The Shift with Sam Baker

When was the last time you read a book where the central character was not just perimenopausal but also talked and thought about menopause and its impact on her life. And she wasn’t a laughing stock?I’m prepared to bet never.That was the driving force for my guest this week, novelist Dana Spiotta. What if, she asked herself, the lead characters of some of her favourite books had had a hot flush? Think Mrs Dalloway on HRT.The resulting novel, Wayward, is the story of 53 year old Sam who, in the midst of the chaos and perverse clarity of perimenopause falls in love with a rundown house, buys it and leaves her husband, teenage daughter and the suburban security of married life in pursuit of a new her.Wayward is a blast of fresh air; funny, furious and extremely close to home! Dana joined me from her home in Syracuse, upstate New York, to talk about accidentally writing a “menopause novel”, how her own perimenopause informed her characters (cue, rage, insomnia and midlife misogyny), what happens when menopause and puberty collide and why people are still grossed out by the truth about female bodies.• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Wayward by Dana Spiotta and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last.But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46. The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief.Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Red Of My Blood by Clover Stroud and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is the Jamaican author, journalist, film maker and (no exaggeration) living legend Barbara Blake Hannah.Already an experienced journalist when she arrived in London in 1964, Barbara was shocked to discover her achievements counted for nothing because of the colour of her skin. But she made headlines anyway, in 1968, when she became the first Black TV journalist in the UK. She lasted nine months before being dismissed - almost certainly as a result of a racist backlash, in which her employers sided with the racists… It was several years before another black journalist appeared in a news role on British screens. Without Barbara, arguably, there would have been no Moira Stuart or Trevor Macdonald.Now 80, Barbara has led a pioneering life, so it’s a joy to celebrate it with the republication of her groundbreaking 1982 memoir, Growing Out - Black Hair And Black Pride in The Swinging Sixties, as part of Bernardine Evaristo’s Black Britain Writing Back series.From her home in Kingston, Jamaica, which she shares with her son, Barbara told me what she learnt from being at the sharp end of racism, why the Black Lives Matter movement gives her hope, feeling new again at 80 and how she learnt to love herself as a Black woman. She also talks about the power and politics of hair and how she has the skin of a 12 year old! Plus she introduced me to my new mantra: time is longer than rope. • You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Growing Out, Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging Sixties by Barbara Blake Hannah and all the other books in Bernardine Evaristo's Black Britain Writing Back series. You can also get the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By the time we hit our 50s, most of us have… let’s just say… lived a little. But few have been through the mill to quite the extent that Christina Patterson has. Christina was 49 and recovering from breast cancer when she lost the job that she not just loved but that defined her. Rebuilding her life and career in her 50s formed the basis for her first book - memoir-come-survival manual, The Art of Not Falling Apart.As if that wasn’t enough for one person to cope with, on top of this crushing loss, she has lived through a second cancer diagnosis and multiple family deaths. She is, in her own words, the last one standing.Her new memoir, Outside, The Sky Is Blue tells of the dynamics of a family in the grip of one child’s mental health crisis; it’s a story of love and loss, but ultimately, unexpectedly, a celebration. Christina and I talked about all the big stuff: success and failure, guilt and grief, the lifelong impact of family dynamics... Plus how to cope when your body starts saying the things your mind can’t, failing at relationships and then finding love in your 50s and why there is nothing but NOTHING like a good party.• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Outside The Sky Is Blue by Christina Patterson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week’s guest needs zero introduction - and not just because she’s been here before. Marian Keyes was one of the first guests on The Shift and her episode [episode 2 if you’re interested!] is still one of the most popular. So I’m delighted that she’s agreed to come back to chat about her new book - the long awaited sequel to her smash hit Rachel’s Holiday. The wonderful Again, Rachel revisits Rachel Walsh, the Walsh family and everybody’s favourite fictional fantasy, LUKE COSTELLO, 25 years after we saw her leave rehab and it’s no spoiler to say that, like its main characters, it’s older, wiser and hotter than ever.So I’m not going to wang on about the fact she’s sold over 39million copies globally and still worries she’s not good enough. (My heart). OR that she’s just launched a podcast Now You’re Asking with her friend Tara Flynn, I’m going to let Marian do the talking. And boy did we TALK.With typical generosity, wisdom and humour, Marian opened up about infertility, addiction, embracing change, how it feels to revisit your best loved character - and yourself! - 25 years on and fecking Fitbit addiction. She also throws in body shaming, self-forgiveness, mid-life sexuality, falling in love with your mother in your 50s and the many many joys of being “unyoung”.CONTENT WARNING: infertility.To hear Marian's earlier episode on menopause etc listen to episode 2 here.