2020 01:00:00 -0000 Jodi Picoult on sexism, Donald Trump and why everyone has a "what if?" moment full 2 11 sam baker This week I’m chatting to a woman who is the very definition of a Bestseller. Jodi Picoult has written 24 global smash hits (including A Spark of Light and Small Great Things) all with her inimitable mix of hard hitting issues and intimate personal sto... This week I’m chatting to a woman who is the very definition of a Bestseller. Jodi Picoult has written 24 global smash hits (including A Spark of Light and Small Great Things) all with her inimitable mix of hard hitting issues and intimate personal stories, and her last eight novels have debuted at No 1 in the New York Times bestseller list. Her new novel, The Book of Two Ways, is a page turning exploration of life, death, grief and the biggest question of all - what would our lives look like if we’d taken a different path? Who doesn’t wonder that sometimes/often/all the time?* (*delete as applicable!)? Over a cup of coffee as big as her head, Jodi shares her own ‘what if’ moment, why covid-19 makes her fear for women’s position in society and why she’s angrier than ever. Put it this way she’s a fierce defender of women’s rights and an outspoken critic of Donald Trump…!  (Jodi was sitting in her attic on America's East coast so apologies in advance if the transatlantic quality is occasionally a bit shonky.) The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here. • The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Jodi's book recommendation: Beach Read by Emily Henry is available to buy in paperback. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week I’m chatting to a woman who is the very definition of a Bestseller. Jodi Picoult has written 24 global smash hits (including A Spark of Light and Small Great Things) all with her inimitable mix of hard hitting issues and intimate personal stories, and her last eight novels have debuted at No 1 in the New York Times bestseller list.


Her new novel, The Book of Two Ways, is a page turning exploration of life, death, grief and the biggest question of all - what would our lives look like if we’d taken a different path? Who doesn’t wonder that sometimes/often/all the time?* (*delete as applicable!)? Over a cup of coffee as big as her head, Jodi shares her own ‘what if’ moment, why covid-19 makes her fear for women’s position in society and why she’s angrier than ever. Put it this way she’s a fierce defender of women’s rights and an outspoken critic of Donald Trump…! 


(Jodi was sitting in her attic on America's East coast so apologies in advance if the transatlantic quality is occasionally a bit shonky.)


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


• The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here.

• The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Jodi's book recommendation: Beach Read by Emily Henry is available to buy in paperback.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2879 no Bryony Gordon on alcoholism, mental health & why she feels lucky to be 40 https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week’s guest will be no stranger to you but she’s a little bit of a different one for The Shift because, at 40, Bryony Gordon is a mere whipper snapper, but she’s crammed a whole lot of living into those years. Journalism, Mental health campaigning, marathon running, body positivity activism, bestselling books and, as we’ll be hearing, alcoholism.  In her latest bestseller, Glorious Rock Bottom, Bryony gives a painfully candid account of alcoholism, what it does to the alcoholic and the people around them - and, crucially, how it feels to come through it. It is TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH. It is also immensely likeable and - dare I say it because this is not a Bryony thing - heartwarming. Aaaah! Bryony talks openly about everything from addiction and abuse to shame (and shaming yourself), forgiveness, the tyranny of being a "good" mother, the craziness of women lying about their age and why she will never, ever moan about getting older. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. TRIGGER WARNING: Bryony talks candidly about her alcoholism, mental health crises and suicidal ideation. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here. • Glorious Rock Bottom by Bryony Gordon is out in hardback and available to buy here. Her new book, a practical guide to mental health called, No Such Thing as Normal, is published on 7 January. Click here to preorder. Bryony's book recommendation: Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud. Out now in hardback and available to buy here. You can follow bryony on instagram @bryonygordon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 27 Oct 2020 01:00:00 -0000 Bryony Gordon on alcoholism, mental health & why she feels lucky to be 40 full 2 10 sam baker This week’s guest will be no stranger to you but she’s a little bit of a different one for The Shift because, at 40, Bryony Gordon is a mere whipper snapper, but she’s crammed a whole lot of living into those years. Journalism, Mental health campaignin... This week’s guest will be no stranger to you but she’s a little bit of a different one for The Shift because, at 40, Bryony Gordon is a mere whipper snapper, but she’s crammed a whole lot of living into those years. Journalism, Mental health campaigning, marathon running, body positivity activism, bestselling books and, as we’ll be hearing, alcoholism.  In her latest bestseller, Glorious Rock Bottom, Bryony gives a painfully candid account of alcoholism, what it does to the alcoholic and the people around them - and, crucially, how it feels to come through it. It is TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH. It is also immensely likeable and - dare I say it because this is not a Bryony thing - heartwarming. Aaaah! Bryony talks openly about everything from addiction and abuse to shame (and shaming yourself), forgiveness, the tyranny of being a "good" mother, the craziness of women lying about their age and why she will never, ever moan about getting older. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. TRIGGER WARNING: Bryony talks candidly about her alcoholism, mental health crises and suicidal ideation. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker • The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here. • Glorious Rock Bottom by Bryony Gordon is out in hardback and available to buy here. Her new book, a practical guide to mental health called, No Such Thing as Normal, is published on 7 January. Click here to preorder. Bryony's book recommendation: Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud. Out now in hardback and available to buy here. You can follow bryony on instagram @bryonygordon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week’s guest will be no stranger to you but she’s a little bit of a different one for The Shift because, at 40, Bryony Gordon is a mere whipper snapper, but she’s crammed a whole lot of living into those years. Journalism, Mental health campaigning, marathon running, body positivity activism, bestselling books and, as we’ll be hearing, alcoholism. 


