To launch season 17 (season 17! I know!) I have a very special guest.

Back in 2023, British journalist and BBC breakfast and radio 5 live presenter Naga Munchetty hit the headlines when she spoke out about having been diagnosed with a gynaecological condition called adenomyosis.

When I heard the clip I did a double-take because I too have adenomyosis, and, like Naga, it took me well over two decades to get diagnosed. But also I hadn’t heard of it before I was diagnosed and had never heard of anyone else who had it. (I wrote about it at the time – you can read it here.)

I was far from the only one. Naga was overwhelmed by the avalanche, literally thousands of women sharing their stories of lifelong pain, bleeding and having their concerns dismissed, ignored and belittled. Of being told the way they were having to live their lives was just “normal”.

Naga was shocked. She was furious. She was determined to do something about it. To help women advocate for themselves. And the result is her new book, It’s Probably Nothing - which let’s face it is a phrase most of us have heard over and over again.

Naga and I talked all things gynaecological - from painful periods to bleeding buckets - choosing to be child-free and why women’s sexual wellbeing is so often overlooked. Women’s health still isn’t taken seriously and Naga Munchetty has plans to do something about that! 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠, including It's Probably Nothing by Naga Munchetty as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠

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

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Last of my trips back into The Shift archives is this conversation with Clover Stroud. Since this conversation, Clover has written another memoir, The Giant on the Skyline about our relationship with home (borne in part out of moving her family from her home in Oxfordshire to Washington DC where her partner's job is based). Since then A LOT has changed. She has also launched an excellent substack, On The Way Life Feels.

The original show notes:

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 The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Giant on the Skyline and The Red of My Blood by Clover Stroud as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

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

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

This conversation with legendary musician Tracey Thorn from one of The Shift's very early seasons is one of my very favourites. Back then covid was still a thing and these chats on zoom with incredible women were my life rafts. Anyway, we're revisiting Tracey because by the time you listen to this episode, Everything But The Girl will have very tentatively put their toe back on the stage at a couple of very small gigs in London. I'm not getting my hopes up too much (as I know Tracey doesn't loooove live performing, however, Tracey if you happen to read this, I know there are thousands and thousands of fans hungry for a tour...)

The orginal show notes:

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, 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 my favourite yet.

Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!).

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including My Rock'n'roll Friend by Tracey Thorn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

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

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

Back in the mists of time, Maggie O'Farrell was one of my very first guests on The Shift. So, as she celebrates the 25th anniversary of the publication of her very first novel, After You'd Gone and we wait with bated breath for the movie of her smash hit bestseller Hamnet (starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, directed by Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, Chloe Zhao, and co-written by Maggie and Chloe), I thought now was a good time to revisit our conversation from back in 2020. Since then Maggie has of course written the bestselling The Marriage Portrait and gone on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of Hamnet.

Here are the original show notes:

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 women’s stories, saying good riddance to the male gaze, why she never thought she was the marrying kind. Oh, and why she still secretly fears someone might take her Women’s Prize away! Frankly, if Maggie O’Farrell has imposter syndrome, what hope is there for the rest of us?

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

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

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

As we put the finishing touches to the Spring season of The Shift, I thought we'd raid the archives for a few of my favourite episodes. First up, "the other" Maggie Smith (as she says she will always be), who I first spoke to when her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful was just creeping into the world. Little did we know back then that it would be the leading wave in a tsunami of divorce memoirs written by midlife women. Also look out for Maggie's new book, Dear Writer, a collection of "pep talks and practical advice for the creative life".

Here are the original show notes:

Like most of the rest of the world, I first discovered today’s guest Maggie Smith (no, not the legendary British actress, the American poet) when her poem, Good Bones went viral on social media thrusting her into the news on both sides of the Atlantic, featured on primetime TV and was read at an event by Meryl Streep. 

It’s the kind of exposure people dream of, but in Maggie’s own words “my marriage was never the same after that”. And I know that sentiment is something that will resonate with so many of you.

Maggie’s new book, her debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful is about the collapse of that marriage, but it’s also about the start of something new, how in losing their shared history and knowledge of the future, she began to build a new story - her own. 

Maggie joined me from Ohio to talk about putting herself back together after sudden success destroyed her marriage, being a service provider in your own home, how she got herself back after years of bargaining herself away and why we keep having the same conversation about women and ambition. We also compared our Strong First Daughter Energy and she introduced me to the concept of an emotional alchemist.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Can Make This Place Beautiful and Dear Writer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

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

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

My final guest of this season is the British TV legend, Lorraine Kelly. You know, Lorraine off the telly! 

Her show, Lorraine, which airs every weekday morning, revolutionised Daytime Telly, she’s now been doing it for an astonishing 40 years. She took so called soft telly and turned it into a must take notice of for politicians and people who thought they were too good to watch telly during the day.

She has won a Royal Television Society Award, a scottish BAFTA, and last year she was awarded a Lifetime achievement by BAFTA. 

Now 65 the bloody over-achiever has only gone and written a bestseller, The Island Swimmer, set on Orkney - a place close to her heart - it’s a family mystery about a woman, Evie, who reluctantly returns home after a long time away. It’s as reassuring, captivating and satisfying as its author.

