Sam McAlister

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0:36Hello and welcome to The Midpoint. My guest today was someone who was more used to being in the background of the world of media and broadcasting until the book she wrote about her role in the famous Emily Maitlis Newsnight interview with the then Prince Andrew was made into a Netflix film. And then the world really did know about Sam McAllister. A barrister and criminal investigator by trade, she found herself at the BBC in a career move which has proved enormously successful. But then McAllister has always been someone who moved off the beaten path. She was the first in her family to attend university.

1:08She's a single mother and has spoken up about the challenges that that has brought her. Determined, fiercely intelligent and hardworking. With that combination of skills, she was always going to be someone who achieved whatever she set her mind to. And I'm really looking forward to our chat. Sam, it is so great to have you on The Midpoint. I feel we're going to have a very nice chat I'm not sure where it's going to go but those are the best ones when I was asked if I wanted you to come on I was like absolutely I've listened to various interviews and podcasts you've done especially when you were promoting the film and your book and talking about your career trajectory and I felt quite a lot of synergy actually kind of with you because I did a law degree and obviously didn't end up becoming a barrister which was my kind of goal at the time I was the first person in my family to go to university and and were quite a lot of things that I think and your childhood as well not that I grew up in Guernsey on the beach but I had parents who gave me incredible sense of belief and they were very working class people who almost I kind of look back and think that they didn't really have the right to tell me that I should have a CV or if I went to Cambridge I could be in footlights and all those kinds of things that like how did my mum know that you know so your your kind of being now I feel is very much a product of then and your childhood, it seems to me.

2:31Yeah, it's given me tingles you saying that. How lovely. I hadn't realised. I think absolutely. You don't really realise, do you, that how much that foundation completely profoundly changes your life. And I was so lucky because I had such a solid foundation. I had the holy grail, unconditional love. My mum in particular, who's still with us, Nata, I'm the luckiest girl alive to have had a mum like that. but that stability that they were just so into everything I did because they'd left school at 14 and 15 respectively. My mom had had nothing, you know, lived in absolute penury in Stoke Newington in a council estate.

3:06And so I just had this revelation after revelation through my parents' eyes that everything I did was phenomenally special. And so it really just gave me that Twin towers, unconditional love, absolute confidence. And I hadn't realised how rare, sadly, that is. And so I think really that was the beginning of me being this hyper-confident, very self-assured, very happy, confident person. So how did you deal with setbacks and disappointments as a child? It can't have all been an upward kind of curve to brilliance. There must have been moments. No, I mean, I was horrifically bullied at school. and I was one of those kids who loved learning just enough to make yourself a sort of, you know, the prime target for everyone else.

3:50And because I lived with adults, I found children really chaotic, an only child. So when my son went to school, I explained to him, look, this is going to be arbitrary. People are going to treat you disgustingly. People are going to be rude to you for no reason. They're going to barge you. It's pretty brutal. But I had no clue. I'd lived in this beautiful utopia where I was treated so well. So when I went to school, if I went back, Like I did everything wrong. You know, I was quiet in class, loved the teachers, always on time, never hung out with boys. I was quite a little bit overweight at the time.

4:23I was not into drinking or boys or, you know, kind of like drugs. And I was very nerdy and I was accidentally top of the class. So everything was really a red rag to a bull, I think, in a girls school. So I managed to survive that. But it was pretty rough. And what I had at the time was the absolute joy of no social media. So when I was at school, my mum and dad knew things were rough some days, very rough some days. But as soon as I got home, safe. And so they never got involved. But they asked me if they wanted to. That's such a good point because nobody could text you further abuse. Nobody could send you a meme or, you know.

5:02Exactly. Yeah. And I think kids who are bullied at school now, it just is a 24-7 thing, isn't it? It carries on through their email if they've got a phone. How has that influenced then your parenting style, having had those people as your rocks and parents and everything that you learned from them, but then now parenting in a very different world? Yeah, I prefer this by saying, obviously, everyone has different ways of parenting. And so none of this is said with judgment because it's such a contentious issue how we parent. Oh, yes. Right. So contentious. We could do a whole podcast. Exactly. And I'm not judging anyone else.

5:36But for me, my priorities were time and being present and giving unconditional love at all costs to my boy. So I made the decision early on. I didn't have didn't have a lot of money. I was parenting on my own from the age of Lucas being one. And so for me, I chose time over everything. There are no fancy cars. The boiler is, you know, on its last legs. The weeds everywhere in the garden didn't go on holiday for six or seven years. but the thing that I had and that my son had for better or worse for him but for better for me was my time relentlessly I worked part-time I went to everything literally everything poor boy every day drop off you know as often as possible every kind of like thing that happened at school I was always a parent crying taking all the photos when you're allowed to so that presence that I had had in my childhood was what I learned was the most important thing I'm jumping around now because were kind of chronologically going to move quite a few years in advance from your childhood to the movie of your book, Scoops, because actually that was depicted really well, wasn't it?

6:40Your single parent. Yes. I don't want to say struggles, but your single parent choices. Yes. Thank you. That's a much nicer way of putting it. And that was really important to you, I know, listening to you talk about it, that actually it represented everything in your life, not just the pursuit of this very famous interview. Yes. But hearing you say like time, I think, how does a woman in a very competitive and, you know, those newsrooms have not really changed that dramatically, have they? How do you carve the time out then? How did you create that world? Because it feels like dog eat dog. Yeah, it's really dog eat dog.