In her latest bestseller, Glorious Rock Bottom, Bryony gives a painfully candid account of alcoholism, what it does to the alcoholic and the people around them - and, crucially, how it feels to come through it. It is TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH. It is also immensely likeable and - dare I say it because this is not a Bryony thing - heartwarming. Aaaah! Bryony talks openly about everything from addiction and abuse to shame (and shaming yourself), forgiveness, the tyranny of being a "good" mother, the craziness of women lying about their age and why she will never, ever moan about getting older. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.


TRIGGER WARNING: Bryony talks candidly about her alcoholism, mental health crises and suicidal ideation.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


• The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback and available to buy here.

• Glorious Rock Bottom by Bryony Gordon is out in hardback and available to buy here. Her new book, a practical guide to mental health called, No Such Thing as Normal, is published on 7 January. Click here to preorder.


Bryony's book recommendation: Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud. Out now in hardback and available to buy here.


You can follow bryony on instagram @bryonygordon.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2210 no Karen Arthur on how to turn a breakdown into a breakthrough and #MenopauseWhilstBlack https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My brilliant guest for the first episode of this season is a very special one. You may not have heard of Karen Arthur, but you sure as hell will have done by the time she’s finished with you. Because Karen - the founder of Menopause Whilst Black - is a woman on a mission. In the few months since she launched Menopause Whilst Black on Instagram she has become a force to be reckoned with in the fast-growing “menopause community” (not sure what that is, but it will come as no surprise to you that it was very, very white…) and now she’s launched a podcast of the same name.  For the first three decades of her working life, Karen was a teacher. Then she had a breakdown that caused her to rethink everything about her life (sound familiar?!). She recreated herself as a fashion designer, activist, campaigner, model and set about giving black menopausal women a much needed voice. Join Karen and me for an eye-openingly honest and generous conversation about what can happen when you hit a wall and don’t even know who you are any more. You can follow Karen on instagram @thekarenarthur and @menopausewhilstblack. Find Menopause Whilst Black podcast on spotify. The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback, and available to buy from Amazon and all good bookshops. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 20 Oct 2020 00:00:00 -0000 Karen Arthur on how to turn a breakdown into a breakthrough and #MenopauseWhilstBlack full 2 9 sam baker My brilliant guest for the first episode of this season is a very special one. You may not have heard of Karen Arthur, but you sure as hell will have done by the time she’s finished with you. Because Karen - the founder of Menopause Whilst Black - is a... My brilliant guest for the first episode of this season is a very special one. You may not have heard of Karen Arthur, but you sure as hell will have done by the time she’s finished with you. Because Karen - the founder of Menopause Whilst Black - is a woman on a mission. In the few months since she launched Menopause Whilst Black on Instagram she has become a force to be reckoned with in the fast-growing “menopause community” (not sure what that is, but it will come as no surprise to you that it was very, very white…) and now she’s launched a podcast of the same name.  For the first three decades of her working life, Karen was a teacher. Then she had a breakdown that caused her to rethink everything about her life (sound familiar?!). She recreated herself as a fashion designer, activist, campaigner, model and set about giving black menopausal women a much needed voice. Join Karen and me for an eye-openingly honest and generous conversation about what can happen when you hit a wall and don’t even know who you are any more. You can follow Karen on instagram @thekarenarthur and @menopausewhilstblack. Find Menopause Whilst Black podcast on spotify. The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback, and available to buy from Amazon and all good bookshops. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My brilliant guest for the first episode of this season is a very special one. You may not have heard of Karen Arthur, but you sure as hell will have done by the time she’s finished with you. Because Karen - the founder of Menopause Whilst Black - is a woman on a mission. In the few months since she launched Menopause Whilst Black on Instagram she has become a force to be reckoned with in the fast-growing “menopause community” (not sure what that is, but it will come as no surprise to you that it was very, very white…) and now she’s launched a podcast of the same name. 


For the first three decades of her working life, Karen was a teacher. Then she had a breakdown that caused her to rethink everything about her life (sound familiar?!). She recreated herself as a fashion designer, activist, campaigner, model and set about giving black menopausal women a much needed voice. Join Karen and me for an eye-openingly honest and generous conversation about what can happen when you hit a wall and don’t even know who you are any more.


You can follow Karen on instagram @thekarenarthur and @menopausewhilstblack. Find Menopause Whilst Black podcast on spotify.


The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out now in hardback, and available to buy from Amazon and all good bookshops.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is hosted by Sam Baker, produced by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2413 no Emma Freud on millennials, going grey and why she'll never lie about her age https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Where to start with this week’s guest? Now 58, Emma Freud is a broadcaster, presenter, columnist and fund-raiser, for want of a better way of putting the incredible work she and her partner Richard Curtis do with Comic Relief. And she’s got four kids. And a bazillion pets (listen on for kittens!). And she lives in my Pinterest board. And she’s not afraid to call a spade a spade. Lots of spades, in fact. In a no-holds barred conversation, Emma talks frankly about reshaping Comic Relief for a new generation, how being the mother of one of the country’s most outspoken millennials, Scarlett Curtis, has changed her attitudes to just about everything, the contradictions of ageing (will dye, won’t Botox) and why she will never ever deny her age.  Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Find out more about Comic Relief here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 13 Oct 2020 00:00:00 -0000 Emma Freud on millennials, going grey and why she'll never lie about her age full 1 8 sam baker Where to start with this week’s guest? Now 58, Emma Freud is a broadcaster, presenter, columnist and fund-raiser, for want of a better way of putting the incredible work she and her partner Richard Curtis do with Comic Relief. And she’s got four kids. ... Where to start with this week’s guest? Now 58, Emma Freud is a broadcaster, presenter, columnist and fund-raiser, for want of a better way of putting the incredible work she and her partner Richard Curtis do with Comic Relief. And she’s got four kids. And a bazillion pets (listen on for kittens!). And she lives in my Pinterest board. And she’s not afraid to call a spade a spade. Lots of spades, in fact. In a no-holds barred conversation, Emma talks frankly about reshaping Comic Relief for a new generation, how being the mother of one of the country’s most outspoken millennials, Scarlett Curtis, has changed her attitudes to just about everything, the contradictions of ageing (will dye, won’t Botox) and why she will never ever deny her age.  Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Find out more about Comic Relief here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Where to start with this week’s guest? Now 58, Emma Freud is a broadcaster, presenter, columnist and fund-raiser, for want of a better way of putting the incredible work she and her partner Richard Curtis do with Comic Relief. And she’s got four kids. And a bazillion pets (listen on for kittens!). And she lives in my Pinterest board. And she’s not afraid to call a spade a spade. Lots of spades, in fact.


In a no-holds barred conversation, Emma talks frankly about reshaping Comic Relief for a new generation, how being the mother of one of the country’s most outspoken millennials, Scarlett Curtis, has changed her attitudes to just about everything, the contradictions of ageing (will dye, won’t Botox) and why she will never ever deny her age. 


Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Find out more about Comic Relief here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2946 no Kate Spicer on menopause stereotypes, being child-free and single at 50 https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week's guest is journalist and author, Kate Spicer. Kate went from “just another journalist” to national treasure and the country’s most famous dog-lover when her dog Wolfie went missing and she enlisted twitter to help find him. That story became a book, Lost Dog (billed as What did Fleabag do next? But equally a story about the love between a lost human and her four-legged friend), and is now on the way to becoming a film. There is no-one better than Kate to talk about the way child-free women are stereotyped (dog as baby substitute anyone?), the way menopausal women are stereotyped, the way women are stereotyped fullstop! There’s also swearing. And chemicals (and not just the hormone replacing kind). Kate is funny, frank (and sweary!) as she tells the unvarnished truth about hitting her 50s as a single woman, slowing down her hectic party girl lifestyle and coming to terms with the changes wrought by menopause. (Oh, and her past life as a pyromaniac!) Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Lost Dog by Kate Spicer is out now in paperback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 06 Oct 2020 00:00:00 -0000 Kate Spicer on menopause stereotypes, being child-free and single at 50 full 1 7 sam baker This week's guest is journalist and author, Kate Spicer. Kate went from “just another journalist” to national treasure and the country’s most famous dog-lover when her dog Wolfie went missing and she enlisted twitter to help find him. That story b... This week's guest is journalist and author, Kate Spicer. Kate went from “just another journalist” to national treasure and the country’s most famous dog-lover when her dog Wolfie went missing and she enlisted twitter to help find him. That story became a book, Lost Dog (billed as What did Fleabag do next? But equally a story about the love between a lost human and her four-legged friend), and is now on the way to becoming a film. There is no-one better than Kate to talk about the way child-free women are stereotyped (dog as baby substitute anyone?), the way menopausal women are stereotyped, the way women are stereotyped fullstop! There’s also swearing. And chemicals (and not just the hormone replacing kind). Kate is funny, frank (and sweary!) as she tells the unvarnished truth about hitting her 50s as a single woman, slowing down her hectic party girl lifestyle and coming to terms with the changes wrought by menopause. (Oh, and her past life as a pyromaniac!) Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Lost Dog by Kate Spicer is out now in paperback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week's guest is journalist and author, Kate Spicer. Kate went from “just another journalist” to national treasure and the country’s most famous dog-lover when her dog Wolfie went missing and she enlisted twitter to help find him. That story became a book, Lost Dog (billed as What did Fleabag do next? But equally a story about the love between a lost human and her four-legged friend), and is now on the way to becoming a film.


There is no-one better than Kate to talk about the way child-free women are stereotyped (dog as baby substitute anyone?), the way menopausal women are stereotyped, the way women are stereotyped fullstop! There’s also swearing. And chemicals (and not just the hormone replacing kind). Kate is funny, frank (and sweary!) as she tells the unvarnished truth about hitting her 50s as a single woman, slowing down her hectic party girl lifestyle and coming to terms with the changes wrought by menopause. (Oh, and her past life as a pyromaniac!)


Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


*


The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Lost Dog by Kate Spicer is out now in paperback and available to buy here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2462 no Jo Whiley on regaining your confidence, finding your fashion mojo and... gardening https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Career crises are tough at the best of times, but imagine being in the midst of menopause - hot flushes, anxiety, brain fog, the lot - and finding your thirty year career is crashing down around your ears. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, the brilliant DJ and broadcaster Jo Whiley when she was given the job of co-hosting BBC radio 2’s drive time slot with Simon Mayo. She talks honestly about coming through the most turbulent year of her career, regaining her confidence, learning to listen to your heart not your detractors, going outside your comfort zone, empty nest syndrome, why she’s obsessed with fitness and why “age appropriate” dressing can do one.  Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Hear Jo on BBC Radio 2 Monday-Thursday 8-10pm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 29 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0000 Jo Whiley on regaining your confidence, finding your fashion mojo and... gardening full 1 6 sam baker Career crises are tough at the best of times, but imagine being in the midst of menopause - hot flushes, anxiety, brain fog, the lot - and finding your thirty year career is crashing down around your ears. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, the... Career crises are tough at the best of times, but imagine being in the midst of menopause - hot flushes, anxiety, brain fog, the lot - and finding your thirty year career is crashing down around your ears. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, the brilliant DJ and broadcaster Jo Whiley when she was given the job of co-hosting BBC radio 2’s drive time slot with Simon Mayo. She talks honestly about coming through the most turbulent year of her career, regaining her confidence, learning to listen to your heart not your detractors, going outside your comfort zone, empty nest syndrome, why she’s obsessed with fitness and why “age appropriate” dressing can do one.  Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Hear Jo on BBC Radio 2 Monday-Thursday 8-10pm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Career crises are tough at the best of times, but imagine being in the midst of menopause - hot flushes, anxiety, brain fog, the lot - and finding your thirty year career is crashing down around your ears. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, the brilliant DJ and broadcaster Jo Whiley when she was given the job of co-hosting BBC radio 2’s drive time slot with Simon Mayo. She talks honestly about coming through the most turbulent year of her career, regaining her confidence, learning to listen to your heart not your detractors, going outside your comfort zone, empty nest syndrome, why she’s obsessed with fitness and why “age appropriate” dressing can do one. 


Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Hear Jo on BBC Radio 2 Monday-Thursday 8-10pm.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2914 no Caroline de Maigret on being older but better and grown up style https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ This week’s guest this week is the epitome of grown up style - so much so that her effortless look has earnt her almost a million followers on Instagram. At 45, French model and producer Caroline de Maigret is the face of Chanel and co-author of two bestselling books that take a tongue in cheek look at the whole 'cult of the French woman' thing. So how does it feel when your face (and body) is your fortune and you discover that - yes! - even fashion icons age? Especially when you go to get a mole checked and your dermatologist suggests you “get those wrinkles looked at”! (Seriously...) Listen on for Caroline’s tips on loving your style post-40, how the fashion industry treats older women and why she thinks age is no excuse for anything. Plus you can learn the French equivalent of “old bag”. So, it’s educational too! Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Older But Better (but older) by Caroline de Maigret and Sophie Mas is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Caroline's book recommendation: The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 22 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0000 Caroline de Maigret on being older but better and grown up style full 1 5 sam baker This week’s guest this week is the epitome of grown up style - so much so that her effortless look has earnt her almost a million followers on Instagram. At 45, French model and producer Caroline de Maigret is the face of Chanel and co-author of two be... This week’s guest this week is the epitome of grown up style - so much so that her effortless look has earnt her almost a million followers on Instagram. At 45, French model and producer Caroline de Maigret is the face of Chanel and co-author of two bestselling books that take a tongue in cheek look at the whole 'cult of the French woman' thing. So how does it feel when your face (and body) is your fortune and you discover that - yes! - even fashion icons age? Especially when you go to get a mole checked and your dermatologist suggests you “get those wrinkles looked at”! (Seriously...) Listen on for Caroline’s tips on loving your style post-40, how the fashion industry treats older women and why she thinks age is no excuse for anything. Plus you can learn the French equivalent of “old bag”. So, it’s educational too! Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Older But Better (but older) by Caroline de Maigret and Sophie Mas is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Caroline's book recommendation: The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This week’s guest this week is the epitome of grown up style - so much so that her effortless look has earnt her almost a million followers on Instagram. At 45, French model and producer Caroline de Maigret is the face of Chanel and co-author of two bestselling books that take a tongue in cheek look at the whole 'cult of the French woman' thing.


So how does it feel when your face (and body) is your fortune and you discover that - yes! - even fashion icons age? Especially when you go to get a mole checked and your dermatologist suggests you “get those wrinkles looked at”! (Seriously...) Listen on for Caroline’s tips on loving your style post-40, how the fashion industry treats older women and why she thinks age is no excuse for anything. Plus you can learn the French equivalent of “old bag”. So, it’s educational too!


Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


*


The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Older But Better (but older) by Caroline de Maigret and Sophie Mas is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Caroline's book recommendation: The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, available to buy here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2559 no Jojo Moyes on visibility, imposter syndrome and female friendship https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ How does it feel to suddenly become ultra-visible just as the world is trying to invisible you? That’s what happened to this week’s guest, mega-selling novelist Jojo Moyes, when the book her old publishers didn't want to publish - Me Before You - became a global bestseller and smash-hit movie in her mid-40s.  Since then every book Jojo has written has been a bestseller and she’s sold the movie rights to pretty much everything she’s ever written. (Not remotely jealous.) Her latest, The Giver Of Stars, the transporting story of a group of women setting up a horseback library in the Appalachians is currently at the top of the bestseller lists and a movie is underway.  But life wasn’t always like that. Far from it. Jojo is funny and frank about the impact of stratospheric success on her professional and personal life. How it felt to be suddenly visible in her late forties. Health, fitness, freedom, a new found love of clothes and why she feels better than ever at 50. She also reveals how she finally overcame Imposter Syndrome, why she no longer suffers fools and how making new friends at 50 has been a revelation.  Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. The Giver Of Stars by Jojo Moyes is out now in paperback and available to buy here. Jojo's book recommendation: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, out now in paperback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 15 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0000 Jojo Moyes on visibility, imposter syndrome and female friendship full 1 4 sam baker How does it feel to suddenly become ultra-visible just as the world is trying to invisible you? That’s what happened to this week’s guest, mega-selling novelist Jojo Moyes, when the book her old publishers didn't want to publish - Me Before You - ... How does it feel to suddenly become ultra-visible just as the world is trying to invisible you? That’s what happened to this week’s guest, mega-selling novelist Jojo Moyes, when the book her old publishers didn't want to publish - Me Before You - became a global bestseller and smash-hit movie in her mid-40s.  Since then every book Jojo has written has been a bestseller and she’s sold the movie rights to pretty much everything she’s ever written. (Not remotely jealous.) Her latest, The Giver Of Stars, the transporting story of a group of women setting up a horseback library in the Appalachians is currently at the top of the bestseller lists and a movie is underway.  But life wasn’t always like that. Far from it. Jojo is funny and frank about the impact of stratospheric success on her professional and personal life. How it felt to be suddenly visible in her late forties. Health, fitness, freedom, a new found love of clothes and why she feels better than ever at 50. She also reveals how she finally overcame Imposter Syndrome, why she no longer suffers fools and how making new friends at 50 has been a revelation.  Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. The Giver Of Stars by Jojo Moyes is out now in paperback and available to buy here. Jojo's book recommendation: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, out now in paperback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How does it feel to suddenly become ultra-visible just as the world is trying to invisible you? That’s what happened to this week’s guest, mega-selling novelist Jojo Moyes, when the book her old publishers didn't want to publish - Me Before You - became a global bestseller and smash-hit movie in her mid-40s. 


Since then every book Jojo has written has been a bestseller and she’s sold the movie rights to pretty much everything she’s ever written. (Not remotely jealous.) Her latest, The Giver Of Stars, the transporting story of a group of women setting up a horseback library in the Appalachians is currently at the top of the bestseller lists and a movie is underway. 


But life wasn’t always like that. Far from it. Jojo is funny and frank about the impact of stratospheric success on her professional and personal life. How it felt to be suddenly visible in her late forties. Health, fitness, freedom, a new found love of clothes and why she feels better than ever at 50. She also reveals how she finally overcame Imposter Syndrome, why she no longer suffers fools and how making new friends at 50 has been a revelation. 


Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


*


The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


The Giver Of Stars by Jojo Moyes is out now in paperback and available to buy here.


