Hello and welcome back to The Shift. Somehow we're onto our 11th season and I'm thrilled to start 2023 with podcasting legend, the creator of Griefcast herself, Cariad Lloyd.

If you’ve been unfortunate enough to join what she calls The Grief Club, chances are you’ve already encountered Cariad, through her conversation-changing, taboo-busting, award-winning podcast Griefcast. A much-needed place to talk about the many messy faces of grief.

Now in her 40s, Cariad lost her dad, Peter, to pancreatic cancer when she was just 15. In the late 90s, nobody talked about death, let alone what it was like to join "the dead dad club" in your mid-teens. Now she’s written a funny, frank book about her experience, You Are Not Alone: a new way to grieve. 

Cariad is also a comedian, actor, improviser and writer who has appeared on Peep Show, Have I got News For You and QI amongst others. So whilst this episode is moving, illuminating and thought-provoking, it is far from sad. I promise.

Cariad joined me to talk grief (of course), how pregnancy, therapy and approaching 40 collided, doing "grief maths", why thinking about the future makes her twitchy and how she feels about approaching the age her dad died. We also compared our inner goths and she advised me on how to ask your partner if they want to be buried or scattered!

You can listen to Griefcast wherever you get your podcasts.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. The Death Book is available from Victoria Health.

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• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

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