Shows
The Shift with Sam BakerJen Hatmaker: “It’s like I woke up halfway through my life”We talk a lot about women who want out, who want to set light to everything and walk away. But we don’t talk so much about the women who find someone else has put a bomb under their lives and left them standing in the rubble. That’s what happened to Jen Hatmaker…
After 45 years of living life according to the good girl rules, she woke up in the middle of the night to find her husband of 26 years voice texting his girlfriend in bed beside her. In that minute, Everything she thought she kne...
2025-10-2853 minThe Shift with Sam BakerTHE SHIFT LIVE: Mary Portas on fashion, Ab Fab & how her childhood shaped herThis episode of The Shift podcast, with the High Street legend, Mary Portas, is brought to you live from Cheltenham Literature Festival
Mary is one of the UK’s most high profile and innovative business women. She made her name transforming dusty old Harvey Nichols into global fashion destination Harvey Nicks (with a little bit of help from Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley and Absolutely Fabulous!), leaving after a decade to found Portas her own creative company, helping to transform some of the many companies and brands who’d tried and failed to poach her.
2025-10-2149 minThe Shift with Sam BakerLyse Doucet – my extraordinary 40 years on the frontlineMy guest today is the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet.
Since starting work at the corporation almost forty years ago, Lyse has covered all the major wars in the Middle East, reporting from Afghanistan Iraq Iran Jordan Israel Pakistan Egypt Libya and most recently Gaza. And that’s before we get started on the rest of the world. Sudan. The tsunami in Indonesia. And you may well remember her reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 from a rooftop in Kyiv.
When we spoke Lyse had rece...
2025-10-141h 07The Shift with Sam BakerIndia Knight on finally gaining a sense of self in her 50s - from the archives(This episode first aired in November 2023)
Today’s guest is the Sunday Times’ Style’s beauty columnist India Knight. Every week thousands of women turn to her column for beauty advice - not beauty junkies, not trend followers, just regular women like you and me who want to know what works, why it works and what’s worth spending their hard earned cash on.
Now India has turned that column into a book, “India Knight’s Beauty Edit: what works when you’re older” giving practical advice if you’ve suddenly found your skin, body, hair, or all three...
2025-10-0751 minThe Shift with Sam BakerHilma Wolitzer: 80 years of writing – and not done yet (from the archives)(This episode first aired in August 2022.)
My guest today is the writer Hilma Wolitzer. Born in 1930, Hilma had her first poem published at the age of 9. She then shelved that ambition in favour of marriage and children, as women were expected to in the 1950s. 26 years later she had her first short story published. Then there was no stopping her.
Her first novel was published at the age of 44 and since then she has published 14 books. The most recent of which is the career-spanning short story collection - the brilliantly named, Today A Woman Went M...
2025-09-3053 minThe Shift with Sam BakerCaryn Franklin on why fashion still fails older women - from the archives(This episode was first published in November 2022.)
Today's guest is one of my personal heroes, Caryn Franklin. Caryn started her career in the 80s as a fashion editor before moving into TV where she presented, amongst other things, BBC’s The Clothes Show. Always outspoken, Caryn has spent four decades being a thorn in the fashion industry’s side. Championing diversity of all forms LONG before it became the cool thing to do.
She cofounded All Walks Beyond The Catwalk to promote body equality in fashion, chaired Fashion Targets Breast Cancer and was awarded an MBE f...
2025-09-2356 minThe Shift with Sam BakerLisa Jewell on hitting a golden seam of success in her 50s - FROM THE ARCHIVES(This episode first aired in September 2022.)
Today’s guest is one of Britain’s best loved novelists, Lisa Jewell. Her career started with a smash hit debut novel Ralph’s Party - which she started writing as a bet at the age of 27 while she was unemployed, and, according to her, “totally lacking in direction and ambition”. It was the book of the moment and for 14 novels it looked like her career - although ticking along nicely - would never hit those heights again.
Then her writing took a turn for the dark and her career took...
2025-09-161h 01The Shift with Sam BakerThomasina Miers on the midlife Mexican escape that rebuilt herHello and welcome to the final episode of season 18. 18!!!!
My guest today is the cook, Thomasina Miers.
Despite being taught to cook as a child, Tommi didn’t really embrace her love of food until her late 20s when a trip to Mexico inspired a love of Mexican food that was to change her life.
In 2005, she became the first person ever to win Masterchef and two years later she co-founded the successful Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca. Tommi has also cheffed in Michelin star ki...
2025-09-0953 minThe Shift with Sam BakerLaura Lippmann is having a second coming at 60A few weeks ago, I was pootling around on substack where The Shift newsletter lives - https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ - and I noticed I had a DM from a new subscriber. It turned out to be from one of my favourite crime writers - the award winning Laura Lippmann, who some of you might know from the recent apple TV+ series of her novel, The Lady In The Lake.
Laura had been brought to The Shift by a piece I wrote a year or so ago about how all of my friends were...
2025-09-0254 minThe Shift with Sam BakerCharlotte Mendelson – middle-aged women are entitled to want moreThis season is dedicated to helping you pick your summer reads and my guest today is the novelist Charlotte Mendelson whose writing has been compared to “late Shakespeare meets Modern family!” So you know where to turn if you’re looking for a painfully funny, on the nose look at the dynamics of love and marriage.
Charlotte worked as a publisher for twenty years before becoming an award winning novelist. She’s written seven bestselling novels, the most recent of which are The Exhibitionist and Wife, both out now in paperback, which are kind of a pair in that...
2025-08-261h 01The Shift with Sam BakerBetsy Lerner is on a mission to destigmatise mental health in her 60sMy guest this week is the novelist Betsy Lerner.
Now Betsy is here to talk about her critically acclaimed debut novel, Shred Sisters, which takes us from the 1970s to the 90s and tells us the story of two troubled sisters, Amy and Ollie. No less a legend than Patti Smith described it as “moving like a souped up pick up truck” - and who am I to argue with Patti, it does! I loved it.
Betsy only turned to fiction in her early sixties. Before that she had a pro...
2025-08-1950 minThe Shift with Sam BakerNicola Sturgeon on life after leadershipThis week I’m delighted to welcome back to The Shift one of my most listened-to guests, Nicola Sturgeon.
