Anne Twist is a first time writer and a long-term philanthropist who has two very succesful grown up children. Her eldest is podcaster and writer Gemma Styles, and her youngest is the singer, Harry Styles.

I spoke to Anne, not long after she’d become a grandmother for the first time, which sounds like a very special feeling indeed. She’d also just published her first children’s book ‘Betty and the Mysterious Visitor’.

We talked about Anne’s lifelong battle with shyness, the pride that she feels about the adults that both her children have become, and how she gets so much pleasure from looking around at people while they are watching Harry perform on stage.

We also talked about how Anne has wing-walked to raise money and awareness for Parkinson’s. And I tried to persuade her to do a double wing walk and a loop the loop with me in the future! I’m genuinely up for it.

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.

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.