7:15I was really lucky because I was working at Newsnight where they had shifts. So someone who worked full time did three horrific shifts. I mean, it was an amazing job, but it's so stressful, as you know, better than anyone. but I could do two shifts and earn 66.6 of salary right so I was able to work two very long days I would feel like I'd kind of done a flight to LA and back in a day which I had not done at that stage because I didn't go anywhere but now I'm lucky enough to know what that feels like thanks to Netflix so it really you did just feel under the cosh in terms of your physical self and I was basically jet-lagged for about 15 years but what a joy I mean who gets to see their child five days a week so few people and so there was a real paucity of funds and i appreciate in this country right now there is so much paucity of funds so i'm not i'm not it's not a violin yeah but you know i had to make difficult financial choices as a single mother because obviously yes if you're co-parenting in the same house with somebody who is either your husband two incomes yeah yeah then you then those choices become i'm not saying they're easy but they become a little bit easier don't they to to kind of make they do but i think it really concentrates your mind like what are your priorities if is your priority going on holiday and working full-time and seeing less of your child or not because I didn't have both options is your priority holding his hand and taking him to school or getting a promotion you know and I had to make quite difficult choices things have panned out very well but do you've gone okay so far so good but but that was you know things have panned out because of this incredible moment really and I mean I'm not saying that you you wouldn't have had another incredible moment down the line because you're an incredible person and you're obviously fiercely intellectual you could have done a number of jobs and careers I'm sure when we'll go back to kind of how the sliding doors moment kind of got you or whether there was one that got you from being a potential barrister to being a journalist I mean yeah I always say producer because I feel journalists kind of like do you know newspaper scoops yeah absolutely journalist producer yes and and so uh going back on that you you've obviously decided this is what I'm going to do did you ever wrestle at all with feeling well I'm a feminist and I'm you know I'm somebody who should be out there kind of leading countries and I'm selling myself short in any way because I think that's the thing that a lot of women wrestle with yeah I sometimes describe it this way that I always felt that I was sitting in the plane at the back by the toilets but I was on the plane right and somewhere up the plane maybe my future would be and if I'd remained there I was just grateful for the experience Gab I've got to be honest I mean you know to have come where from where my parents had and they did very well for themselves financially but they never ended up having the educational opportunities I had to be in a newsroom at news night you know working with Jeremy Paxman and all of the amazing people that work there to have had the opportunities that I'd had educationally to be sort of in the game I never felt any regret about it because it was an active choice and I made good decisions with what options I had and I made stark decisions and I believe really firmly in personal responsibility so the decisions I made had consequences I take those consequences and the outcome is I spent a ton of time with my poor son who no doubt the second he went to university was like finally but so far so good he seems to have done well how old is he now he's 19 so he's still in his university years he just started yeah yeah and has that relationship because obviously that is a huge thing when our children fly the nest even though it's only for six months a year when they're at university and they're back a lot and depending on where he is in proximity to your home I mean my daughter was quite close to home so I saw way too much of her in her first year actually less than her second year not that I absolutely adore her company but I was going why are you not what's happening why are you not there all the time um but I think some kids just like being around their parents don't they and they want they want to come home is he a nice parent is good is he finding it weird to kind of have this world without you at the moment because you had such a close relationship or have such a close relationship.

11:15No, I think he's really flourishing because the time that all of this started happening, prior to Scoop and the Prince Andrew situation, I was like a very present mum at home every night. I didn't go out. You know, I had custody with my ex-husband and he would have him every Wednesday and every other weekend. And I would go out then. But Wednesdays, I was knackered. So I would go out maybe two or three times a month. I never had a babysitter, never had a nanny, couldn't afford it, but didn't want it anyway, to be honest. and so I've now had this absolute transformation to I mean I'm out every night I mean he's he's behaving much more adult you know I'm out you know I can't say that now and again I haven't been guilty of having maybe you know a martini too many or I'm rolling in at 3am you know I didn't go out for more than twice a month for basically 16 years and now if I'm in once a week it's a miracle so I'm going to be broke and possibly arrested as he becomes from absolutely fabulous to you is he is he judgmental about your social life he is not at all judge i was like that with my mum i was a total saffy because my mum was amazingly vibrant she still is she was london in the 60s you know she was the epitome of that time and i didn't drink i didn't smoke i was a little swat you know i was always home in bed i started going dancing when i was later lucas is a perfect between the two of us i think he's a hybrid of your personality he's a hybrid spent a lot of time with your mum as well so much time yeah really privileged to spend that much time with your mum so do you really kind of have moments of missing him and missing because i really i really miss my kids you know i'm so glad they've got wings and they're flying and they're doing the things they want to do but i love their company oh of course so i just i just miss that chitter chatter that you get around the house and sitting down and having dinner with them and the random things they say to you yeah absolutely just always finding a sock as well yeah absolutely well i now teach at lse at london school of economics so i have a lot of contact with the kids well i'm down I am down with the kids.