When we last spoke, at the start of 2022, Nicola was First Minister of Scotland - the first woman to hold the role, the first woman in 600 years to be the keeper of the seal. And During her tenure, she was widely acknowledged to be one of the most impactful politicians of her generation.
During our last conversation, she spoke for the first time about how it felt to experience menopausal symptoms in th...
2025-08-1256 minThe Shift with Sam BakerSarah Perry on "becoming a woman who didn't have children"My guest today is the award-winning novelist Sarah Perry.
Sarah is the internationally bestselling author of four novels, but the one you will almost definitely heard of (and may well have watched) is The Essex Serpent. Published in 2016, it sold over half a million copies, and won both British Book of the Year and Waterstones book of the year before being made into an apple tv+ series starring Clare Danes and Tom Hiddleston (Sarah was an extra!). Sarah has also been nominated for the booker prize, the women’s prize for fiction and the costa novel award, am...
2025-08-0556 minThe Shift with Sam BakerGlynnis MacNicol: everything you've been told about being a middle-aged woman is a lieWhat happens when the life you find yourself leading in midlife doesn’t tick all the supposed boxes?
That’s the situation today’s guest found herself in. Glynnis MacNicol was 46 - a woman of a so-called certain age who found herself living life without a roadmap when, in august 2021, after almost 18 months spent alone in lockdown, she picked herself up and packed herself off to Paris for a month of living, loving and, well, pleasure.
I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is the story of that month - a month spent in search of frien...
2025-07-291h 02The Shift with Sam BakerSteph McGovern on money, menopause & staying out of your laneCrime novels might not be the first thing that springs to mind when you hear the name Steph McGovern. Steph is an award-winning broadcaster who is currently co-host of The Rest Is Money podcast with Robert Peston. At the start of her career in journalism, Steph worked for BBC news behind the scenes (despite having been told that “people like you don’t work for the BBC”), before moving in front of the camera as the business reporter on BBC Breakfast.
She went on to present her own show, Steph’s Packed Lunch and can often be seen on H...
2025-07-221h 08The Shift with Sam BakerBONUS EPISODE: Neneh Cherry on love, loss & legacyIf you were a teenager in the late 80s you only have to hear the name Neneh Cherry to conjure the image of Neneh, seven months pregnant, on the Top of the Pops stage performing her hit Buffalo Stance. She was the epitome of cool. She made teenage girls everywhere believe that anything was possible.Now, almost 40 years later, the award-winning singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, mother of three, stepmother of one, grandmother of four, has lived - and continues to live - the most incredible life. She has released six critically acclaimed albums, won...
2024-12-1055 min
The Shift with Sam BakerMolly Roden-Winter on becoming an ambassador for polyamory in your 50sMy guest today is the teacher, musician and writer Molly Roden Winter. Molly hit the headlines earlier this year when her memoir More was published in the United States and caused… let’s just call it “a storm”.Why? Because Molly’s book is an incredibly candid account of her open marriage. Which, lets face it, shouldn’t be that big of a deal in 2024. But something about a woman - a married woman, a mother, and one no longer in the first flushes of youth - talking so frankly about sex and self-discovery seemed to en...
2024-06-251h 03
The Shift with Sam BakerDelia Ephron on getting a second chance at love in your 70s - THE SHIFT REVISITEDFor 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...
2024-01-2346 min
The Shift with Sam BakerLindsey Hilsum on menopause in a warzone and why going grey is NOT brave - THE SHIFT REVISITEDThis 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...
2023-12-2640 min
The Shift with Sam BakerAnnie Macmanus: why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned with - THE SHIFT REVISITEDBack 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 ha...
2023-07-2542 min
The Shift with Sam BakerEmma Freud on mothering millennials and refusing to lie about her age - THE SHIFT REVISITEDBack 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 P...
2023-07-1849 min
The Shift with Sam BakerAlison Bechdel on her search for inner and outer strength - THE SHIFT REVISITEDThis 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...
2023-07-1139 min
The Shift with Sam BakerTracey Thorn has got it all going on at 60 - THE SHIFT REVISITEDWhile we take our summer hiatus we're revisiting some classic episodes of The Shift with Sam Baker. Since I recorded this interview with Tracey back at the start of 2021, she and her partner Ben Watt have released a new Everything But The Girl album, Fuse, that's rocketed them back into the charts.Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl...
2023-06-2743 min
The Shift with Sam BakerJo Whiley on menopause, finding your fashion mojo and... gardening - THE SHIFT REVISITEDTo celebrate the DJ's 27th year of presenting Glastonbury on the BBC, we revisit one of the very first episodes of The Shift podcast, back in 2020, with Jo WhileyCareer crises are tough at the best of times, but imagine being in the midst of menopause – hot flushes, anxiety, brain fog, the lot – and finding your thirty year career is crashing down around your ears. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, the brilliant DJ and broadcaster Jo Whiley when she was given the job of co-hosting BBC radio 2’s drive time slot with Simon Mayo...
2023-06-2048 min
The Shift with Sam BakerLennie Goodings on ageism, bringing your A-game and the women who've shaped herIf 18-year-old Sam was here now, today’s episode would be a real pinch-me moment. Back in the mid-80s, I was a student in Birmingham when I first stumbled upon the dark green spine that was the hallmark of a newish publisher called Virago. It started with one book in particular – The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. Reading that book changed my life, as I don’t doubt many Virago books have done for many people over the years.Virago launched 50 years ago this month and, for much of that time, my guest, Lennie Goodings, was at...
2023-06-1352 min
Disciple 52Romans 9– John and SamIt’s just us again— your host, John Norman, and your producer, Sam Baker. Do you struggle with God’s sovereignty? Join us in this discussion.
2023-01-0935 min
The Shift with Sam BakerThe Shift LIVE: Elif Shafak on intersectionality, identity and finding the courage to come out in her 40sIn the run up to Christmas I'll be dropping two special live episodes recorded live at the Birmingham Literature Festival earlier this autumn. The first conversation is with one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed: the activist, author and academic, Elif Shafak.The author of 19 books, including the novels Ten minutes 38 seconds in this strange world which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and her latest, The Island Of Missing Trees which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, amongst many others. Elif is an advocate for women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of e...
