Show Notes
The editor of Men's Health, the UK's best selling men's magazine, chats to Mary Portas and her culture director Emily Bryce-Perkins about the challenges men face in an equal society. Plus, there's talk on Christmas windows, the new Harvey Nichols documentary and why Anita Roddick should have been a Dame.
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We all need to do our bit to create a better future than the **** show we’ve got right now. Let’s make a commitment to be that bit more conscious, think about how we live, buy, who we bank with, work and vote for. Even the smallest changes knit together to create a greater whole.
As a fifth-generation baker from the esteemed Hobbs House Bakery family, Tom Herbert grew up with yeast in his in his genes and a ready-made career to fall into. But after a series of events including a visit to refugee camps in Calais, Tom realised he couldn't just take the easy path, and felt an urgent need to contribute to something more purposeful. He founded The Long Table in Stroud – a project which I love and have eaten at many times myself – that looks at tackling all aspects of food inequality, starting with community dining. Tom is a believer that simple solutions, community spirit, and kindness can change the world. I'll raise my baguette to that!
Success isn’t always a straight line. Trinny Woodall burst onto our TV screens on What Not To Wear alongside Susannah Constantine in the noughties. Twenty years on she’s got a million Instagram followers and a beauty business – Trinny London – that turns over something like £50 million a year. Those are the headlines. But there is so much more than that. Because while Trinny has gone through the highs of public success, she’s also experienced the lows of addiction in her twenties, complex bereavement, and a failed dotcom business – with everything in between. And after all of that, she took the leap into the beauty business after decades in fashion aged 53.
Imagine your daughter being so scared for your safety that she fainted when you took too long popping out for a pint of milk? This is what happened to Gina Miller, the woman who took the government to court in the midst of the Brexit furore. She wasn’t trying to stop Brexit. She was fighting for our democracy. But she was so abused and threatened for standing up to the system that she feared for her – and her children’s – safety.
I’m in my 60s. Florence Given is in her 20s. But we came together to chat everything from body image to the new kind of protest movements unfolding on social media. And what I realised is that so many of the issues that older women have faced are still being negotiated by younger women today. The good news though is that they’re getting vocal about them. Florence is an illustrator, artist and author, who’s also got a huge following on social media. And she’s loved by Gen Z women - and older ones too - for her willingness to talk about everything from feminism and sex to her own sexuality and how young women – and men – navigate relationships today.