The Shift with Sam Baker

My guest today is Louise Doughty, the woman behind some of the knottiest thrillers to grace our bookshelves and TV screens in recent years. Her bestseller, Apple Tree Yard about a sensible middle aged woman who makes a very unsensible decision (involving sex in the house of commons!) sold over half a million copies and was turned into a smash hit BBC series starring Emily Watson. She was also the brains behind the breathtaking BBC drama Crossfire that starred Keeley Hawes.  Of course What you don’t hear, is that Apple Tree Yard was Louise’s 7th novel, catapulting her to “the big time” at the age of 50. Her latest book, A Bird In Winter, looks set to continue that trajectory. Think The 39 steps if the lead was an extremely resourceful 50something woman on the run. Louise joined me to talk about how her “overnight” success at 50” transformed her life (mainly she finally started a pension!) And why it’s still considered controversial when middle aged women have sex! We also discussed surviving the menopause-puberty collision, the unrealised fury - and potential - of the middle aged woman and the power and importance of realising you’re not for everyone. And that’s fine. Note: apologies for the occasionally disrupted sound quality at the start of this episode. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty 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 @ Pineapple Audio 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

Today’s guest is a personal favourite. I first met Kate Weinberg (the bestselling author of The Truants) when I was stricken with long covid and a mutual friend put us in touch. “You need to talk to Kate,” she urged. “She’ll be able to help. Kate was able to help - and did. Thanks in large part to her I went from feeling like my old, functioning life had gone forever, to regaining more than a semblance of normal. Whatever that is. Because Kate is not only one of the first people to experience and long covid, she is also an immensely kind and generous woman.  That experience - of living an illness that doctors dismissed as “all in her head” - led to her new novel, There’s Nothing Wrong With Her - a comi-tragic story about mental health, the way women’s illness is dismissed, living up to early midlife expectation and surviving modern life. It also stars a goldfish called Whitney Houston! I went to Kate’s envy-inducing north London house to talk about running away fantasies, the impact of losing her mum at 3 and how she’s spent her life assembling a patchwork of mothers, her career finally waking up in her 40s, going on HRT in her 30s, embracing crone energy and, yes, the impact of living with an illness you’re told is “all in your head”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including There's Nothing Wrong With her by Kate Weinberg 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 @ Pineapple Audio 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 broadcaster Vanessa Feltz. Ever since the mid-90s, Vanessa has been a fixture on British TV and radio - and also, for better or worse, our front pages. She became known as the “British Oprah” and that applied not just to her consummate skills as a broadcaster and talent for saying the unsayable, but also what she describes as her “pernicious public cycle of yoyo dieting.” She cut her teeth on This Morning, interviewed stars on the Big Breakfast Bed and hosted her own hit show Vanessa, the first British US-style talk show. She’s also presented BBC Radio 2’s Early Breakfast Show and BBC London’s Breakfast show and now hosts a Saturday show on LBC.  But like many women in the public eye, her professional achievements have often played second fiddle to media scrutiny of her private life. Vanessa joined me to talk about finally baring it all in the frank, funny, fearless autobiography she said she’d never write, Vanessa Bares All. We also discussed growing up with a chorus of critics and dealing with the toxic media attention paid to her weight. Plus divorce, being back in the dating game at 62, why she wishes she’d been able to take Ozempic, finally losing her inhibitions and why she’d really like a great big love. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Vanessa Bares All by Vanessa Feltz 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 @ Pineapple Audio 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

If you sometimes worry you’ve left it too late to follow your heart, today’s guest should give you hope. At 40, Jane Campbell got a divorce and took herself off to university where she trained as a group analyst. 40 years later, at the age of 80, she had her first short story was published, after she sent Cat Brushing to the London Review of Books on a whim. As a rule they don’t publish fiction, but less than three weeks later, they did just that.  Cat Brushing became the title of her debut short story collection - a short, sharp collection about the inner life of older women that I’ve read over and over again. The New York Times compared her to Edna Obrien and Muriel Spark. No biggie. Now Jane’s written a novel, Interpretations of Love which is, ultimately, about the things left unsaid and their lifelong implications. From her home in Oxfordshire, Jane told me why it’s so important to her to put the loves, lusts and losses of old women centre stage. We also discussed the impact of being a war baby and growing up with the belief that men were surplus to requirements, finding herself, a new life and a job she loved at 40 - and doing it again at 80. The lure of the solitary life and how she learnt to stop asking permission in midlife - and has never looked back. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Cat Brushing and Interpretations of Love by Jane Campbell 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 @ Pineapple Audio 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