2022-12-2045 minDisciple 52Romans 3– John and SamOne day we will have guests back, but until then join John Norman and Sam Baker for an “in the weeds” discussion of Romans 3. Something to note about this show is that John and Sam disagreed on some key points in this passage for about 45min before they hit record, but their commitment to brotherhood and unity in the Spirit let them disagree with respect. This is unity.
2022-12-0128 min
The Shift with Sam BakerDeborah Frances-White on feminism, guilt-exfoliation and being diagnosed with ADHD in her 40sHello and welcome to this special bonus episode of The Shift with Sam Baker. Consider it a taster for season 10, which starts next Tuesday.If you’re in your 40s or 50s (or even 30s or 60s) and feeling a bit what-next, my guest today is just the motivation you need. Seven years ago Deborah Frances-White was sitting in a bar with a comedian friend, when they came up with a crazy idea for a podcast. You might have heard of it. It’s called The Guilty Feminist! Now about to celebrate 100 million downloads, its catch phra...
2022-10-0437 min
The Shift with Sam BakerDr Jen Gunter has things she wants you to know about the menopause - THE SHIFT REVISITEDOne of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the new season. I had long been an admirer of Dr Jen Gunter's no-bull approach to women's health before I met her eighteen months ago. She didn't disappoint!Here are the original show notes:The best way I can think of to describe this week’s guest is that she’s a women’...
2022-09-2747 min
The Shift with Sam BakerNana-Ama Danquah on the triple burden of mental health, menopause and being Black - THE SHIFT REVISITEDOne of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. So I’m revisiting a few of my favourite episodes while I finish putting together the new season. I had never heard of Nana-Ama Danquah before I started The Shift and speaking to her was one of my most enlightening conversations. Nana-Ama's writing has recently found a new audience and was shortlisted for this year's Caine Prize.Here are the original show notes:My guest today is th...
2022-09-2047 min2022-08-2423 min
The Shift with Sam BakerA quick word from SamHello everyone! I just wanted to let you know about a new initiative coming from The Shift.I launched The Shift with Sam Baker podcast 18 months ago on a hunch: I figured that if the way women's voices were silenced after 40 bugged me (OK, bugged is a bit of an understatement!) then the chances were it bugged you, too. I had no idea how right I was. Now, thanks to you, my regular listeners, The Shift is approaching a million downloads and is growing fast. As well as a podcast and a book, The Shift is...
2022-07-1302 min
The Shift with Sam BakerBONUS: Sam Baker on menopause, the HRT lottery and the power of invisibilityWelcome to this special bonus episode of The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post 40. Created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam baker. Listeners often ask why I don’t put myself on the receiving end of The Shift!? Well, a couple of weeks ago I did just that. When I was interviewed about menopause, misogyny, the HRT lottery and all things midlife by my friend Jennifer Crichton, creator of The Flock, at Edinburgh Wellbeing Festival.As you will hear, it’s not t...
2022-05-2136 min
The Shift with Sam BakerJojo Moyes on radical life change in your 40s - FROM THE ARCHIVESBack in the before times, I had an idea to launch a podcast that celebrated the achievements and lives of women over 40. With a couple of friends and an idiot-proof microphone I recorded the first series of what was to become The Shift. This is a replay of one of the first episodes I ever recorded - with my friend Jojo Moyes. Little did we know that two and a half years later we would only have seen each other a handful of times and EVERYTHING would have changed irrevocably. It's a real blast from the past in so...
2022-04-1948 min
The Shift with Sam BakerLindsey Hilsum on menopause in a warzone - FROM THE ARCHIVESOne of my favourite things about making The Shift podcast is all the fascinating women I get to interview - and learn a little bit from. This is a replay of one of my all time favourites. I was in awe of the indomitable Channel 4 international editor Lindsey Hilsum when I interviewed her 15 months ago and even more so now, as we watch her daily reporting from the devastation that has been wrought on Ukraine by Russian troops.Here are the original show notes:You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve...
2022-04-0540 min
The Shift with Sam BakerDana Spiotta on putting paid to menopause shameWhen was the last time you read a book where the central character was not just perimenopausal but also talked and thought about menopause and its impact on her life. And she wasn’t a laughing stock?I’m prepared to bet never.That was the driving force for my guest this week, novelist Dana Spiotta. What if, she asked herself, the lead characters of some of her favourite books had had a hot flush? Think Mrs Dalloway on HRT.The resulting novel, Wayward, is the story of 53 year old Sam w...
2022-03-1546 min
The Shift with Sam BakerJami Attenberg on the joy of starting over and finding a place of your ownWe all tackle ageing in different ways but very few of us do it the way this week’s guest did - by packing up her entire life and moving thousands of miles to a new city and a new life. Until her mid-forties, writer Jami Attenberg sofa-surfed her way around America - the year she turned 40 she slept in 26 different beds in seven months! Even for the daughter of a travelling salesman, Jami’s litany of sofas, spare beds and floors is enough to give even the most nomadic back ache!The autho...
2022-02-0838 min
The Shift with Sam BakerDorothy Koomson on how she learnt to be enoughMy guest today is the international bestseller Dorothy Koomson. She started young - she had her first stab at writing a book at 13 - and, like me, worked on Just Seventeen, amongst many other magazines, before actually publishing her first novel at 30. She has now written 16 Sunday Times bestsellers and is the biggest selling Black author of adult fiction in the UK - not bad for a woman whose debut novel was turned down for, amongst other things, having a Black character but not being about “the Black experience”.Her latest, I know what you’ve done...
2022-02-0139 min
The Shift with Sam BakerNicola Sturgeon on power and the fiftysomething womanI’m really thrilled to launch this season with one of my long time fantasy guests. Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland since 2015, has been dubbed one of the most powerful women in British politics, if not in Britain, and she shows no sign of stopping.Now 51, she grew up the eldest of two in an ordinary working class family in Ayrshire. Her mum was a dental nurse, her dad an electrician, she went to a state school and was the first in her family to go to university. In the 1970s and 80s - not a...
