The Shift with Sam Baker

I am thrilled to kick off season four - season bloody four! - of The Shift with today’s guest, Mel Giedroyc (and yes I did practice saying that 935 times). Mel is (she reckons) the more punctual half of beloved comedy duo, Mel and Sue, an actress, writer and, drum roll, NATIONAL TREASURE thanks to the best part of seven years spent eating cake. (Nice gig if you can get it) And now - bloody over-achiever - she’s written her debut novel, The Best Things, which is as warm, hilarious and full of pin-sharp observation as you’d expect.Mel talks ironing - and asks the big question: who actually irons? The terror of hitting the financial skids and walking away from the Bake Off payday. Being a menopause-dodger and the importance of bringing more perimenopausal characters to our screens. AND writing her first novel at 51. 51! There is hope for us all! (Or is Mel just exceptional... I'll leave it to you to decide.) Either way there's tons of juvenile humour and plenty of sniggering. You have been warned.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Best Things by Mel Giedroyc.The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know when people say you’re “brave” because you’ve got a few grey hairs?! Well, my guest this week is the living proof - as if it were needed - that that is a right old load of BS. Channel 4 International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is an acclaimed foreign correspondent who has reported from all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Kosovo and Rwanda. She also won the James Tait Black Award for In Extremis, her devastating biography of her friend, the foreign reporter, Marie Colvin who was killed reporting from Syria in 2012.Lindsey is just as bold as her job might lead you to expect. She takes no prisoners as she talks about managing menopause symptoms in a war zone, being in a minority on the box and why there needs to be more “old trouts on TV” (and, no, she’s not bloody brave for going grey on screen), and how she finally found the perfect answer to “Give us a smile love”. Only took forty years…You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and In Extremis: the life of war correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum.The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guests this week have both lived fascinating lives. Both have experienced ups and downs. Both are now 55 and have found themselves in this place in life that has brought them a surprising new power. Actress, producer, businesswoman and compulsive learner Sadie Frost and award winning actress and singer/songwriter Frances Ruffelle first met at school in 1976 (when they were the scruffy, noisy, naughty ones at the back!) and have been firm friends ever since.They are also both yoga addicts, so it made perfect sense for them to launch their new business, Yin & Tonic, that combines short soothing routines with mindful music. I zoomed in with the life long besties to talk about how their 45 year friendship is more important than any marriage, being in the middle of the “muddy soup” of menopause (insomnia!) and why Sadie’s looking forward to finally “leaving home” at 55. And yoga, of course. I also got raging house envy.Find Yin & Tonic's yoga sessions on youtube.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker.The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is the Ghanaian American writer Nana-Ama Danquah. Nana-Ama found herself in the public eye when, in the late 90s, she published her memoir Willow Weep For Me about suffering from clinical depression - one of the first books to openly discuss black women’s mental health experience. Critically acclaimed by the likes of the late, great Maya Angelou, its description of the shame, dismissal, denial and out and out despair experienced by many black women started a much-needed conversation that was widely credited with “saving lives”. (It's currently not published in the UK - publishers I AM LOOKING AT YOU!)Now 53, Nana-Ama joined me from her home in (sunny) California (grrr) to talk about the double - in fact, make that triple - burden of mental health, menopause and being black, why black women are driving change right now, how menopause turned her into a hot mess and how she’s finally learnt the joy of doing what you do until you die.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker. Willow Weep For Me by Nana-Ama Danquah is not published in the UK, but you can buy it from amazon.co.uk or abebooks.co.uk.The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The main word I can think of to describe this week’s guest is wise. (Well there are other words - fabulous and no-bull for starters - but wise is the biggie.) Bestselling author Isabel Allende has written 25 books including her debut, the global smash hit The House of the Spirits, published when she was 39, and two memoirs, one about the death of her daughter Paula, at the age of 29. In her latest, The Soul of A Woman, the 79 year old Chilean who has been in self-imposed exile since 1975, takes a candid look at her own life, sexuality and evolution as a feminist. What, she asks - and tries to answer - do women want?From her home in Northern California, Isabel explains why she’s been a feminist since she was five and what feminism means to her (“Not what we have between our legs but what we have between our ears.” Love her!); being “fatally heterosexual”, and why she’s spent her life in training to be a “passionate old woman”. I defy you not to want to be her when you grow up by the end of this podcast!The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week is a bit of a “how to cope when your life spirals out of control and goes tits up!” Special! And my guest, journalist Rosie Green, is an unwilling expert on midlife chaos. She was 44 (there’s that age again…) when her