Jojo's book recommendation: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, out now in paperback and available to buy here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2933 no Sara Collins on the power of women and turning a midlife crisis into success https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week will give hope to anyone who’s looking at their work life and wondering WTF? The inspirational Sara Collins was a lawyer and mother of five (I know!) when she looked at her life and thought: no more! (The job, not the kids!) She took a creative writing course and wrote the first few chapters of the book that was to become her debut novel and a runaway bestseller on both sides of the atlantic that has received glowing reviews from everyone from Oprah to Margaret Atwood to Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo: The Confessions of Frannie Langton.  Now Sara is writing the TV script for Frannie and working on her second novel. All this while experiencing hot flushes, brain fog and all the other sure signs that menopause is coming for you. Sara talks frankly about turning a midlife crisis into career success, writing the book you’d always wished existed, the power of women’s anger and why she can’t decide whether or not to Botox those pesky frown lines. Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins is out now in paperback and available to buy here. Sara's book recommendations: Such A Fun Age by Kylie read, out in hardback and available to buy here and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 08 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0000 Sara Collins on the power of women and turning a midlife crisis into success full 1 3 sam baker My guest this week will give hope to anyone who’s looking at their work life and wondering WTF? The inspirational Sara Collins was a lawyer and mother of five (I know!) when she looked at her life and thought: no more! (The job, not the kids!) She took... My guest this week will give hope to anyone who’s looking at their work life and wondering WTF? The inspirational Sara Collins was a lawyer and mother of five (I know!) when she looked at her life and thought: no more! (The job, not the kids!) She took a creative writing course and wrote the first few chapters of the book that was to become her debut novel and a runaway bestseller on both sides of the atlantic that has received glowing reviews from everyone from Oprah to Margaret Atwood to Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo: The Confessions of Frannie Langton.  Now Sara is writing the TV script for Frannie and working on her second novel. All this while experiencing hot flushes, brain fog and all the other sure signs that menopause is coming for you. Sara talks frankly about turning a midlife crisis into career success, writing the book you’d always wished existed, the power of women’s anger and why she can’t decide whether or not to Botox those pesky frown lines. Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here. The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins is out now in paperback and available to buy here. Sara's book recommendations: Such A Fun Age by Kylie read, out in hardback and available to buy here and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week will give hope to anyone who’s looking at their work life and wondering WTF? The inspirational Sara Collins was a lawyer and mother of five (I know!) when she looked at her life and thought: no more! (The job, not the kids!) She took a creative writing course and wrote the first few chapters of the book that was to become her debut novel and a runaway bestseller on both sides of the atlantic that has received glowing reviews from everyone from Oprah to Margaret Atwood to Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo: The Confessions of Frannie Langton. 


Now Sara is writing the TV script for Frannie and working on her second novel. All this while experiencing hot flushes, brain fog and all the other sure signs that menopause is coming for you. Sara talks frankly about turning a midlife crisis into career success, writing the book you’d always wished existed, the power of women’s anger and why she can’t decide whether or not to Botox those pesky frown lines.


Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


*


The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins is out now in paperback and available to buy here.


Sara's book recommendations: Such A Fun Age by Kylie read, out in hardback and available to buy here and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, available to buy here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3043 no Marian Keyes on menopause, Botox and learning to be shameless https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She can’t not speak the truth. Which could well be why she’s sold over 35 million books. Her trademark: the silk glove of laugh out loud funny stories that conceal within them the iron fist of tough contemporary issues. The latest of which is the frankly fabliss and immensely truth-telly no. 1 bestseller Grown Ups. Over the next 45 minutes Marian will tell the unvarnished truth about menopause (how different would it be if it happened to men???), invisibility, infertility grief, HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless. (Oh and her passion for fashion. And beauty products. And…) In short, this episode is not to be missed. Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out in hardback on 10 September and available to buy here. Grown Ups by Marian Keyes is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Marian's book recommendation: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, out in paperback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0000 Marian Keyes on menopause, Botox and learning to be shameless full 1 2 sam baker Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She... Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She can’t not speak the truth. Which could well be why she’s sold over 35 million books. Her trademark: the silk glove of laugh out loud funny stories that conceal within them the iron fist of tough contemporary issues. The latest of which is the frankly fabliss and immensely truth-telly no. 1 bestseller Grown Ups. Over the next 45 minutes Marian will tell the unvarnished truth about menopause (how different would it be if it happened to men???), invisibility, infertility grief, HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless. (Oh and her passion for fashion. And beauty products. And…) In short, this episode is not to be missed. Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out in hardback on 10 September and available to buy here. Grown Ups by Marian Keyes is out now in hardback and available to buy here. Marian's book recommendation: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, out in paperback and available to buy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t believe that, but she is!) And you know why? Because she speaks the truth. She can’t not speak the truth. Which could well be why she’s sold over 35 million books. Her trademark: the silk glove of laugh out loud funny stories that conceal within them the iron fist of tough contemporary issues. The latest of which is the frankly fabliss and immensely truth-telly no. 1 bestseller Grown Ups.


Over the next 45 minutes Marian will tell the unvarnished truth about menopause (how different would it be if it happened to men???), invisibility, infertility grief, HRT, Botox and learning to be shameless. (Oh and her passion for fashion. And beauty products. And…) In short, this episode is not to be missed.


Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


*


The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker is out in hardback on 10 September and available to buy here.


Grown Ups by Marian Keyes is out now in hardback and available to buy here.