2022-01-2540 min
The Shift with Sam BakerPepsi and Shirlie on miscarriage, mental health and 40 years of friendshipIt's season finale time. And have I got a festive special for you!There is no child of the 80s who won’t remember today’s guests. For a decade, Pepsi Demacque-Crockett and Shirlie Kemp - better known as Pepsi and Shirlie - were a fixture of the charts. First as part of Wham! With Shirlie’s school friends George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, then as a duo - their first single, Heartache, reached number 2 - only being beaten to number one by their good friend George. Even now they enter most of our homes at least...
2021-12-1451 min
The Shift with Sam BakerLynda La Plante on breaking boundaries and why there STILL aren't enough good roles for womenMy guest this week is a woman who - to coin a bit of 1980s jargon - punched through the glass ceiling for women in TV, creating not just one but a series of female lead characters who broke the mould. And not just any old female lead but OLDER female leads. There would be no Happy Valley or Scott & Bailey if it wasn’t for Lynda La Plante’s groundbreaking creation, detective Jane Tennison, brought to life by Helen Mirren. The BAFTA and Emmy award winning screenwriter of Prime Suspect, Widows and many other hit TV shows, Lynda has...
2021-12-0753 min
The Shift with Sam BakerLiz Fraser on living with and loving an alcoholicWhat do you do if the person you love turns out to hold the seeds to your own destruction? My guest this week has lived through it and discovered the answer to that question the hard way. Writer and broadcaster Liz Fraser was a divorced mother of three in her 40s when she met and fell in love with M. They moved in together, she became pregnant, and when they had a daughter they decided to move to Venice. So far, so idyllic. But M was an alcoholic and Liz’s life was about to descend into a hell we...
2021-11-3047 min
The Shift with Sam BakerMariella Frostrup on fearlessness, menopause and knowing your worthMy 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...
2021-11-2347 min
The Shift with Sam BakerBobbi Brown on taking a leap at 64If you, like me, have lived most of your life in fear of foundation, this week’s guest is your saviour. Because this woman saved us no-make-up girls’ lives. Back in 1991, Bobbi Brown was a makeup artist frustrated by the fact that most makeup looked like a mask so she produced a range of 10 lipsticks that actually matched people’s lips. Shocker! Those lipsticks were the start of something huge: the first eponymous make up artist led beauty brand. A brand that Bobbi sold to Estee Lauder just four years later for who knows how much. Now, after 22 years at Est...
2021-11-1647 min
The Shift with Sam BakerRuth Ozeki on why menopause is the new adolescenceMy guest this week is a novelist, film-maker - and Zen Buddhist priest. Ruth Ozeki was born in Conneticut in the 1950s to a Japanese mother and, as she puts it, caucasian anthropologist father. Despite always wanting to write, she didn’t publish her first novel until she was 40, because, in part, she “didn’t feel entitled to”. She needn’t have worried. That novel, My Year Of Meats, won the Kiriyama Prize and the American Book Award, and her third A Tale For The Time Being, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2013. Her latest novel, The Book Of Fo...
2021-11-0941 min
The Shift with Sam BakerFi Glover and Jane Garvey on Fortunately, friendship and pushing boundaries in your 50sHow do two sensible middle aged broadcasters become the voices of a generation of pissed off older women? My guests today can tell you aaallll about that. Fi Glover and Jane Garvey were off-air colleagues who turned their on-air sensible reputations (as hosts of The Listening Project and Woman’s Hour respectively) on their heads when they launched a weeny little podcast called Fortunately.Described as “two friends chuntering waspishly” - or as Fi and Jane put it “talking complete s**t!”, it’s now “quite successful” according to the BBC - a runaway success according to their million...
2021-11-0244 min
The Shift with Sam BakerPaula Sutton on how age has liberated her and the rejuvenating power of dressing upToday’s guest is former fashion journalist turned interiors blogger, Paula Sutton.For twenty years Paula lived a typical busy busy busy 9-to-9 London life. But the birth of her third child made her question everything. Ditching her glamorous job, she and her husband and three kids decamped to rural Norfolk. There, jobless, cash-less and identity-less, she began documenting the boot-strapped doing up of their new house on Instagram, as Hill House Vintage.And that might have been that until Paula posted a picture of herself picnicking in her gorgeous garden and found he...
2021-10-2645 min
The Shift with Sam BakerVal McDermid on anger, ageing – and an unlikely "cure" for menopauseDubbed the Queen of Crime, Val McDermid has written 35 books (she thinks, but she’s stopped counting), sold over 17million copies and been translated into 40 languages. At the vanguard of female crimewriters, she’s created countless female sleuths but is probably best known for one of her male ones - Dr Tony Hill of the TV series Wire In The Blood. She also created Traces the BBC series aired earlier this year starring Martin (Line of Duty) Compston.Now 65, she’s gone back to her youth. In her new book, 1979, Val explores what it was like to be...
2021-10-1939 min
The Shift with Sam BakerSophie Ellis Bextor on music, men and motherhoodMy guest this week has always been a self-starter. From flogging Blue Peter badges in the playground to earn a few extra quid to joining theaudience while she was still at school (famously telling her mum, ‘Sod school I’m going on a tour with NME’), Sophie Ellis Bextor has been doing it her own way for a very long time. Famous almost before she was born – thanks to her mum, Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis – she’s made seven albums, aced Strictly, had five children (all boys, aged 2-17) and given us two enormous dance hits in Groov...
2021-10-1240 min
The Shift with Sam BakerTasmina Perry on career, confidence and how not to get stuck at the amber light (from the archives)The Shift has so many new listeners that it seemed like time to say hello, welcome and thank you for your support. It's been SO gratifying to see how many of you agreed with my hunch that there was a big appetite to hear older women talking about their lives, loves, losses and learnings.This is a replay of the first episode I ever recorded. We weren't even sure it *would* be an episode - we just recorded it as a test pilot to see how it went down. Over a year, almost 50 episodes and hundreds...