I went to Lorraine’s old Dundee stomping ground to share a cuppa and talk about life the universe and absolutely blimmin everything. We chatted mums who keep you in your place, toxic people in telly, getting the sack on maternity leave, why she had to be interviewed about menopause on her show because no-one else would, the sheer joy of being a granny and why she’s way too chicken to have Botox.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Island Swimmer by Lorraine Kelly and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

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

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

My guest today is the award winning author, screenwriter and poet Jenni Fagan. Jenni has written four novels, several poetry collections and been named Scottish novelist of the year. 

18 months ago Jenni and I met in a suitably spooky basement in Edinburgh’s old town to discuss her incredible, harrowing memoir about growing up in care, Ootlin.

An ootlin, according to Jenni, is ‘someone who creates their story without first seeking permission to do so’. And you’ll soon see why that couldn’t be more apt.

Then, life happened - publication of the book was delayed and the interview never ran. Scroll forward to a couple of weeks ago when Ootlin was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, and then won the Gordon Burn Prize. I decided to raid the archives and listen again. What I heard was a moving conversation about building a life when society dumped you on the scrapheap before birth. And then some. 

As you’ll hear Jenni and I spoke candidly about her childhood growing up in 29 different homes, how she somehow preserved the shining girl inside when life was only interested in snuffing her out, becoming Jenni with an i, the importance of cultural mothers, surfing her way through her 50s and her obsession with property renovation.

CONTENT WARNING: there is some tough stuff in here including reference to sexual abuse and suicidal ideation.

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

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

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

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

My guest today is a Gen X legend and someone I’ve been a little bit obsessed with ever since I saw her star in the definitive (late) 80s movie, Say Anything. Ione Skye. There was a time when It seemed like if there was a hot young actor - John Cusack, River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves - she got to snog them on screen. (I know, shallow, much.)

Ione has spent her life in the centre of the Venn diagram of film, music and celebrity. The daughter of 60s superstar Donovan, she famously dated Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Anthony Keidis finding herself both babysitter and breadwinner at just 16. She followed that with an ill-fated marriage to Beastie Boy Ad-Rock (Adam Horowitz).

But there is so much more to Ione than all those male name drops.

She has starred in some of the most significant movies of their generation. She has worked with the likes of Sofia Coppola, Chloe Sevigny, Lena Dunham and Madonna. She’s written children’s books, directed short films and is an accomplished painter. Not to mention podcaster. (She hosts the podcast Weirder Together with her partner, Ben Lee.)

Oh, and I do just have to say that as a child she only lived next door to the iconic writer Eve Babitz!

Anyway It all adds up to one fascinating tumultuous story. One she’s addressed extremely candidly in her new memoir, Say Everything. See what she did there?

Ione joined me from LA to talk about growing up in the 80s and 90s, being a nepo baby before nepo babies were a thing, having it all, losing it all and getting some of it back, what she’s learnt from her Gen Z daughters and finally coming into herself in her 50s.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Say Everything by Ione Skye and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

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

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

My guest today is a woman who knows better than most what it takes to adapt to life’s big shifts. Dame Denise Lewis is one of the UK’s best known athletes. She won gold in the heptathlon in Sydney Olympics in 2000 and bronze in Atlanta in 1996. She has won medals at the Commonwealth games, the European championships and World Championships.

After retiring from athletics in her early 30s she built a successful career as a BBC sports commentator. Oh, And had four kids. 

In 2023 she was made a Dame for her services to sport. Now 52, she is President of UK athletics and has written a book sharing everything she’s learnt, aptly named Adaptability, a guide to surviving and thriving in a world of competing demands. 

I met up with Denise to talk about self-reliance, independence and how growing up the only child of a single mum shaped her. The challenge of building a whole new identity in her 30s - and again in her 50s. Her secrets to adapting after a big life shift and How she learnt the vital skill of mansplaining. Plus menopause, ageing And why she loves being on the fifth floor of life.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Cancer Roadmap by Dr Liz O'Riordan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

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

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

My guest today is Dr Liz O’Riordan. Liz is what’s apparently known in the trade as a double doctor; a breast cancer surgeon with a PhD in molecular oncology. 

But more than that Liz is also both expert and patient. 

She received her first breast cancer diagnosis aged 40. Her second aged 43 and her third, just two years ago, at the age of 48.

Her experience of life on both sides of the cancer patient-doctor fence makes her uniquely qualified to talk about it. She now campaigns to inform and educate the breast cancer community and was recently presented with the ‘Future Dreams Humanitarian Award’ for services to the breast cancer community.

The co-author of The Complete Guide to Breast Cancer, Liz has now followed that up with A Cancer Roadmap. Not exactly bedtime reading, you might think, but I - who have been lucky enough to have only had a scare, but do have family and friends experiencing it - inhaled it. Not only is it fascinating but it’s incredibly easy to digest and sure to become a staple for anyone who’s remotely impacted.

Liz joined me for a full and frank conversation about the impact of getting diagnosed with breast cancer at 40, crossing the doctor-patient divide, infertility, menopause, losing her hair and her identity and how she’s adjusted to living life with cancer.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Cancer Roadmap by Dr Liz O'Riordan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

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

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