Marian's book recommendation: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, out in paperback and available to buy here.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2754 no Tasmina Perry on career, confidence and how not to get stuck at the amber light https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/ My guest this week is the ultimate career pivoter, novelist, journalist, screenwriter, (potter!) Tasmina Perry. I’ve known Tasmina (Tammy) since we were both baby editors and stuck on the management training course from hell together. We have been firm friends ever since. She’s since gone on to write 15 (!) novels - 13 as Tasmina Perry, 2 psychological thrillers as JL Butler and is now, “pushing 50”, a screenwriter. But she started life as a lawyer and is the queen of reinvention. Exactly the woman you need right now when the world is going to hell in a handcart! She shares her advice on getting your confidence back on track, learning to put yourself out there and how not to get “stuck at the amber lights” where career is concerned. (Oh and Take That!) The new you starts here! Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.  The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * Sam's book, The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out 10/9 in hardback and available to buy here Friend of the Family by Tasmina Perry is out now in paperback and available to buy here Mine by JL Butler is out now in paperback and available to buy here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 25 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0000 Tasmina Perry on career, confidence and how not to get stuck at the amber light full 1 1 sam baker My guest this week is the ultimate career pivoter, novelist, journalist, screenwriter, (potter!) Tasmina Perry. I’ve known Tasmina (Tammy) since we were both baby editors and stuck on the management training course from hell together. We have been firm... My guest this week is the ultimate career pivoter, novelist, journalist, screenwriter, (potter!) Tasmina Perry. I’ve known Tasmina (Tammy) since we were both baby editors and stuck on the management training course from hell together. We have been firm friends ever since. She’s since gone on to write 15 (!) novels - 13 as Tasmina Perry, 2 psychological thrillers as JL Butler and is now, “pushing 50”, a screenwriter. But she started life as a lawyer and is the queen of reinvention. Exactly the woman you need right now when the world is going to hell in a handcart! She shares her advice on getting your confidence back on track, learning to put yourself out there and how not to get “stuck at the amber lights” where career is concerned. (Oh and Take That!) The new you starts here! Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown.  The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker * Sam's book, The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out 10/9 in hardback and available to buy here Friend of the Family by Tasmina Perry is out now in paperback and available to buy here Mine by JL Butler is out now in paperback and available to buy here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices My guest this week is the ultimate career pivoter, novelist, journalist, screenwriter, (potter!) Tasmina Perry. I’ve known Tasmina (Tammy) since we were both baby editors and stuck on the management training course from hell together. We have been firm friends ever since. She’s since gone on to write 15 (!) novels - 13 as Tasmina Perry, 2 psychological thrillers as JL Butler and is now, “pushing 50”, a screenwriter. But she started life as a lawyer and is the queen of reinvention. Exactly the woman you need right now when the world is going to hell in a handcart!


She shares her advice on getting your confidence back on track, learning to put yourself out there and how not to get “stuck at the amber lights” where career is concerned. (Oh and Take That!) The new you starts here!


Note: this podcast was recorded before lockdown. 


The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker, edited by Emily Sandford. I’d love to hear what you think - please let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker


*


Sam's book, The Shift: How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too is out 10/9 in hardback and available to buy here


Friend of the Family by Tasmina Perry is out now in paperback and available to buy here


Mine by JL Butler is out now in paperback and available to buy here


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3400 no Coming soon https://shows.acast.com/the-shift/episodes/comingsoon Sam Baker gives us the lowdown on her new podcast series, The Shift. Check out Sam's new book, The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too: At Amazon: https://amzn.to/2XSzw8h And Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781529329766 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 11 Aug 2020 23:01:00 -0000 Coming soon trailer 1 sam baker Sam Baker gives us the lowdown on her new podcast series, The Shift, a frank, funny, no-holds barred look at being a woman post-40.Check out Sam's new book, The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too. Sam Baker gives us the lowdown on her new podcast series, The Shift. Check out Sam's new book, The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too: At Amazon: https://amzn.to/2XSzw8h And Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781529329766 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sam Baker gives us the lowdown on her new podcast series, The Shift.


Check out Sam's new book, The Shift - How I (lost and) found myself after 40 - and you can too:

At Amazon: https://amzn.to/2XSzw8h

And Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781529329766


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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