2021-09-2856 min
The Shift with Sam BakerMarian Keyes on menopause, Botox and learning to be shameless (from the archive)This is the second episode I ever recorded and the most popular episode of The Shift bar none. Marian Keyes has a legion of fans and for good reason. I thought I'd replay it in preparation for the upcoming 25th anniversary of her greatest hit, Rachel's Holiday, and its long-awaited sequel, Again, Rachel, coming February 2022.*Ask any group of women to name a woman they love and I guarantee you someone will name this week’s guest, because Marian Keyes is beloved of women the world over. (She won’t be...
2021-09-2145 min
The Shift with Sam BakerIsabel Allende on feminism, anger and being fatally heterosexual (from the archive)This is a replay of an episode from earlier this year. If I had to choose one episode as my favourite - tough call, like choosing a favourite child! - this would probably be it. If you've heard it before, give it another listen - Isabel Allende is iconic, truly. If you haven't, you are about to meet your old bird role model....The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling au...
2021-09-1437 min
The Shift with Sam BakerDenise Mina gets frank about HRT, sex and ageing (from the archive)This is a replay of an episode first broadcast last autumn. I'm replaying it now to coincide with the publication of Denise's new novella, Rizzio, a gripping contemporary reimagining of the 1566 murder of Mary Queen of Scots' right hand man. (And also because Denise is a total legend (not to mention extremely straight-talking) and I'm pretty sure that the new devotees The Shift has acquired over the last year will love her.)This week’s episode comes to you from the Glasgow kitchen of straight talking crime writer Denise Mina. She’s written 15 novels, including the awar...
2021-09-0750 min
The Shift with Sam BakerJess Phillips on why we need to talk about menopause in parliamentMy guest today has been MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. Jess Phillips still lives in Birmingham, with her husband and two sons, not far from where she grew up with her activist parents, going to women’s liberation playgroup and hanging out with her nan who listened to Prime Ministers Questions while ironing. Before becoming an MP, Jess worked for Women’s Aid - and is currently Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding.She has also written four books (because she’s obv got so much spare time on her hands). the latest is Everything You Ne...
2021-08-3146 min
The Shift with Sam BakerLucy Kellaway on fear, freedom and starting a whole new life in her 50sEver wanted to chuck it all in? I mean ALL of it? My guest today did just that - baby, bathwater AND bath. For 30 years, journalist Lucy Kellaway was a columnist on the Financial Times. Then, in the space of just a couple of years she ditched not only that but her home of 15 years, her husband of 25 years - and even her hair! (Not in that order.) In her new book, Re-educated, she talks about the overwhelming urge to remake our lives that often hits women in our 40s and 50s and why she decided...
2021-08-2341 min
The Shift with Sam BakerElif Shafak on the power of older women and why menopause can be the end of shameMy guest today is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed - and I’ve interviewed A LOT. Writer and academic, Elif Shafak has written 19 books and 12 novels and been shortlisted for countless literary prizes, including the Booker Prize. Known for her bravery and outspokenness in the face of oppressive regimes, she has almost 2million followers on social media and is the best-selling female novelist in Turkey - a country to which she has been unable to return for the past 5 years after being put on trial for, amongst other things, insulting Turkishness.He...
2021-08-1746 min
The Shift with Sam BakerPaula Hawkins on midlife success and the importance of financial independenceMy guest today is a woman who I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of, but you may not think you have. Her name is Paula Hawkins, but you probably know her as the author of the global bestseller The Girl On The Train. A book she wrote in her early 40s after - I’m sure she won’t mind me saying - an awful lot of also-rans. The girl on the train went on to sell 23 million copies, be published in 50 countries and is one of the top 5 selling hardbacks since records began. It was also turned into a f...
2021-08-1035 min
The Shift with Sam BakerLaura Friedman Williams on sex and the newly single 40something mumHow does it feel to have your life turned upside down in your mid 40s? That’s what happened to Laura Friedman Williams when, after 27 years with her husband, she discovered he was having an affair. It was something Laura had always thought they’d somehow get past but, confronted with the reality that he was in love with someone else, she knew this was it. They. Their marriage. Life as she knew it, was gone. Faced with the choice of going through the motions or getting back in the saddle, Laura realised it was time to move on.
2021-08-0352 min
The Shift with Sam BakerTorrey Peters on finding a roadmap for ageing as a trans womanMy guest this week has spent a fair part of this year at the eye of a storm. Torrey Peters’ novel Detransition, Baby - a gloriously gossipy comedy of manners - was rapturously received when it was published in January, chosen for bookclubs by everyone from Oprah to Roxane Gay, and TV rights were optioned by the team behind Grey’s Anatomy. It was lauded as “the first great trans realist novel” in one review and has been called the true heir to Sex And The City. Then Torrey became the first trans woman long listed for the Women’s Prize fo...
2021-07-2741 min
The Shift with Sam BakerTerri White on work, class and mental healthMy guest this week has come a hell of a long way - from the Derbyshire village where she grew up, to London and the editor's seat of Empire magazine, by way of New York where she was one of Folio magazine’s top women in American media. Ostensibly Terri White was living the 'single woman in Manhattan' dream. But, uber-competent at work, she was clinging by a thread in her personal life, struggling with chronic depression, self-harming and self-medicating with alcohol and prescription pills. When she was admitted to a psychiatric ward it marked the beg...
2021-07-2048 min
The Shift with Sam BakerAnita Rani on ditching the baggage, owning her anger and why her 40s are her power decadeHello, and welcome to season 5 of The Shift, and I could not be happier to kick off this season with this very special guest.What even is the “right sort of girl?” That’s a question my guest this week has long struggled to answer. Growing up in Yorkshire, TV presenter and self-proclaimed misfit Anita Rani always felt that she was somehow *wrong* - a feeling that was exacerbated when she moved to London to break into the media - and found herself too brown, too northern, too female. Oh, and too gobby. A triple threat with b...
2021-07-1345 min
The Shift with Sam BakerDr Jen Gunter on menopause, mental health and why we all need a meno-partyThe best way I can think of to describe this week’s guest is that she’s a women’s health vigilante. (A vagina vigilante if you will!) Dubbed twitter’s resident gynaecologist, and the nemesis of snake oil salesmen everywhere, Dr Jen Gunter is the living embodiment of “information is power”. She has made it her life’s mission to give you the information you need to make life better for you - and for your vagina. Best known for her book The Vagina Bible, and publicly taking Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop to task for, amongst...