13:08I have a lot of contact with 18 and 19 year olds. And what's been so funny is because if I'm to be fair, some of them think I'm really cool. Right. So Lucas is confounded by the idea that kids of his age think I'm cool and I often have to justify myself. And sometimes I WhatsApp them and say, can you can you say why you think I'm cool? And then you'll be like, no, that's ridiculous. We just have a very healthy relationship. I knew he was going to leave. When you are solo parenting, you know, that's going to be a huge change. So psychologically, in a sense, I've spent, I would say, the last four years of him being at home, preparing myself, building a different lifestyle, building different relationships, getting back to my friendships, making sure that when, you know, the door closed.

13:49Future-proofing. Future-proofing. And I've been really active in that. And I think one of the reasons my mental health is so good, I'm very happy. I'm the happiest person I know most of the time. And if other things are in place, like there's enough money to eat, then I'm, you know, 10 out of there. So everything that happened to your life with the interview and surrounding all of that, I suppose, came at the most perfect time. The perfect time, the perfect age, the perfect time in my son's life. I would not have been able to write a book if my son hadn't been the age he was because I was with him every minute of every day.

14:20I was in the park. I would not have been able to go to a film premiere and left my child on his own if he hadn't been at that age. I wouldn't be able to fly to New York. I wouldn't be able to afford it for starters, but I wouldn't have been able to do any of those things. So there's almost this perfect gratitude that I have towards the symmetry of the things that I've done and the age that my son has been. But you couldn't have ever orchestrated that in your life. Like, you know, people have a career trajectory. And by this age, I'm going to be, you know, the CEO of this company. And then I'm going to have my share options.

14:49Your big moment, your kind of earn out, if you like, in terms of. Earn out, not burn out. Thank God. Yeah. Has come through something that could never have been orchestrated. And you'd never have been able to say, what's going to happen is this interview is going to blow up and become one of the biggest things and still is. Yes. Still the ramifications are ongoing. Yes. And so I guess it's all those kind of being in the right place at the right time is always one of those things that we all have to be fortunate. Of course. And go, right, we're very fortunate. But being ready for those moments as well and clearly having the tenacity and the drive to get that over the line was something that you had in spades, as we saw in the book and the film.

15:28Yeah, tenacity is not a problem. Not for me, maybe for people around me. I am extremely tenacious. It's just, I think that the interview came two years before I left the BBC. And that's the planning time, if you like, in the middle. You know, my kid is now an age where when 100 people have said to you, you should write a book. When you hit 101, you're like, well, maybe I could. That never occurred to me. You know, when people say maybe you should be doing something else now that, you know, you've done this and you're like, oh, maybe I should. if he was three categorically I would still be there but because he wasn't because he was 12 13 it changed my life to you didn't at that point think um at all I you know actually I could run the BBC or I could you know I could be a careerist here and go all the way to kind of editing this program and then becoming you know direct general one day so I think there's an interesting thing about um class when it comes to this I've got to be honest is that categorically I think I could absolutely do both of those things I don't mean to sound arrogant but I really think I'd be really good at both of them.

16:24I think you could. It just never appealed to me. I have this beautiful midpoint where I have all the benefits that the lifestyle that being a member of the BBC brings. I mix in circles beyond my wildest dreams and not just those circles but you know I never imagined I'd be at some garden party or chatting to someone that used to run the country and I really enjoy that but I also enjoy the fact that that doesn't matter to me. It's not meaningful to me. It's enjoyable but my path was never can I make the most money be the most powerful be famous and run things and show everyone how brilliant I am my path has always been can I do stuff to make myself happy be content with who I am respect who I am raise my son and if it all ended tomorrow am I happy with who I am today where did that sureness of that was what you wanted to be and do come from um I think from mum again I mean mum was just like you know there's always going to be someone prettier taller you know more clever richer facts so you really need to love who you are and to mix with princes and paupers and treat them both the same so along the period of this time class has weirdly reared its head in my life relentlessly because I'm posh now Lucas would say but coming from that background does give a kind of an invisible person in your life I suspect you've experienced this too that other people don't see um but the posh people see it and there's always is a little bit of a you're not one of us-ness and it rears its head in ways you don't know you don't know the joke about Sophocles you don't know who Josephus is I don't go to Wagner which is fantastic but you know I watch reality television my IQ is very high just because I don't like want to go to the British Museum every day no disrespect I've got a friend at the British Museum sorry Anne but I think it was learning that despite the fact that I was factually intellectually equal I'm very ideas driven I feel I could run the place I was never going to and I didn't find that difficult to reconcile to because those are not the values that I'm looking for so it was a lucky marrying of the two and one of the times in your life where that reared its head maybe it was the first time it became apparent to you seemed to be when you went to university you went to Edinburgh which is quite a posh university I didn't realize so now I know I was saying I went Durham I didn't realize until I got there um and and you um kind of walked in and thought who are these what these people they don't they don't want to do what I want to do here they're not interested really in learning no um so your social life became something outside of university that's right almost yeah that's right which I kind of recognized as well because I worked in local radio in Newcastle so I had this other world that I was doing at the weekends which was trying to start my career basically while I was doing my law degree in the week and meeting people from Eton and kind of not I remember once saying something that made me realize I was not and would never be posh this guy was he'd gone to Eton and he was from Wiltshire okay I had to check where that was and um Eton and Wiltshire no I was like Wiltshire that's somewhere so I'm from Yorkshire and I and so I said um he said but we of course have got a house in in Eton Square or somewhere in Chelsea or something something and I said oh that's cool so at the weekends you can go to London and go clubbing and then during the week you can live in the country he went no the other way around we were literally the same person and i was like ah and then i was thinking why would you do that the other way around that seems a bit weird they did not like dancing they like it was just really interesting and i don't want to sound like i'm disparaging this it's just a different way of doing things so my priorities were dancing going to the cinema lying in wearing like you know kind of like i'm not going to say inappropriate wearing appropriate outfits but very different from the cardigans and the dinner parties and going for the courts the chords and also I felt there was quite a lot of judgment about sort of being uh sort of intellectually liberal and sexually liberal and I it felt like I was always with sort of my auntie who was quite disapproving of me even though we were the same age so I quickly learned that that was not going to be my tribe and of course for them I was not their tribe this is goes two ways they did not want to hang with me either I completely understand and respect that so I'm very unsettling to that world and that now I'm older that world loves me they love me being unsettling but at 18 I was just a pain I was precocious do they all love you though because you hold people to account and there are there are a lot of people in that world I'm sure you've come across in your both your career at Newsnight and and obviously what you did at Newsnight was holding somebody to account you must have come across many characters that you would be interested in pinning to the wall.