contented, settled, literally roses-round-the-door family life was pulled out from under her when her husband and partner of 26 years told her he didn’t love her any more - well, he did, but “like a friend”. Yep, I know.Three years on, Rosie has flipped the pain of that heartbreak around, rebuilding her life and her career. One of the results is her new book, How To Heal A Broken Heart - and even though it’s specifically about being dumped in midlife, you’ll also find it useful if you’re experiencing any kind of cataclysmic shift that shatters your sense of self. Listen on as Rosie bares her soul and explains how she got back in the saddle - domestically, professionally and sexually.And because she's a generous kinda gal, Rosie also throws in some midlife beauty tips. Well, why wouldn't you?The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and How To Heal A Broken Heart by Rosie Green. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Like many women, my guest this week has lived a lot of lives in one. Married and divorced in her 20s, Sarah Pinborough left a career in teaching, became a horror writer and taught herself to script write, but it was when she turned her hand to psychological thrillers, when she was 44 (remember that age, it’s definitely significant!), that things went ‘a little nuts’.That book, Behind Her Eyes, went onto sell a million copies and is now coming to Netflix as a highly bingeable series (18 February 2021 - get it on your watchlist). Sarah is honestly the only person (OK, woman) I have ever interviewed who has spoken so freely and frankly about money, how it changed her life in her mid-40s and why it can vanish as quickly as it arrived. She made me realise that knowing your financial worth is quite rare even in successful women - and we need to get a lot more comfortable talking about cash. I was quite shocked by how uncomfortable Sarah’s frankness made me feel. (Not to mention unattractively jealous!) This one is a real thought-provoker. She's also gives some fascinating insider info on the way women (especially older women) are portrayed on screen - when they're portrayed at all - and weighs in on the "why is Hugh Grant allowed to look 60 when Nicole Kidman has to pass for 30" debate spawned by The Undoing.The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where to start with the last decade of this week's guest's life? After struggling to get pregnant, Alexandra Heminsley finally conceived at 40 after unsuccessful rounds of IVF. You might hope that was the end of the stress. But no. First came the DNA test that questioned whether the embryo was really hers and then, as she tried to adapt to life as the mother of a much longed-for newborn, her husband D reached a point where they felt they had no choice but to transition. Oh, and She was also assaulted on public transport whilst heavily pregnant.In her compassionate and brave new memoir, Some Body To Love, Alex explores how it feels to be gaslit by your own body, how she finally found peace with hers and what it even means to be a parent. If you’re struggling with your own body image, feel you’ve lost your sense of self or are coping with radical - or even not so radical - change, you may find some solace here. (Also, Trigger Warning: I should tell you that Alex talks frankly about infertility, miscarriage, sexual assault and her experience of her partner transitioning.)The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Some Body To Love by Alexandra Heminsley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You’d be hard pushed to think of anyone who has done more for women writers than this week’s guest. Twenty five years ago, Kate Mosse was working in publishing when she looked around and realised that everyone on all the awards shortlists looked familiar - pale, male and stale. The result - the Women’s Prize for Fiction - has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, and given a much-needed voice to women’s writing.Kate is also a bestselling author of 7 novels and 2 short story collections including the millions-selling global smash hit Labyrinth and her new book, The City of Tears. Kate is kind, funny and candid as she talks about how easily women's history is erased (and why we should never forget the women who went before us), her “other” job as a full-time carer - and why caring is a feminist issue - the devaluing of women’s work, being a pathological optimist and why she CANNOT WAIT to be 60. Trigger Warning: Kate also speaks honestly about bereavement and grief, three quarters of the way through the episode.The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and The City of Tears by Kate Mosse. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's guest is acclaimed poet, author and activist, Salena Godden. Now in her late 40s, Salena has been writing and performing since 1994 when she moved to London seeking the bright lights and never looked back. In her evocative debut novel, Mrs Death Misses Death, the self-confessed “dreamer” brings death to life as a middle-aged black woman and combines prose, poetry and non-fiction to tell the stories of the invisible women society prefers to ignore.Over the next half hour, the woman once described as “everything the Daily Mail is terrified of” talks about "not being here for babies” (and how glad is she that she’ll never be asked THAT question again), being in the midst of “all the weather”, why she thinks menopause is a return to the magic of childhood and why 40+ is where the party is.The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. I'd love to hear what you think - please rate and review, or let me know on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including the book that accompanies this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too by Sam Baker and Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices