Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Lara Maiklem is an author and a mudlark. She told me there’s nothing she likes more than kneeling on the banks of the River Thames for 5-6 hours at a time, scanning the mud for tiny treasures which are twice daily being given up by the tide! 

Lara shares her fascinating finds on Instagram, where I've been following her for a while. Her favourite finds include a Tudor shoe, part of a Roman sword and some tiny gold beads from...

Julia Samuel is a psychotherapist and an author, who is best known as a grief counsellor. She was one of the founders of Child Bereavement UK which has just had its 30th anniversary. She has an agony aunt column for Times Luxury, she has a podcast, and she sees about 15 clients a week, describing that as ‘the heart of me’. 

She has 4 grown up children and 10 grandchildren aged 18 months to 18 years. 

When I met...

Janette Manrara is a dancer and choreographer who we first got to know as one of the professional dancers in the UK on Strictly Come Dancing, and who now presents its sister show ‘It Takes Two’. 

Janette is married to fellow dancer Aljaz Skorjanec and together they have a 2 year old Lyra.

Janette and I talked about her start in life as daughter of a young Cuban immigrant couple in Miami, and about her first job in a bank bef...

Anya Lautenbach is a gardener who I discovered on Instagram as anya_thegarden_fairy. From Poland originally, Anya moved to to the UK 17 years ago and has two boys aged 12 and 14. 

We talked about the grief which Anya has experienced because of her sister having two sons with a rare genetic condition which turned out to be terminal. 

Anya explained how every time she had bad news from home, she turned that into anoth...

Jo-Ann D’Costa-Manuel is a charity pioneer. She received an OBE for her years of voluntary work raising the profile of hidden disabilities. She persuaded airlines to recognise green lanyards with sunflowers, as a symbol of a family member flying with a hidden disability. She was also behind the ‘quiet hour’ in supermarkets to help children like her own son, who is autistic, and needs a quiet environment to be able to do a food...

Francesca Amber is a successful entrepreneur, podcaster and author who turned her life around using manifesting after everything went wrong for her in 2020.

She has 3 daughters. Her eldest is 8 years old, and she has 4 year old twins who are starting school this September. 

In lockdown she lost her beauty business and her income and then had her twins as a single mother. She says she had a savage 5 years. But now her n...

Genevieve Turley is a make up artist who posts funny content online, making light of makeup tutorials and not taking her self seriously at all.

We talked about how wearing makeup makes us both happy. She told me about her career in the RAF, her IVF journey and her life now, doing bridal makeup and creating comedy content online.

Genevieve has two children aged 6 and 7, and after a 3 year renovation project with her husband Ri...

Ro Fielden-Cook is a woman with a heck of a life story. 

She has 3 sons: twins Alfie and Charlie (aged 15) and Freddie (aged 7).

She is the founder of a wellbeing and fitness community ‘The SHE Collective’ which has a holistic approach to giving busy women more life, more confidence and more energy. 

She had her twins as a single mother as she left University. One of the twins, Alfie, was diagnosed with a life-li...

Ranvir Singh is a TV news presenter on Good Morning Britain, who I met on the set of ‘Lorraine’ about a year ago - and I’ve been wanting to talk to her in more depth ever since.

Ranvir is a single parent to her 13 year old son Tushaan.

She grew up in a very religious Sikh household, having lost her Dad when she was only 9. 

She was the first girl in her family to go to University, and despite pressure to get married a...

Laura Hamilton is a TV presenter best known for presenting A Place in the Sun. 

She’s been renovating properties since the age of 19 and has just taken on her first overseas project in Majorca, which she’s filming, to create a guide to buying and renovating abroad.

Laura has two children, 11 year old Rocco and 10 year old Tahlia, who she co parents 50/50 with her ex.

Laura went back to work 3 weeks after having each o...

Cathy Dennis is a singer and a songwriter. I have been a huge fan of hers for years both through her solo music career and I’ve been lucky enough to write with her and get to know over the years. She is a true talent and a champion for music and creativity. 

She had a successful solo career in the early 90s, and then changed to songwriting in the 2000s, including writing Kylie’s ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’, Britney’s ‘To...

Jill Halfpenny has been an actor since the age of 10, first coming to our screens in Byker Grove in 1989, and most recently appearing in the Channel 5 drama The Feud. She has also appeared in Coronation Street, Eastenders, numerous TV dramas, on the West End stage and in Strictly Come Dancing.

We shared our thoughts on dealing with downtime as performers, which has its challenges even in a busy career.

Jill has a son Har...

Rachel Kelly is a writer of many books about mental health and wellbeing and has recently published ‘The Gift of Teenagers: Connect More, Worry Less’. She is a mum of five grown up children.

Rachel and I talked about the teenage brain and how it’s wired for novelty, connection with peers, and altruism. We discussed how we could be more sympathetic to what teenagers ar...

Salima Saxton is a writer, an actor and a coach, and she co-presents the podcast ‘Women are Mad’.

She has 3 children aged 9, 12 and 15 and she recently caught my attention with her amazing Moth story about a Valentine’s Day announcement by her husband which changed her life. It’s 5 minutes of supreme story telling; you must listen! 

Salima and I talked about how she grew up with an alcoholic Dad and was always trying to...

Karni Arieli is a photographer. Her lockdown project Eye Mama @eyemamaproject asked photographer mums all over the world to share honest pictures of their own experiences of motherhood. She has just had it published as a book. She also makes short films, commercials and music videos and has recently had a BAFTA nomination for a film about the life of a salmon, played by a woman and narrated by Marianne Faithfull.

Karni...

Olympic athlete and TV commentator Paula Radcliffe lives in Monaco with her husband Gary, and her two children Isla and Raphael.

Paula is a 3 time winner of the London Marathon and held the Women's World Marathon Record for 16 years (2003-2019). I spoke to her just after she competed in the Tokyo Marathon aged 51, her first marathon since retiring aged 40.

Paula recently co-hosted a lighthearted training podcast Pau...

Daria Khrystenko fled her home in Kyiv on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine 3 years ago. 

She, her then 10 year old son, her mum and her 3 cats travelled to Poland where Daria now works with CARE Poland, as a translator and advocate, helping other refugee women rebuild their lives.

Daria told me about the day the war broke out, and how she packed and left home in 20 minutes. She explained how she tries to create a new ...

Susie Crow runs a small business called Let Us Pretend, in which she ‘makes sparkly things’. I have bought wonderful brightly coloured, fringed capes from her which say ‘Happy New Year!’ and ‘Happy Christmas!’ She also makes personalised banners. 

Originally from Newcastle, Susie now lives in Sussex and has three children and a creative job that she loves. And she is the only person I can think of who has more sequins in he...

Actress Tuppence Middleton is perhaps best known for playing Lucy Branson in Downton Abbey.

She has a little girl with her Swedish husband and divides her time between England and Sweden.

I spoke to Tuppence the week before her memoir Scorpions was published. It’s a highly personal book about living with OCD and it really helped me understand the day to day complexities of dealing with OCD and with emetophobia - the fear of b...