20:55I cannot, not in a good way. Not in a good way. I love that. You see, that's the naughty banter. You can't resist a naughty bit of banter. I was called Babs in the office because of my Barbara Windsor type innuendos. It's amazing I didn't get sacked. And I think it's slightly different now because of the significance of what happened with, you know, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. I mean, I could be in the Garrick, which somewhere I never imagined I would be. And someone will come up to me, you know, very formally and congratulate me on my kind of contribution to the world. So I'm in the very unusual, fortunate position that most people think that what I did as part of the Newsnight team, obviously with Emily and Esme and Stuart and many others, the thing that I did and I'm known for largely is pretty much thought of to have been a good thing per se.

21:41And I don't have Emily's fame, for example, so I don't get all those horrible things that she has to endure, like comments on her physical self and that kind of thing. So I'm in that sweet spot where largely, I mean yesterday I was at King's Cross and a lovely person who was doing some work for the Samaritans came up and said you're Sam McAllister aren't you? I'm like yes I just want to thank you for what you've done for this country and you're like OMG. You know so I think that's a very rare sweet spot in the current climate. Have you come up kind of at any of these social occasions with any other members of the royal family?

22:11I don't think I'm going to be getting an OBE or TV or be invited to a garden party. Let's put it that way. I've only seen Beatrice from a distance since this happened I have I did not you won't be shocked to hear mixed with the royal family prior to this interview so your social life hasn't been affected my social life has not been affected but someone did once say you know if I got a plus one for the palace I'd take you but I'm horribly conspicuous you know so I'm not the kind of person that could just sneak in I am horribly pleather blonde you know kind of like lip gloss conspicuous so i don't think they would be displeased that i'm not going to be turning up soon in a way though and the way things have panned out now you've kind of done them a favor yes i think because you've got the ball rolling yes i see that and i think probably um there was a certain amount of energy that wouldn't have happened if they'd had to do this properly themselves because of the files being released yes which which they would have had to do something wouldn't they if you hadn't done that interview oh if he hadn't behaved as well how he did in that interview which was also the perfect storm wasn't it for you as a yes I mean I've heard you talk about the reaction and we've all been there when interviews have gone in a different direction you walk out and you speak to your producer as I wouldn't oh my gosh I can't believe they said that but that must have been a moment where did you know your life would change potentially from that moment because of how he behaved I knew his life would change I think because doing the negotiation for her content you basically you're a bit like a surrogate you give birth to the to the interviewee in a sense and then you hand it over to the brilliant presenter so in that room obviously the pressure on Emily is astonishing and the pressure on Stu who was the exec at the time Esme back in the office she didn't come because she's so solid in who she is that she didn't you know kind of impose herself other members of the team who've done some of the stuff at the beginning a guy called Jake Morris you know so his journalism kind of on the line there in terms of you know, everyone being exposed to risk.

24:10I had to just sit there still and purvey the view. Oh my gosh, the view and just take in the words because we'd heard them on the Monday at the negotiation in a private room and the interview was done on Thursday. And what was astonishing to me was not the content because I had heard it all before in that room. What was astonishing to me was that he was saying it on camera to the world. And so sitting there in a sense, I was the only person who could take it in there was no one else in the room who was not doing anything and the only people who weren't there was a wonderful makeup person for example but you know she wasn't from the world of news so I think I was uniquely privileged to be the only person in the room who realized the significance of what he was saying as profoundly as I did in the living moment that the interview happened and that was an astonishing experience and of course the the fallout from from that for him as we know as you know is what it is now that he has you know his his life has changed dramatically your life has changed dramatically as well when you've had that kind of I mean it's like scoring a hat trick in the world cup isn't it in terms of sporting sex I'll try that next what that buzz that you must have felt when you left the room that day because you had achieved what you wanted to achieve does that does that you know kind of that not draw you back in to do some more of what you did to get that interview because your life now is great and you're doing a lot of speaking and you're lecturing and I'm sure you've got all kinds of work offers do you miss that feeling of landing the big fish and kind of do you know I really don't because I gave it another two years and I landed a couple of other things that you know no one would remember now but were significant and important to me but after that I mean that that's just world changing yeah where'd you go what do you do next so it was really good for me because I don't I think I would still be there if it hadn't happened and I loved the job and it was a privilege to work at the BBC and I'm so grateful for the opportunities that I had there and I did things beyond my wildest dreams in terms of mixing in circles I didn't even know existed I mean when I was growing up I didn't know what Chancellor of the Exchequer was you know and then I'm there with a Chancellor of the Exchequer quick google um you know I remember getting mixed up between Stephanie Powers and Sam Power and apparently they're different people one's an actress and one was like an important American diplomat so there were all these kinds of like moments where I was just like incredulous at having the experiences but for many of my colleagues they weren't incredulous because that was their day-to-day life so I do not miss it for one second and I'm grateful for every second I had.