2021-06-1547 min
The Shift with Sam BakerEsther Freud on motherhood, guilt and upending your life in your 50sHow does it feel to come from a family with a legend? If you’re today’s guest, novelist and playwright Esther Freud (daughter of painter Lucian Freud and great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud) you work with that legacy to produce some of the finest novels of the last thirty years. Her first Hideous Kinky, based on her unusual childhood, was made into a film starring Kate Winslet and after the follow-up, Peerless Flats, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young Novelists. Scroll forward a couple of decades and her ninth novel, I Couldn’t Love You More, co...
2021-06-0841 min
The Shift with Sam BakerKate Mosse: why caring is a feminist issue (from the archives)This is a replay of an episode published at the start of the year in which Kate Mosse talked about her experience of caring for both her own elderly parents, and her husband's mother. I'm replaying it now to coincide with the publication of her memoir, An Extra Pair of Hands, in which she writes movingly about that experience and its profound effect on her family.Kate is also founder of the Women's Prize for Fiction, now in its 26th year, and a bestselling author of seven novels and two short story collections. She is kind...
2021-06-0343 min
The Shift with Sam BakerPragya Agarwal on shame, surrogacy and the many faces of motherhoodThis week’s guest is the behavioural and data scientist, Dr Pragya Agarwal. A passionate campaigner for gender and race equality, Pragya is the author of the much-praised Sway, about unravelling unconscious bias, and the host of of the podcast, Wish We Knew What to Say: talking with children about race. Pragya is also - and I tell you this only because it’s relevant to today’s conversation - the mother of three daughters, the first is now in her early twenties, her twins, now aged five. It’s that journey - from one sort of mother...
2021-06-0145 min
The Shift with Sam BakerAnnie Mac on turning 40 and why middle aged women are a force to be reckoned withMy 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...
2021-05-2542 min
The Shift with Sam BakerMona Eltahawy on anger, ambition and ageing disgracefullyThe phrase force-of-nature was created to describe this week’s guest. Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy has been fighting back and refusing to shut up for the best part of 50 years. She has been assaulted and detained in Tahir Square, banned from an Australian TV network, and has made it her business to be the scourge of the pale male, and stale everywhere. She is also a huge source of inspiration for women and girls the world over through her Feminist Giant newsletter.In her new book - The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, a fi...
2021-05-1847 min
The Shift with Sam BakerAlison Bechdel on her search for inner and outer strength. Plus tarotMy 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....
2021-05-1139 min
The Shift with Sam BakerAnya Hindmarch on beating self doubt and why fashion needs to take some responsibilityEntrepreneur and fashion designer Anya Hindmarch is the queen of practicality. The bags for which her eponymous label is famous have long been adored for their pockets, compartments, zips and the fact they’re not weighed down with hardware - I mean seriously who wants a bag that’s too heavy to carry when it’s EMPTY?! It’s that super-sensible but fun, creative approach that saw her lauded as Accessories Designer of the year at the British Fashion Awards. So it’s no surprise that her never-fail piece of advice - if In doubt, wash your hair - has become t...
2021-05-0444 min
The Shift with Sam BakerTamsin Calidas: the truth about the "escape to the country" dreamThis week’s guest is a writer, photographer, sheep rearer (pretty sure that’s not the right word for it), crofter and expert at the dark art of being alone. Tamsin Calidas lived a relatively anonymous life on a small Scottish island, until she wrote her memoir, I am an island, about her experience of moving from London to the comparatively remote Hebrides.In doing so, she was living the dream of every midlife woman I know. Or was she?From her stone croft (no heating - and on the day we talk, bloo...
2021-04-2739 min
The Shift with Sam BakerTracey Thorn on being a woman in a bloke’s world, hormones and going statement greyLike many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children. Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is...
2021-04-2043 min
The Shift with Sam BakerMel Giedroyc on starting a new career at 51 and being a menopause dodgerI am thrilled to kick off season four - season bloody four! - of The Shift with today’s guest, Mel Giedroyc (and yes I did practice saying that 935 times). Mel is (she reckons) the more punctual half of beloved comedy duo, Mel and Sue, an actress, writer and, drum roll, NATIONAL TREASURE thanks to the best part of seven years spent eating cake. (Nice gig if you can get it) And now - bloody over-achiever - she’s written her debut novel, The Best Things, which is as warm, hilarious and full of pin-sharp observation as you’d expect...
2021-04-1348 min
The Shift with Sam BakerLindsey Hilsum on Marie Colvin, menopause in a warzone and why going grey is NOT braveYou 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...
2021-03-2340 min
The Shift with Sam BakerSadie Frost and Frances Ruffelle on 40 years of friendship - and why it's more important than loveMy guests this week have both lived fascinating lives. Both have experienced ups and downs. Both are now 55 and have found themselves in this place in life that has brought them a surprising new power. Actress, producer, businesswoman and compulsive learner Sadie Frost and award winning actress and singer/songwriter Frances Ruffelle first met at school in 1976 (when they were the scruffy, noisy, naughty ones at the back!) and have been firm friends ever since.They are also both yoga addicts, so it made perfect sense for them to launch their new business, Yin & Tonic, that...
2021-03-1642 min
The Shift with Sam BakerNana-Ama Danquah on the triple burden of mental health, menopause and being blackMy guest today is the Ghanaian American writer Nana-Ama Danquah. Nana-Ama found herself in the public eye when, in the late 90s, she published her memoir Willow Weep For Me about suffering from clinical depression - one of the first books to openly discuss black women’s mental health experience. Critically acclaimed by the likes of the late, great Maya Angelou, its description of the shame, dismissal, denial and out and out despair experienced by many black women started a much-needed conversation that was widely credited with “saving lives”. (It's currently not published in the UK - publishers I AM LOO...
2021-03-0947 min
The Shift with Sam BakerIsabel Allende on feminism, anger and being "fatally heterosexual"The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. In her latest, The Soul of A Woman, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and ev...
2021-03-0237 min
The Shift with Sam BakerRosie Green: a how to cope with mid-life crisis specialThis week is a bit of a “how to cope when your life spirals out of control and goes tits up!” Special! And my guest, journalist Rosie Green, is an unwilling expert on midlife chaos. She was 44 (there’s that age again…) when her contented, settled, literally roses-round-the-door family life was pulled out from under her when her husband and partner of 26 years told her he didn’t love her any more - well, he did, but “like a friend”. Yep, I know.Three years on, Rosie has flipped the pain of that heartbreak around, rebuilding her life and h...
2021-02-2347 min
The Shift with Sam BakerSarah Pinborough on why women need to get comfortable talking about moneyLike many women, my guest this week has lived a lot of lives in one. Married and divorced in her 20s, Sarah Pinborough left a career in teaching, became a horror writer and taught herself to script write, but it was when she turned her hand to psychological thrillers, when she was 44 (remember that age, it’s definitely significant!), that things went ‘a little nuts’.That book, Behind Her Eyes, went onto sell a million copies and is now coming to Netflix as a highly bingeable series (18 February 2021 - get it on your watchlist). Sarah is honest...
2021-02-1637 min
The Shift with Sam BakerAlexandra Heminsley on body image, identity and building an LGBTQ+ familyWhere to start with the last decade of this week's guest's life? After struggling to get pregnant, Alexandra Heminsley finally conceived at 40 after unsuccessful rounds of IVF. You might hope that was the end of the stress. But no. First came the DNA test that questioned whether the embryo was really hers and then, as she tried to adapt to life as the mother of a much longed-for newborn, her husband D reached a point where they felt they had no choice but to transition. Oh, and She was also assaulted on public transport whilst heavily pregnant.
2021-02-0944 min
The Shift with Sam BakerKate Mosse on why caring is a feminist issueYou’d be hard pushed to think of anyone who has done more for women writers than this week’s guest. Twenty five years ago, Kate Mosse was working in publishing when she looked around and realised that everyone on all the awards shortlists looked familiar - pale, male and stale. The result - the Women’s Prize for Fiction - has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, and given a much-needed voice to women’s writing.Kate is also a bestselling author of 7 novels and 2 short story collections including the millions-selling global smash hit Labyrinth and her new...
2021-02-0243 min
The Shift with Sam BakerSalena Godden on why 40-plus is where the party isThis week's guest is acclaimed poet, author and activist, Salena Godden. Now in her late 40s, Salena has been writing and performing since 1994 when she moved to London seeking the bright lights and never looked back. In her evocative debut novel, Mrs Death Misses Death, the self-confessed “dreamer” brings death to life as a middle-aged black woman and combines prose, poetry and non-fiction to tell the stories of the invisible women society prefers to ignore.Over the next half hour, the woman once described as “everything the Daily Mail is terrified of” talks about "not being here for...
2021-01-2634 min
The Shift with Sam BakerPhilippa Perry on getting hold of the "steering wheel of life"How's 2021 for you so far?! I know, right? Well, who better to grab us by the scruff of the neck at just the point our meagre enthusiasm is starting to wear off than Philippa Perry? Philippa has been a psychotherapist for 20 years. She’s also an agony aunt, presenter and author of the bestseller, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad you did) - a clever, funny - and SANE - guide that acknowledges ‘they f*ck you up, your mum and dad’, and then helps you try not to do the same.
2021-01-1939 min
The Shift with Sam BakerSeason 3 of The Shift with Sam Baker is back!!How can it possibly be season three already?! Time flies when you're locked indoors binge-watching repeats! After full and frank conversations about life after 40 (and I DO mean full and frank!) in the first two seasons with the likes of Marian Keyes, Emma Freud, Jojo Moyes, Jo Whiley, Sara Collins, Bryony Gordon, Jodi Picoult, Gabby Logan and many more, we're back with lots more chat about everything from hormones to cash flow, body image to the portrayal of midlife women on screen to the triple burden of menopause, mental health and being black. Guests to look out for include...
2021-01-1802 min
The Shift with Sam BakerGabby Logan on resilience, reclaiming middle age – and why equality begins at homeMy guest this week has hosted everything from Final Score to the Six Nations to the Olympics. Formerly an international gymnast, Gabby Logan moved into broadcasting in her early 20s and neither she – nor the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting – have looked back. Now 47, she’s launched The Mid-Point, a podcast about midlife career change and becoming more comfortable in your own skin. Join us as Gabby talks resilience, reclaiming “middle age”, competitive coping, cooking for Mary Berry and why equality begins at home. Oh, and how it feels to be the Dame Judi Dench of sports broa...
2020-12-0848 min
The Shift with Sam BakerErica Davies is here to help you rediscover your fashion mojoFeel like your wardrobe has turned against you? Your body’s gone awol and you've mislaid your style mojo? This week’s guest is the answer to your sartorial prayers. Fashion journalist and lifestyle blogger Erica Davies’s career spans two decades: at 24 she was the youngest ever national newspaper fashion editor, on The Sun. At 44 she is a legit Instagram influencer – one of very few representing the legion women between 30 and 80! - has over 150,000 followers and has just captured her styling wisdom in a book: Leopard is a neutral.And no, she’s not loaded and she’s...
2020-12-0142 min
The Shift with Sam BakerMaggie O'Farrell on imposter syndrome and why she didn't think she was "the marrying kind"This week’s guest is the award-winning novelist, Maggie O’Farrell. The author of eight novels, most recently the stunning Women’s Prize winner, Hamnet, and one of my favourite memoirs of all time, I Am, I Am, I am. And now she’s written a children’s book, the absolutely gorgeous Where Snow Angels Go, which is a banker for a Christmas Day teatime animation a la The Snowman if ever I saw one. While Maggie noses through my bookcase and plays with Sausage the (tail-less) cat, we talk being a social media refusenik, giving voice to wo...
2020-11-2442 min
The Shift with Sam BakerDenise Mina on the feminism, HRT and how to be assertiveThis week’s episode comes to you from the Glasgow kitchen of straight talking crime writer Denise Mina. (Lockdown let up long enough for me to leave the house - yay!) She’s written 15 novels, including the award-winning The Long Drop, and her last, Conviction, was scooped up by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Bookclub. But her latest, The Less Dead, based on a real life Glasgow serial killer, focusses on what makes a “good” victim versus a “bad” one, and takes her right back to her political roots.Over an enormous pot of strong tea (she truly has...
