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The Shift with Sam Baker

The Shift with Sam Baker

By: sam baker
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 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 changing? Each week, award-winning author and journalist Sam Baker asks a different woman how she got here, where she's going - and how it feels to be where she is right now. Expect intimate conversation, big laughs, occasional tears and an awful lot of ripping up the rule book and stamping on it... Past guests have included Nicola Sturgeon, Marian Keyes, Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, Minnie Driver, Philippa Perry, Anita Rani, Tracey Thorn, Isabel Allende, Bobbi Brown, Barbara Blake-Hannah and many more, talking everything from confidence to career reinvention, mental health, menopause and so much more. If you enjoy The Shift podcast, and you'd like to show the love, you can buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theshiftwithsambaker And if you really love The Shift and would like to hear more conversations with women over 40, why not become a member of our community and receive a weekly newsletter, get exclusive transcripts, join The Shift bookclub and so much more, please visit https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ For advertising enquiries, email sales@auddy.coSam Baker Ltd 2020 Hygiene & Healthy Living Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Martha Wainwright on music, motherhood & finding love in midlife - FROM THE ARCHIVES

    Martha Wainwright on music, motherhood & finding love in midlife - FROM THE ARCHIVES
    Mar 17 2026
    This episode of The Shift revisited was first aired in February 2023. I first met today's guest, Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, when I interviewed her in Glasgow at the end of 2022. We got talking about the nuts and bolts of midlife in the green room and I was thrilled when she agreed to continue the conversation on The Shift. One of our foremost singer songwriters, Martha has released seven critically acclaimed albums. The latest of which, Love Will Be Reborn, is on repeat on my personal playlist. She’s also - let’s just get this out of the way now - the daughter of “folk royalty” Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister of singer Rufus Wainwright. In short, she comes from a family of very distinct voices, which made finding her own a particular challenge. Martha joined me from her home in Montreal to discuss her extraordinarily frank memoir, the aptly titled Stories I Might Regret Telling You. This conversation goes to all the places: the struggle to make motherhood and the music industry mix, surviving her grim divorce, finding new love with a good man, leaning into your looks, and the agony of being unable to conceive in her 40s. Martha is as candid as her songwriting. Oh and she gave us a guided tour of her enormous vagina painting! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠, including Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright 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 is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    51 mins
  • Prue Leith: 'I've had HRT patches on my bum for more than 40 years!'

    Prue Leith: 'I've had HRT patches on my bum for more than 40 years!'
    Mar 10 2026
    Somehow it’s the end of our 20th season and I’m delighted to say that my guest today is a woman who has spent the last decade giving us a masterclass in ageing. One of my very own old bird role models, Prue Leith. Now 86, Prue has lived a multitude of lives. Chef, businesswoman, author, food columnist, board director, DBE, campaigner for Dignity in Dying and television host, most recently, of course, a nine year stint on Great British Bake Off, which she quit earlier this year. She opened her restaurant Leith’s in 1969, was awarded a Michelin star and turned it into an empire including a catering business and a cookery school, which won her the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the year. After she sold those businesses Prue became a successful food columnist, author and broadcaster. She has written 14 cookbooks, nine novels, a memoir, and currently has a column in the Oldie. How the hell has she done it? Well lucky us, she’s just written a new book, her 25th, Being Old and Learning To Love It and she’s here to tell us. Prue joined me from the cotswolds to talk about what she loves - and hates about being old. Reclaiming being an ‘old woman’, widowhood, luck, brain fog, why she has no time for age-related fashion rules and why she thinks it’s a crime to be bored. Plus taking HRT for 40+ years and having ‘patches on her bum’ for most of her life! CW: On a more serious note there’s also discussion of suicide, the right to die and Prue’s own end of life plans. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Being Old and Learning to Love it by Prue Leith 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 is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    Not Yet Known
  • Poorna Bell is rewriting the rules around ageing

    Poorna Bell is rewriting the rules around ageing
    Mar 3 2026
    This week I’m delighted to welcome back the powerhouse Poorna Bell. Poorna is a journalist, author and speaker known for her advocacy on body image and diversity. And now she’s adding ageing to the list of things she is not about to shut up about. When Poorna first came on The Shift she had not long turned 40 and it’s fair to say she was a little trepidatious about the ageing process. Hardly surprising since the narrative that’s pedalled to younger women is that there’s nothing worse than being a woman over 40. Now 45 and perimenopausal, she’s shouting out loud about the potential of ageing life and the revolution she sees happening all around her amongst older women. Poorna has written two novels and three works of non-fiction. She’s here to talk about the latest. In the brilliant She Wanted More Poorna addresses the stories she was told about ageing and talks to other women about their experience. The aim? To rewrite the fear based narrative around ageing and reimagine what older life can look like for women. Poorna joined me to talk about so many things I can’t even begin to list them. But amongst others we discussed why changing the menopause conversation is good, but putting every last thing down to menopause isn’t. Why nobody benefits from playing the game. Hetero conformity. The productivity trap. Telling new stories around being single. Sexlessness. Learning our mothers’ stories. Weeding our lives and why the best years of our lives are definitely not behind us. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including She Wanted More by Poorna Bell 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 is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 4 mins
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