26:40And in terms of your relationship with the BBC now yes so much has changed actually especially in journalism at the BBC since then do you have great fondness still do you love it do you feel it's as important a part of our as an institution this country but also globally I mean I feel that when I travel around the world, how revered. It feels it's only in this country. Business is booming. But you know what really helped? Zero, the accounting platform for small businesses. I used to think spreadsheets were just part of it. Ugh. But real-time cash flow? Wow. Invoices that chase themselves? Even better.

27:18Books that automate? That's a big one. And I can keep track from my phone while I get the job done. No spreadsheet in sight. What a life. Do right by yourself and your business and search Xero for your free trial. Conditions apply. That's quite as much. I mean, President Trump's joined in, but the rest of the world is in love with the BBC. Totally. It's really interesting. It's when you're abroad, if you mention that you used to work at the BBC, you get so much love. And if you mention here, one of the things I've enjoyed actually about leaving is I'm no longer personally responsible for everything the BBC's done.

27:54so you know it's a tumultuous time and it's a hard organization to run at its core what it does is so profoundly special and important and I silently weep every time there's some new scandal thinking oh my gosh was this not foreseeable or how the reactions pan out but I'm really conscious that I don't want to be a bitter ex-girlfriend I think it's a mistake I try really hard not to kind of criticise and say bad things. But as I say, an incredible institution that at its best is one of the most profoundly brilliant institutions in the world. And at its worst is sobbing to your tea, depressing when it gets things wrong.

28:32So I'm grateful, but robust. And some of the things that have gone wrong in the last few years, do you understand how that can happen? They can happen? Those moments can happen? Yeah, I think when you've worked there, you really see it. I think one of the problems is because there's a lot of kind of like upper echelons and those upper echelons don't really mix with anyone beyond the upper echelons. So it's very easy if you mix in a very small, limited part of society to have very monolithic views on things that the rest of the country doesn't share. And that comes across, I think, accidentally in failing to predict things that are blindingly obvious if you live in the real world.

29:07So whether it's Brexit or whether it's Trump or whether it's how President Trump will react towards the BBC when it behaves in certain ways. And then more profoundly, I think it is that kind of being too close to power in the BBC so that when there is a challenging moment where a presenter or someone with power and fame inside the institution behaves inappropriately, that the institution is very slow to act and then is on its own petard. So it's a double whammy of having often, not always, but often quite a limited view, not really understanding how outsiders will perceive that and then failing to act quickly enough.

29:49And then it's too late. The damage is done. What kind of barrister do you think you'd have been? And where would you have specialised? Because I'm sure, you know, you might have had moments thinking I could have had a completely different life here. Well, I practiced for two years. Yeah, but you could have, you know. Yeah, well, I did criminal defence and that was perfect for me. I loved being in a cell and I often thought that that preparation of having 90 seconds to basically live or die with a client accused of terrible things was the most perfect preparation for the job I ended up doing. To persuade a powerful person that he or she should do something contrary to their interests, you have to have a profound understanding of human beings.

30:26And being in those cells gave me that. It was a privilege to hold someone's life in your hands, which you literally did as a baby barrister. they could go to prison for a long time and I was a nincompoop you know I just got out of law school what were they thinking um so the responsibility bore so heavy on me that it made me unwell and I had to leave I was just not doing well and I'm so grateful I had that opportunity because it would have been deathbed scenario I always wanted to be a barrister once I knew what it was which I didn't till I was quite old and I always wanted to be a lawyer and I had a strong sense of right and wrong and this felt like a perfect fit because I love to argue and holy hell they pay you to argue perfect but it wasn't the right fit but if I hadn't done it I would have always regretted it so when it came to an end you decided that your well-being was more important how did how did that play out for you well I was self-employed as a barrister so I literally sort of just told them I wasn't coming back I was sitting in a service station having I think it was a crumpet I remember all the food and with tears pouring down my face after a particularly arduous case where a client had been given incorrect information by someone else in chambers or misleading information and had now been dragged away to prison as understandably he was always going to be because he'd bitten a police officer or something and the family had gone mad lost their mind and I just thought like is this the life I want I'm like 25 I'm in a service station I've been up since 3am I'm crying into a crumpet crying into a crumpet was not what I was looking for could have been the title of your biography I should think maybe the second biography crying into a crumpet But I just went back and I was at my wits end and I said to the person supervising me, this is it, I'm leaving.

32:10And he obviously thought I was joking. And I remember he said to me, and when people say negative things to me, I always turn them into positives. Another great thing about my robust mental health. But I said, you know, rather kind of glibly and just sort of, obviously you're terrified. What am I going to do? I said, oh, well, you know, the world is my lobster. And I said that because my Auntie Rita used to always say things slightly off. So the world is my lobster. And he went in a very sort of sneering tone. do you really think so and I just thought in that moment let me never be the person that doesn't show someone grace you know what should have been said was of course you will good luck you're amazing and his lack of grace really kind of like propelled me to behave well when dealing with people in difficult situations and not to prove him wrong just to prove myself right that I knew I could do cool stuff but this was not the thing for me at the age of 25 to go through an experience like that and turn it around and find something that eventually yeah but you found another area that you could exude and display your passion and get things done and you know be tenacious as we as we've discovered before that you know is something you have in space so that is that's a joy to have those that you know that but also that sets you up for change and potential disappointment down the track doesn't it because you know you can come back from something which at the time so seismic 100 and because of the way my parents reacted they were so supportive because they knew I was getting sick you know that we didn't really articulate it so they were just like whatever makes you happy darling whatever makes you happy darling that maybe that could be the title of the next book that's always the message I've had whatever makes you happy darling so there was no disappointment I mean society was different society's like how could you give up a job like that I'm like what am I gonna do it for another 40 years being miserable as sin and I saw around me the effect it was having on people physically you know their mental health alcohol consumption I didn't drink you know kind of personal behavior I did not want to be someone that didn't have a relationship didn't have a child had an alcohol problem and was angry all the time that hasn't come for me yet there's still time uh some too many martinis now and again but that was not the future I was looking for as a human and so I was very grateful to be able to walk away from it and find a different future for myself so the change that comes to us as women in the middle of our lives um i think your experience of it can often be more positive if you've had change quite a bit through your life i'm not talking about the physical change the emotional change have you have you felt perimenopausal kind of symptoms rising so you know we're gonna we're gonna fall out now and i hope you'll forgive me i don't talk about this because i that's okay yeah because i feel it's doing us a disservice because my concern about it is um that once we start talking about these things.

34:51And it's wonderful that people are so sort of, you know, jubilant in talking about it, but it's not for everyone. And I feel that we've spent so much time fighting for young women not to be asked the question, when are you having a child? And then when they've had a child, not to be asked the question, when are you having your second child? Because we understand the complexities of fertility and respect for privacy. And my grave concern about this conversation, to be frank, is the effect it's having on the way that women are perceived in the workplace. and wonderfully that they're supported when they need support.

35:21But we've just kind of convinced the patriarchal workplace that after we've had a kid and we come back, we're probably going to be OK until the end of time. And now we're giving the messages that sometimes, you know, we're going to need time off and possibly be sort of violently difficult to deal with and to be tricky and to be sweating all over the place and to be irrational and to be kind of, you know, a bit of a nightmare. Isn't it positive for women to understand and for men to understand that women are, you know, having huge drop-offs in their hormones, though, compared to some women. 100%.

35:54Some women. 100%. And it feels, I mean, the fact that 60 % of medical schools didn't teach menopause at all to their doctors also feels, because you can miss very important health things. Oh, totally. It's hugely important to discuss. That conversation, I think, is hugely important. And I don't know if it, I mean, I don't think middle-aged women have been massively well represented in the media generally anyway. it's kind of it's only the last 10 years you start I mean I used to say Kirsty Wark was my kind of hero because Kirsty started talking about but not just not that but in fact she was there as a woman over the age of 50 and carried on there was a very um you know there was a obviously a very famous case wasn't there in the BBC um where you know um a head of BBC One was was accused of ageism and yes and that led to um a situation that I think probably made people realize that actually look around there aren't that many women of over a certain age represented and totally a friend of mine who runs she runs one of the biggest hedge funds in the world based in new york and she said you know she doesn't kind of go around talking about menopause but she said if i want to take testosterone when i'm 42 i will do because i'm not standing in front of a you know group of men trying to convince them to spend half a billion pounds on something and then you know pouring the sweat i'm not i'm not going to have that but i think having a conversation just about awareness Yes.

37:08And totally. But I don't think we're disagreeing. So I think they're two separate things. I think the conversation about awareness is profoundly important and huge respect to the women who've been at the vanguard of this. You know, like obviously Davina and, you know, I think it was Mariella. Yeah, Mariella, who I know, and Meg Matthews and Kirstie and loads of people who've spoken about it. I think that's hugely important. And putting in structures in place to make sure that women who need support are supported is hugely, hugely important. and I have so much respect for that and so much time for that and I think that's fantastic it's a really hugely important conversation but I think that is distinct from a personal a personal decision about whether or not you personally want to discuss those things either in private or in public and you know those are two separate things so in the same way that we would both celebrate that there are you know guards in place for women who've lost children for example hugely important conversation but if you had a colleague who'd lost a child you would understand and respect that you know he or she was maybe wanting to talk about it or maybe not I hope the next stage in a sense will be that we agree that it's really important to have those structures it's fantastically important that organizations don't discriminate against women or individuals who are facing challenges after kind of like a certain age but that equally people are entitled to kind of be private about what their situations are and that's my only concern is that there's an emboldenment in a sense sometimes um to people having conversations that some people are going to be but you talked about also quite clearly you have as you said personal responsibility for sure yeah and that is i think what hopefully you empower people to realize that for example you can now get your hrt on the nhs you know which which was a really important moment as well women thought they were going mad right yeah you know and it turns out they weren't going mad they needed some help and also where to get those resources and not every then this is a thing as well you know it's completely obvious but not everybody experiences anything like the same kinds of you know of course and so a full range of symptoms yeah um and you know my mum at 75 is very much of you know your kind of school of thought and she went around my 50th birthday party saying to various friends of mine that related back to me i mean i just had a bacardi and some dark chocolate and sailed through it.

39:18I literally love your mum already. She's like, Bacardi and Coop with some dark chocolate. I've quoted her in public saying that before, so she won't be disappointed because her friends always quote it back at her. And I think because her generation definitely didn't talk about it. Sure, for better or worse. For better or worse. I think we're in a perfect spot at the moment where we get the betterness that we can talk about it if we want to. But we don't have to. But we don't have to. And I think that's the only thing I'm saying is that I think it's, I wouldn't talk about sort of, you know my fertility or kind of like my intimate life oh no i don't want to talk about your symptoms i think it's more about kind of i started this podcast because i wanted it was not going to be at all to talk about menopause it was to talk about how we are capable of changing and achieving in midlife for sure and that i at 46 when i kind of first had this eureka moment thinking i'm classed as middle age that's ridiculous i'm still 25 like what's going on how is that And I've got all these things I still want to do.

40:15What does it mean to be in this stage of life? And why have people kind of coined this phrase midlife crisis? And, you know, and so my first tranche of guests were all people who'd done great kind of pivots in midlife. So John Bishop was selling pharmaceutical drugs until he was 40 and did his first proper gig for money. So those kinds of guests came on. So it's only actually when people started, women started offering the conversation about to me about menopause, you know, they start that I kind of felt a duty almost just to say, is everything all right? I think that's a wonderful thing to do.

40:49And it hasn't been on the table. It was completely taboo. It was completely taboo. And I can see that over the period that, you know, the past 10 years, even that it's fundamentally changed. And that's incredibly empowering and incredibly brilliant. but it comes with complicated side effects potentially just like um so i gather menopause does so it's just i just hope we're gonna see uh women you know i i kind of have taken over a certain tv show off uh on the bbc with a couple of other presenters and the previous presenter was in his early 60s right so um i think well okay so i was told by my first boss at sky i'd be off his screen by the age of 28 right so i spent four years running around like a lunatic thinking I was going to somehow literally fall off yeah literally going to into dust in the air and so I've always been a little bit and it's not about the symptoms of menopause but a little bit obsessed with that feeling I get that but they're gonna they're gonna coming for you yeah they're gonna hook me off so people like Kirsty were being there still being there in her late 50s and early 60s on news night for me was so positive completely agree with you to see her and hold not just there as some kind of, you know, oh, we better have somebody a bit older.

41:59Just nailing people. Oh, completely greedy. And that's a separate point as well, isn't it, in a sense, is that the representation of women through the ages, whatever those ages are, and Kirsty's obviously a profoundly brilliant individual who's now, I think, she may even be in her 70s now. I mean, she's amazing, a pleasure to work with. I think the representation visually is so, so important. But you and I have had very different experiences, right? And the privilege, in a sense, of being a nobody, which I have been most of my life, is that no one's talking about the way you look. And I'm sure for you that's been the opposite.

42:26And that bears a burden. And I've certainly noticed the burden on my friends who've had very public lives, like you've been blessed and cursed to have about comments about your physicality. I've never experienced that. So I think it does give you a different perspective on what you consider is kind of like what's going to happen to you. I never it never occurred to me that I was going to have something happen to me that would change other than I retire. and along this way I found that really interesting because the first time I was asked my age I was doing an article for the Times a few years ago I couldn't even remember my age because no one asked your age and very lovely journalist and I said well why is that relevant he said well we always ask I said okay but why is that relevant why is my age relevant to this conversation he said I'm afraid you have to editorially so prior to that article no one would have known my age and what a beautiful privilege I'm just minding my own business doing my thing you know achieving So you don't think about age and barriers at all?

43:22Never. Never even occurred to me. Yeah. That is a freedom. Yeah. And I mean, it could have gone the other way. I just think I've seen people around me who've done amazing things. Like E.L. James is the one I always think of, you know, who wrote Fifty Shades. In her early 40s? She was 47 when she wrote it. And I remember because I prepared the brief when she came on Newsnight and did one of her first interviews. Lovely woman. She'd raised a couple of kids. You know, she lived quite close to me, actually. She's a Chiswick woman, isn't she? Exactly. Slightly nicer house. and writes a bit more spicy than I do if anyone's reading my book it's not like that at all um but you know she was 47 when it happened and I've got a mum who's you know I won't say my mum's age because she'll come for me uh but you know who's so vital and so energetic and all around me I've seen women relentlessly achieving and so I remember when I met E.L.

44:11James I was oh you wrote a book 47 turns out so did I but I didn't know that was going to be what I did but I sent her a message when I wrote my book and she very graciously replied saying good on you or something like that. I think I love, I mean, we have a lot of people who come and sit and chat here who have done amazing things a bit later and especially writers, actually, especially female writers. When you've got time because your kids are not. Exactly. And I think that's really, and they've had other careers and then can really appreciate their writing career even more because they've slogged away while bringing up a family and doing a job they weren't particularly stimulated by maybe.

44:43and then get this book that, you know, kind of propels them somewhere else. I love those stories because, you know, they are those midpoint kind of, you know, gear changes. I literally epitomise that. I mean, I hope that there are some people who kind of think, holy hell, you know, this woman was a single mum raising a kid on her own on not a ton of money comparatively to the people around me. And who then, you know, thought, well, OK, I'll write a book. Never written a book. I'd only written a legal opinion. 80 ,000 words in three months. You know, I'd never made a documentary and I was doing a Channel 4 documentary.

45:16I'd certainly never been to the Emmys or been an executive producer on a movie. And all of this happened from the age of 47 onwards. So I'm profoundly proud that, you know, somewhere perhaps someone is thinking, oh, well, if Sam can do it, I can do it. And that's fantastic. and I stand on the shoulders of many other women like Kirsty and for me, most importantly, my mum, who just kind of told me, you know, if you're alive, there's still hope. When there's life, there's hope. So I don't know when I will sort of drop from three martinis and accidentally sort of teeter into my mortal coil. But I don't really think of anything stopping because now I'm on an untraditional path and I'm just kind of running at it and let's see what happens.

46:00Could that be the clip, Rob? that feels like this this podcast in this episode in a nutshell actually which which is where I wanted it to go and be because of because of that slightly I mean you've always been off the beaten path I think in always things that you've done but in terms of that career trajectory that moment that can I think a lot of people they get a moment but they don't recognize it maybe as the moment and they don't they don't harness it they don't kind of caress it and give it a little bit of attention and you just went for it which which is so powerful for other women to see well yeah and not without a plan I just want to be really responsible with the message this doesn't hope you know people will send me a message going how can I get a Netflix still this doesn't that's not how it works you know I meticulously planned because I had to be able to feed my child but I took rational risks based upon being able to feed my child and doing things that were beyond my wildest dreams but it wasn't I wasn't scared I felt I had no choice because life is short you You know, all the other cliches.

47:00I love them. You know, no pockets in a shroud. Life is sure. I'll give you all the cliches right now. But if I didn't, how I would have suffered, always wondering. And I would rather take the risk and fail every time. And I failed many, many times. But I take joy in taking the risk because I feel proud that I was brave enough to do it. When you have had a film made of a period of your life, if not all your life, you know, a period of your life. And you've had Billy Piper playing you. That's so wacky, isn't it? Yeah, it's amazing. and I love the photos of you two together in your very distinctive look and her in your clothes almost, which is great.

47:35And you seem to have had an affinity actually. Sure. A relationship that probably surprised you maybe even that you became close to her. But when I see all that, I think, do you not crave more of that? Do you want to go back to kind of la-la land and be a part of that industry? No, not at all. I had the most, yeah, no, it was just the most profoundly incredible experience. It's a bit like the Andrew interview. it was the the most profoundly incredible scoop that you could ever have worked on like the biggest thing ever in journalism for the past 30 years in my view humble view not so humble clearly but the same with the movie to work on a movie about your own life where they structure billy piper this you know a-lister into you physically and you watch your own life unfold on a movie That's it.

48:20I'm like a one trick kind of pony lover of these kinds of things. To do the book, to do the career, to do the documentary, to do this movie about me. Like I won the lottery. You know, every minute was magical and crazy and surreal and dementor. I was crying all over the place. Not because of symptoms, to be clear. Just with joy and gratitude. and so I've had really the zenith of all of these experiences and I don't want to dilute them by doing it again I want to keep reinventing Reinvention Until Death maybe that's the next book So what's the next chapter then? What's the next reinvention? Well I do the speaking all around the world and I do a lot of stuff in academia and I was in the running last year very amazingly to be the president of the Cambridge University College Lucy Cavendish and someone else is a wonderful president there right now and I was there last night with them But the academic stuff, LSE, the social mobility stuff, that is what gives me fire.

49:19And I feel more fire about virtually anything about education and social mobility and giving kids like us, in a sense, who don't have the poshest backgrounds and other kids who don't have the silver spoon. There's nothing against those kids. Good for them that they were born that way. It's just where you're born. It's not your responsibility. but to work more towards meritocratic society to give more equal opportunities that's what gets me fired up so that's what I want to do and doing it outside the system correct way you don't want to be inside trying to make the change oh I'm never inside the system Gary you don't have to worry about that I'm a beautiful maverick for better or worse I mean you know one person's maverick is another person's pain in the butt and I'm conscious that you know along the way I must have been a right royal pain in the butt to lots of people accidentally but never with malice but being a maverick really does change your lives most definitely pain in the robot sam it has been an absolute joy to chat and uh i feel like your energy enthusiasm and passion are going to drive you on to doing a load more amazing things so it's not the last we've we've heard of you um on the silver screen maybe even there'll be another movie i'm sure down the track but thank you so much thank you kevin

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