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PODCAST

The Shift with Sam Baker

The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women"s voices once they pass 40? That"s where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is

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All Episodes

62:38

Holly Dawson on facing permanent memory loss at 40

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/11/18

For many of us losing our memory is our worst nightmare. To be told that that is happening when you are still young (ish) is close to unimaginable. That’s what happened to this week’s guest, writer, teacher and reader in residence at Charleston, Holly Dawson.Holly was just 40 when she started to lose her grasp of where she was. She was ultimately diagnosed with epilepsy. A scan of her brain revealed a benign tumour and Holly found herself faced with the prospect of losing both her memory and her

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51:07

Bobbi Brown on doing it all her own way in her 60s

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/11/11

If 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-makeup makeup 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

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69:18

Hollie McNish on sex, shame and telling the truth...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/11/04

Today’s episode is basically a massive treat for me. Hollie McNish is my favourite poet. I first encountered her over a decade ago when I was doing an event for my thriller, The Woman Who Ran, at a literary festival. Hollie was in the big venue next door. The signing queue went on for miles. Let’s just say, it wasn’t for me. Hollie’s poetry speaks to people, women, mainly, let’s be honest. And we are quite literally queueing up to see her.Hollie’s poetry has millions of views on social media,

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53:04

Jen Hatmaker: “It’s like I woke up halfway through my...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/10/28

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 knew was

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49:34

THE SHIFT LIVE: Mary Portas on fashion, Ab Fab & how...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/10/21

This 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

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67:25

Lyse Doucet – my extraordinary 40 years on the frontline

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/10/14

My 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

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51:35

India Knight on finally gaining a sense of self in...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/10/07

(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

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53:50

Hilma Wolitzer: 80 years of writing – and not done...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/09/30

(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

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56:36

Caryn Franklin on why fashion still fails older women...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/09/23

(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

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61:51

Lisa Jewell on hitting a golden seam of success in...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/09/16

(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

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53:18

Thomasina Miers on the midlife Mexican escape that...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/09/09

Hello 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 kitchens, set up

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54:06

Laura Lippmann is having a second coming at 60

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/09/02

A 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 getting divorced. “I

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61:23

Charlotte Mendelson – middle-aged women are entitled...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/08/26

This 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,

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50:21

Betsy Lerner is on a mission to destigmatise mental...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/08/19

My 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 prolific career in the publishing

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55:48

Nicola Sturgeon on life after leadership

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/08/12

This 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

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55:36

Sarah Perry on "becoming a woman who didn't have...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/08/05

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,

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61:45

Glynnis MacNicol: everything you've been told about...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/07/29

What 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

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68:24

Steph McGovern on money, menopause & staying out of...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/07/22

Crime 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

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40:15

Alison Bechdel on tarot, ageing & why men are scared...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/07/15

The last of our archive episodes this time around is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Spent, Alison's new graphic novel-come-memoir, reminded me of the conversation we had back in 2021. Here it is...---- 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,

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42:16

Esther Freud on upending your life in your 50s - THE...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/07/08

This week we're going way back in The Shift archives, to one of the earliest episodes I recorded with novelist Esther Freud. This summer Esther will be a guest of The Shift bookclub, to talk about her new novel, My Sister and Other Lovers - her long-awaited sort-of-sequel to her smash hit autofiction, Hideous Kinky, about her childhood with her sister Bella Freud (who was on The Shift podcast last autumn - listen here). Here's the chat Esther and I had back in 2021...---- How does it feel to come

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