2020-11-1750 min
The Shift with Sam BakerMeg Mathews on menopause, osteoporosis and feeling like she'd "lost it"This week’s guest has been in the tabloids since her early teens. In fact, like me, you’re probably guilty of thinking you know all about Meg Mathews just because you read about her marriage to Noel Gallagher, her partying with the “primrose hill set” and her journey off the rails and back on again. But she’s set out to prove us all wrong with her campaign to put an end to the menopause taboo and a new book, The New Hot.In her immaculate North London living room, Meg talked to me with brutal hon...
2020-11-1047 min
The Shift with Sam BakerJodi Picoult on sexism, Donald Trump and why everyone has a "what if?" momentThis week I’m chatting to a woman who is the very definition of a Bestseller. Jodi Picoult has written 24 global smash hits (including A Spark of Light and Small Great Things) all with her inimitable mix of hard hitting issues and intimate personal stories, and her last eight novels have debuted at No 1 in the New York Times bestseller list.Her new novel, The Book of Two Ways, is a page turning exploration of life, death, grief and the biggest question of all - what would our lives look like if we’d taken a diff...
2020-11-0347 min
The Shift with Sam BakerBryony Gordon on alcoholism, mental health & why she feels lucky to be 40This week’s guest will be no stranger to you but she’s a little bit of a different one for The Shift because, at 40, Bryony Gordon is a mere whipper snapper, but she’s crammed a whole lot of living into those years. Journalism, Mental health campaigning, marathon running, body positivity activism, bestselling books and, as we’ll be hearing, alcoholism. In her latest bestseller, Glorious Rock Bottom, Bryony gives a painfully candid account of alcoholism, what it does to the alcoholic and the people around them - and, crucially, how it feels to come through i...
2020-10-2736 min
The Shift with Sam BakerKaren Arthur on how to turn a breakdown into a breakthrough and #MenopauseWhilstBlackMy brilliant guest for the first episode of this season is a very special one. You may not have heard of Karen Arthur, but you sure as hell will have done by the time she’s finished with you. Because Karen - the founder of Menopause Whilst Black - is a woman on a mission. In the few months since she launched Menopause Whilst Black on Instagram she has become a force to be reckoned with in the fast-growing “menopause community” (not sure what that is, but it will come as no surprise to you that it was very, very w...
2020-10-2040 min
The Shift with Sam BakerEmma Freud on millennials, going grey and why she'll never lie about her ageWhere 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...
2020-10-1349 min
The Shift with Sam BakerKate Spicer on menopause stereotypes, being child-free and single at 50This week's guest is journalist and author, Kate Spicer. Kate went from “just another journalist” to national treasure and the country’s most famous dog-lover when her dog Wolfie went missing and she enlisted twitter to help find him. That story became a book, Lost Dog (billed as What did Fleabag do next? But equally a story about the love between a lost human and her four-legged friend), and is now on the way to becoming a film.There is no-one better than Kate to talk about the way child-free women are stereotyped (dog as baby substi...
2020-10-0641 min
The Shift with Sam BakerJo Whiley on regaining your confidence, finding your fashion mojo and... gardeningCareer crises are tough at the best of times, but imagine being in the midst of menopause - hot flushes, anxiety, brain fog, the lot - and finding your thirty year career is crashing down around your ears. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, the brilliant DJ and broadcaster Jo Whiley when she was given the job of co-hosting BBC radio 2’s drive time slot with Simon Mayo. She talks honestly about coming through the most turbulent year of her career, regaining her confidence, learning to listen to your heart not your detractors, going outside your comfor...
2020-09-2948 min
The Shift with Sam BakerCaroline de Maigret on being older but better and grown up styleThis week’s guest this week is the epitome of grown up style - so much so that her effortless look has earnt her almost a million followers on Instagram. At 45, French model and producer Caroline de Maigret is the face of Chanel and co-author of two bestselling books that take a tongue in cheek look at the whole 'cult of the French woman' thing.So how does it feel when your face (and body) is your fortune and you discover that - yes! - even fashion icons age? Especially when you go to get a mo...
2020-09-2242 min
The Shift with Sam BakerJojo Moyes on visibility, imposter syndrome and female friendshipHow does it feel to suddenly become ultra-visible just as the world is trying to invisible you? That’s what happened to this week’s guest, mega-selling novelist Jojo Moyes, when the book her old publishers didn't want to publish - Me Before You - became a global bestseller and smash-hit movie in her mid-40s. Since then every book Jojo has written has been a bestseller and she’s sold the movie rights to pretty much everything she’s ever written. (Not remotely jealous.) Her latest, The Giver Of Stars, the transporting story of a group of...
2020-09-1548 min
The Shift with Sam BakerSara Collins on the power of women and turning a midlife crisis into successMy guest this week will give hope to anyone who’s looking at their work life and wondering WTF? The inspirational Sara Collins was a lawyer and mother of five (I know!) when she looked at her life and thought: no more! (The job, not the kids!) She took a creative writing course and wrote the first few chapters of the book that was to become her debut novel and a runaway bestseller on both sides of the atlantic that has received glowing reviews from everyone from Oprah to Margaret Atwood to Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo: The Confessions of...
2020-09-0850 min
The Shift with Sam BakerMarian Keyes on menopause, Botox and learning to be shamelessAsk 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-te...
2020-09-0145 min
The Shift with Sam BakerTasmina Perry on career, confidence and how not to get stuck at the amber lightMy guest this week is the ultimate career pivoter, novelist, journalist, screenwriter, (potter!) Tasmina Perry. I’ve known Tasmina (Tammy) since we were both baby editors and stuck on the management training course from hell together. We have been firm friends ever since. She’s since gone on to write 15 (!) novels - 13 as Tasmina Perry, 2 psychological thrillers as JL Butler and is now, “pushing 50”, a screenwriter. But she started life as a lawyer and is the queen of reinvention. Exactly the woman you need right now when the world is going to hell in a handcart!She shar...
2020-08-2556 min