My guest today is the award-winning broadcaster Aasmah Mir. Born and brought up in Glasgow, of Pakistani Heritage, Aasmah started in newspapers before moving to the BBC, where she worked for twenty years - most famously as co-host of Saturday Live. She joined Times Radio three years ago, as cohost of the Breakfast Show and is a two-time winner of a Sony Gold Award, kind of like a radio Oscar. She’s also been named audio presenter of the year at the broadcasting press guild awards AND, she won celebrity mastermind. we’re talking brainiac!

But before all this, Aasmah was a teenage loner, the third of four children, growing up between two cultures in the 1970s and 80s. A childhood that could not have been more different than her mother, Almas, growing up in the 1950s in Pakistan. It is those two childhoods that are the subject of Aasmah’s moving memoir, A Pebble In The Throat, which interweaves Aasmah’s childhood and teenage years with those of her mother.

On a trip to Scotland, Aasmah came and hung out in my kitchen to discuss writing a book with her mother, how the racism of her childhood shaped her, learning to be visible, deciding to end her marriage and rebuilding life after divorce. We also discussed her "unexpected daughter”, menopause, her monster to-do list and how she finally dislodged the pebble in her throat

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

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

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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