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all tackle ageing in different ways but very few of us do it the way this week’s guest did - by packing up her entire life and moving thousands of miles to a new city and a new life. Until her mid-forties, writer Jami Attenberg sofa-surfed her way around America - the year she turned 40 she slept in 26 different beds in seven months! Even for the daughter of a travelling salesman, Jami’s litany of sofas, spare beds and floors is enough to give even the most nomadic back ache!The author of seven novels, including four bestsellers, I Came All This Way To Meet You, is Jami’s first memoir. A moving, candid, unexpectedly funny look at becoming grown up (ish), stopping running and how she, quite literally, wrote herself home.Jami joined me from New Orleans to tell me how she finally stopped moving, being the daughter of a motherless mother and how she was scarred by summer camp! She also talked about embracing the mid-life move, why you don’t always have to give people what they want, just because they ask, and the life changing impact of having a hysterectomy. Oh and that “neck thing”? It’s real…• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including I Came All This Way To Meet You by Jami Attenberg and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is the international bestseller Dorothy Koomson. She started young - she had her first stab at writing a book at 13 - and, like me, worked on Just Seventeen, amongst many other magazines, before actually publishing her first novel at 30. She has now written 16 Sunday Times bestsellers and is the biggest selling Black author of adult fiction in the UK - not bad for a woman whose debut novel was turned down for, amongst other things, having a Black character but not being about “the Black experience”.Her latest, I know what you’ve done, is just out in paperback and has been described as “Desperate Housewives but darker”. It’s also completely stuffed with brilliant parts for midlife women - ITV, I’m looking at you!Dorothy joined me from Brighton to talk about feeling like you’re “enough”, 80s TV crushes, the gynae and thyroid hell that gave her constant hot flushes, facing up to grey pubic hair and why there’s still A LOT of work to do when it comes to telling all women’s stories. Oh and why we need to bring back Golden Girls. I’m here for that!• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including I Know What You've Done by Dorothy Koomson and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’m really thrilled to launch this season with one of my long time fantasy guests. Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland since 2015, has been dubbed one of the most powerful women in British politics, if not in Britain, and she shows no sign of stopping.Now 51, she grew up the eldest of two in an ordinary working class family in Ayrshire. Her mum was a dental nurse, her dad an electrician, she went to a state school and was the first in her family to go to university. In the 1970s and 80s - not a world where ordinary working class girls were expected to branch out - she was taught by her parents that she could - and she believed them, joining the SNP at 16 and becoming the youngest candidate standing in the 1991 election.Unfortunately Omicron stopped us meeting in person (shame because I’ve heard the loos at Bute House are worth a snoop!), but Nicola joined me remotely to talk about what it means to be a fifty something woman in the corridors of power - from having to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously and why a little bit of self doubt is good for you. ( I can think of a few male politicians who might benefit…)She was also incredibly open about “being in the foothills of menopause”, preparing to take HRT and what happens if you have a hot flush in parliament. It’s always been my aim to ask powerful women to speak up about menopause so I couldn’t be more grateful to Nicola for taking time out to have this conversation.PLUS she’s shared a whole host of brilliant book recommendations at the end.You can buy all the books Nicola recommends at Bookshop.org, plus the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's season finale time. And have I got a festive special for you!There is no child of the 80s who won’t remember today’s guests. For a decade, Pepsi Demacque-Crockett and Shirlie Kemp - better known as Pepsi and Shirlie - were a fixture of the charts. First as part of Wham! With Shirlie’s school friends George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, then as a duo - their first single, Heartache, reached number 2 - only being beaten to number one by their good friend George. Even now they enter most of our homes at least once a year, thanks to the legendary Wham hit, Last Christmas. Now friends for almost 40 years, Pepsi and Shirlie have written a memoir. It’s All In Black and White records the highs and lows of being thrust into the tabloid limelight while still in their teens, coping with fame - and then the loss of it; public success, personal memories and private grief. They joined me to talk about their crazy journey from ordinary working class girls to global chart-toppers, their lifelong friendship, confidence, hormones, miscarriage, mental health and so much more. Hope you enjoy the nostalgia trip as much as we didTrigger warning: this episode contains candid discussion of the emotional impact of miscarriage.• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including It's All In Black And White by Pepsi and Shirlie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is a woman who - to coin a bit of 1980s jargon - punched through the glass ceiling for women in TV, creating not just one but a series of female lead characters who broke the mould. And not just any old female lead but OLDER female leads. There would be no Happy Valley or Scott & Bailey if it wasn’t for Lynda La Plante’s groundbreaking creation, detective Jane Tennison, brought to life by Helen Mirren. The BAFTA and Emmy award winning screenwriter of Prime Suspect, Widows and many other hit TV shows, Lynda has written 43 bestselling books, including the young Tennison series - the latest of which is Unholy Murder - that takes Jane Tennison back to the 80s as she battles to break through in the macho Met. Lynda is now 78 and it’s 30 years since her groundbreaking creation hit our small screens (back when there were only four channels and primetime telly really mattered). But Lynda started out as a dyslexic drama student who, she says, was “too short and plain” to get good parts. Lucky for us, she decided to try her hand at writing them instead. Lynda tells me what it was really like to be a woman in TV in the 80s and 90s (and noughties!), the humiliation that shaped her, how she learnt not to let things get to her and why you should always always ALWAYS read the small print!She has a few things to say about contemporary crime TV drama, but this is a bit of a masterclass for any wannabe crime writers.• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Unholy Murder by Lynda La Plante and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices