The Shift with Sam Baker

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

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

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 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 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

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

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 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 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

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

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

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 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 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 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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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, 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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 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

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