Rachel Jackson is a jewellery designer whose work I particularly love. We even collaborated with on a necklace design once.

She discovered her passion for her career while solo travelling in South America where she made a good friend Ali in Brazil and then spent 2 months living with his mum Cinderela (yes that really was her name!) who taught her how to make jewellery. 6 weeks after she returned to the UK Ali was killed in a plane accident which made Rachel feel how fleeting life is. She then gave up a well-paid job in TV to pursue her dream of designing and selling her own jewellery. She started with a stall in Spitalfields market, earning very little, and worked up to selling to Liberty and Selfiridges. She often collaborates with charities which gives a meaning and a story to each piece of jewellery.

Rachel has two children, Herbie aged 6 and River aged 10. Her husband took a year out of his job to do the lion's share of the child care when they had their 2nd baby, enabling Rachel to grow the company at a crucial time.

Like me, Rachel doesn't really feel she's a baby person but particulalry loves the feeling of being increasingly needed now, as they are getting older. Unlike me, she's an excellent planner and always has plenty of activities sorted out for the weekend. When we spoke, I had a Bank Holiday of nothingness ahead, so I rather envied her good planner trait!

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones.

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

Natalie Cassidy is familiar to us all from EastEnders where she's been playing Sonia since the age of 10!

When we met she told me about her love of growing up on a TV set, where age meant nothing and her best friend was June Brown, who was 50 years older than her!

Natalie is a mum of two daughters, Eliza and Joanie. My heart melted when she described how she and her husband Marc met when Eliza was just three, and he said he'd fallen in love first with Natalie and then when he met Eliza, he fell in love again.

Natalie's about to turn 41 this week. She already has one podcast 'Off the Telly' which she co-hosts with actress Joanna Page and she's just launched a solo podcast 'Life With Nat' which immediately went to number one in the podcast charts!

We talked about how grateful we are that we didn't have social media as teenagers and we revisited our teen love of culottes! Also I tried to invite myself on her podcast to talk about teenagers and phones. I have no shame!

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones.

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

Bat For Lashes aka Natasha Khan is a singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and a mum to a three year old.

She has just brought out her 6th album and this one is inspired by the birth of her daughter and is called The Dream of Delphi.

She was pregnant in LA during Covid and the album recalls how she reconnected with nature during that time, reflecting the landscape of the city, mountains and the desert. She's now separated from Delphi's Dad but explained they are still best friends and happily co-parent together.

We spoke about how she felt about becoming a mum later in life and we talked about that special liminal moment when you have just given birth and it dawns on you that you are moving from who you were into who you are going to be - a transformational moment.

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones.

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