How To Be 60 with Kaye Adams

On this week's episode, we're joined by bestselling author Milly Johnson, who planned a year-long celebration of turning 60 and credits an arthritic knee with saving her life. Before the Yorkshire Pudding Club and three million book sales, there were decades of proper jobs, years of rejection, and a marriage so bad she filed for divorce while five months pregnant. Milly spent thirty years looking after everyone else — first her boys, then her parents — and decided this decade would be hers. Venice by train, northern soul dancing, and a diamond ring her partner didn't know he was buying yet.

Karen's off poorly this week, so Kaye goes solo and gets the lot: the millennium fireworks that marked the start of Milly's freedom, the agent who said yes when she'd written five words, and the line from her dad's love letter now tattooed on her arm — I don't feel like being sensible anymore. Milly's 23rd novel, Let the Bells Ring Out, is out in October.

Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.

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On this week's Midweek Catchup, we come back down to earth after the Fringe — to a filthy house, a poorly husband and the guilty remains of a packet of chocolate-covered pecans. Kaye's been in London doing ITV, where she talked a very nice photographer into taking her passport photo while she still had her telly makeup on. That's her sorted until she's 72. Karen, meanwhile, has been collecting firewood. In August.
Mostly though, this one belongs to the emails from people who came to the Edinburgh shows. There's one that nearly finishes Karen off, and a sorry tale from Katie, whose train from Aberdeen stopped after ten minutes and sat there for four and a half hours — she never made it to the show at all. If we ever do a tour, Aberdeen, we're coming to you. And there is talk of a tour. We're saying nothing else for now.

Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.

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On this week's episode, we're joined by Jan Birley, who decided at 58 that she was going to produce a feature film, and had one finished by 60.

She'd spent thirty years as an IT project manager, and by her own count she has been in the film industry for two. She raised a budget of around £800,000, put her own money in, and when an experienced line producer told her she wasn't ready, she told him she'd crew it up herself and do it. He came back a couple of days later and said he was in. The film is Hot Flash, shot in Yorkshire, with Gaynor Faye as a woman starting again in her forties with no money and a business idea nobody has asked for. Jan also tells us about the fear of heights that turned into a climbing habit, the triathlons she signed up for before she could swim, and the mentor who told her years ago to put "writer" in her email signature. She never did. She does now.

Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.
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On this week's Midweek Catchup, we're coming to you from the dungeon of Teviot House, an hour before our final Fringe show, because Karen wants to catch the free bus home. Three sell-out shows, nerves that leave the coffee sitting somewhere between chest and throat, and a suspiciously big round of applause for Karen that Kaye is trying not to take personally. Plus a dash to the laundrette with the sheets from Bonnie's student flat, a surprise family delegation in the audience, and a boiler that gave up the moment Karen left the house.

A huge thank you to everyone who came along to the shows, and to all of you who listen every week. It means more than you know. On Friday we're joined by Jan Birley, who wrote and produced her first ever feature film at 60 — Hot Flash, starring Gaynor Faye, in cinemas this autumn.
Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.
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On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Barbara Scully, who did her first stand-up gig at 60, mostly because two women wouldn’t let her out of their flat until she agreed. Now she’s about to tour her second one-woman show. She tells us about hitting rock bottom at 50 in the dole office car park, being mistaken for the children’s chaperone minutes before her own show, and why she has no interest in getting her oestrogen back. As for menopausal brain fog, she’s renamed it an information retrieval slowdown, and her husband has it just as badly. Because no one tells you that being underestimated might be the best thing you’ve got going for you.

Barbara’s new show, Because I’m Worth It, tours Ireland from 27 August, with all dates and tickets at barbarascully.com. Her book, Wise Up, is out now.
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