How To Be 60 with Kaye Adams

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  Milly Johnson: The Arthritic Knee That Saved Her Life 20.08.2026 50хв

  On this week's episode, we're joined by bestselling author Milly Johnson, who planned a year-long celebration of turning 60 and credits an arthritic knee with saving her life. Before the Yorkshire Pudding Club and three million book sales, there were decades of proper jobs, years of rejection, and a marriage so bad she filed for divorce while five months pregnant. Milly spent thirty years looking after everyone else — first her boys, then her parents — and decided this decade would be hers. Venice by train, northern soul dancing, and a diamond ring her partner didn't know he was buying yet.Karen's off poorly this week, so Kaye goes solo and gets the lot: the millennium fireworks that marked the start of Milly's freedom, the agent who said yes when she'd written five words, and the line from her dad's love letter now tattooed on her arm — I don't feel like being sensible anymore. Milly's 23rd novel, Let the Bells Ring Out, is out in October.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Midweek Catchup: Back to Earth with a Bump 18.08.2026 22хв

  On this week's Midweek Catchup, we come back down to earth after the Fringe — to a filthy house, a poorly husband and the guilty remains of a packet of chocolate-covered pecans. Kaye's been in London doing ITV, where she talked a very nice photographer into taking her passport photo while she still had her telly makeup on. That's her sorted until she's 72. Karen, meanwhile, has been collecting firewood. In August.Mostly though, this one belongs to the emails from people who came to the Edinburgh shows. There's one that nearly finishes Karen off, and a sorry tale from Katie, whose train from Aberdeen stopped after ten minutes and sat there for four and a half hours — she never made it to the show at all. If we ever do a tour, Aberdeen, we're coming to you. And there is talk of a tour. We're saying nothing else for now.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Jan Birley: From IT Project Manager to Producing Her Own Feature Film 13.08.2026 42хв

  On this week's episode, we're joined by Jan Birley, who decided at 58 that she was going to produce a feature film, and had one finished by 60.She'd spent thirty years as an IT project manager, and by her own count she has been in the film industry for two. She raised a budget of around £800,000, put her own money in, and when an experienced line producer told her she wasn't ready, she told him she'd crew it up herself and do it. He came back a couple of days later and said he was in. The film is Hot Flash, shot in Yorkshire, with Gaynor Faye as a woman starting again in her forties with no money and a business idea nobody has asked for. Jan also tells us about the fear of heights that turned into a climbing habit, the triathlons she signed up for before she could swim, and the mentor who told her years ago to put "writer" in her email signature. She never did. She does now.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Midweek Catchup: Everybody Bloody Loves Karen 11.08.2026 13хв

  On this week's Midweek Catchup, we're coming to you from the dungeon of Teviot House, an hour before our final Fringe show, because Karen wants to catch the free bus home. Three sell-out shows, nerves that leave the coffee sitting somewhere between chest and throat, and a suspiciously big round of applause for Karen that Kaye is trying not to take personally. Plus a dash to the laundrette with the sheets from Bonnie's student flat, a surprise family delegation in the audience, and a boiler that gave up the moment Karen left the house.A huge thank you to everyone who came along to the shows, and to all of you who listen every week. It means more than you know. On Friday we're joined by Jan Birley, who wrote and produced her first ever feature film at 60 — Hot Flash, starring Gaynor Faye, in cinemas this autumn.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Barbara Scully: Stand-Up at 60 and the Superpower of Being Underestimated 06.08.2026 46хв

  On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Barbara Scully, who did her first stand-up gig at 60, mostly because two women wouldn’t let her out of their flat until she agreed. Now she’s about to tour her second one-woman show. She tells us about hitting rock bottom at 50 in the dole office car park, being mistaken for the children’s chaperone minutes before her own show, and why she has no interest in getting her oestrogen back. As for menopausal brain fog, she’s renamed it an information retrieval slowdown, and her husband has it just as badly. Because no one tells you that being underestimated might be the best thing you’ve got going for you.Barbara’s new show, Because I’m Worth It, tours Ireland from 27 August, with all dates and tickets at barbarascully.com. Her book, Wise Up, is out now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Midweek Catchup: Big News and a Passport Computer That Says No 04.08.2026 23хв

  On this week's Midweek Catchup, one of us has news. Proper news. You'll have to listen. What we can say: Kaye's been to Manchester for her roots, finally claimed her third off the train fare, and rode an electric bike home through Glasgow like a witch on a broomstick.Then there's the passport photo. Rejected. Eyes shut, said the computer. They were open. That's hooded eyes for you. All this two days before our first Fringe show, with Friday and Saturday sold out and a few Sunday tickets going. Barbara Scully, the Irish Joan Rivers, joins us on Friday's episode.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Marisa Peer: Ageing Is a Decision 30.07.2026 44хв

  Episode descriptionOn this week's episode, we're joined by Marisa Peer, who was once asked to do therapy in a jacuzzi in a bikini. She said no, and says it probably cost her work. Marisa is a therapist and bestselling author who started out as a fitness trainer at Jane Fonda's fitness centre in LA, got married for the first time at 51, and reckons she did the whole thing the wrong way round. She tells Kaye and Karen about the male friend she handed a television job to, who went straight to the network and suggested they drop her for someone younger. About the three ages we all have, only one of which is on your birth certificate. And about the small daily trick she uses to stop her brain settling, which starts with the hand you hold your toothbrush in.At 67 she is the happiest she has ever been, and still moving countries every few years — London to America to Dubai, and possibly Portugal next. Marisa's seventh book, Your Mind, Your Rules, is out now.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.Marisa's Book: https://smarturl.it/u3hAnQMarisa's Podcast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWcHna_Pla5dhel7QP31t1desz_eT3qqx&si=TGXSZY3r6F_qBmLp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Midweek Catchup: A £36 Wash and the Railcard I Swore I'd Never Get 28.07.2026 22хв

  On this week's Midweek Catchup, we find out what one load of washing costs at the laundrette when your house is in bits. Thirty-six pounds. Kaye has no kitchen, no washing machine, and a dishwashing arrangement involving a baby bath, so she's on an economy drive: not buying food, not washing anything. Then there's the railcard she resisted for years, right up until it saved her forty quid to Manchester. That's a wash, as she points out. Karen has Stephen, a quarter of toffees, and eight wrappers, one under the bed. Kaye marks eight years since her mum died with yellow roses at the cemetery.We're at the Edinburgh Fringe on the 7th, 8th and 9th of August, nearly sold out. On Friday's podcast, Marissa Peer joins us. She's 67, eight books in, and says she's the happiest she's been in her life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Mimi Anderson: Minus 35, Frostbite, and No Intention of Stopping 23.07.2026 48хв

  On this week's episode, we're joined by Mimi Anderson, who set off into the Canadian Arctic on a fat bike in minus 35 and turned back with frostbite. She didn't start running until she was 36, and only then because somebody told her it would make her legs thinner. It went from there to the Sahara and a world record between Land's End and John o'Groats.She tells us about the day a consultant showed her the hole in her knee, forty days into a run from Los Angeles to New York and on track to break the record. It took her over an hour to decide to stop. Her second book is called Limitless. She isn't pretending the body doesn't change, she just keeps finding something else to do with it.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Midweek Catchup: Home from Holiday to a House of Horrors 21.07.2026 25хв

  On this week's Midweek Catchup, Kaye gets home from holiday to no power, no kitchen, no running water, and a chest freezer of the dog's raw meat that had been switched off for ten days. Six inches of blood at the bottom. She's calling it the abattoir. Karen, meanwhile, has spent the fortnight losing to a squash plant that's trying to take over the garden, washing up in a baby bath, and keeping an eye on her husband's brand-new pre-diabetic diet — which is going about as well as you'd expect when there's homemade ice cream in the freezer and half of it's already gone.They're also both Fringe-bound. How To Be 60 is on stage on the 7th, 8th and 9th of August, 2:45pm, at the Gilded Balloon at the Museum, and the tickets are going fast — 83% gone at the last count. Kaye reckons they ought to rehearse. Karen would like to know what exactly there is to rehearse about two people talking to each other. Tickets: https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:7161/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Russ Kane: Why Me Is the Wrong Question 16.07.2026 51хв

  On this week's episode, we're joined by Russ Kane, who spent 20 years reporting traffic from a light aircraft and now conducts funerals for a living. He was Chris Tarrant's wingman on Capital Radio Breakfast, the flying eye on a show pulling four million listeners a week. He walked away from it after his wife Sally died at 43, leaving him with five-year-old twin boys. He'd already lost his dad. His mum's dementia came next, and lasted years longer than any doctor told him to expect. Russ talks about grieving privately while raising two small kids in public, why he stopped looking for a reason, and the thing he says people get wrong when they ask why me. There's also a raw chicken in a chest of drawers, which will make sense when you hear it.He's a novelist and he hosts the weekly podcast Walk the Talk: The Hero's Journey. He also declined, firmly, to tell us his date of birth. Then right at the end he mentions being sent to boarding school at nine, and the rest of the conversation rearranges itself.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Kaye’s Mr Bean Moment, Ian’s Midlife Crisis & The Man from Monaco 14.07.2026 25хв

  Kaye joins Karen from Puglia for a very relaxed midweek catch-up involving questionable Italian, a holiday glass-door incident, and Ian’s mysterious new lease of life.There’s talk of pasta-making fatigue, pillow protectors, Karen’s ongoing domestic standards, and whether Ian’s new phone screensaver, Vespa adventure and tennis match with “the man from Monaco” point to a full-blown midlife crisis.Plus, Kaye and Karen give a quick Edinburgh Fringe update ahead of their live shows on 7, 8 and 9 August with special guest Siobhan Daniels, the Retirement Rebel.Get tickets here: https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:7161/And on Friday, Russ Kane joins them for a moving and honest conversation about loss, love and his life now as a celebrant. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Jacquie Beltrao: Seven Years On From Stage Four, "I've Got Today" 09.07.2026 44хв

  On this week's episode, we're joined by Sky Sports legend Jacquie Beltrao, who was told seven years ago that her breast cancer had returned and spread. Her scans are clear now, but as she says, she doesn't know what the future holds, only that she has today. Jacquie talks candidly about the doom spiral of a stage four diagnosis, the antidepressants that pulled her out of it, and why she thinks her mind has been harder to conquer than her body. She also opens up about turning 60 as a cancer patient, why getting older feels like something to celebrate rather than dread, and the anxiety dream about a gymnastics routine that still wakes her up in a sweat.Whether you're facing your own health scare or just trying to make sense of getting older, this is a conversation about what changes when uncertainty becomes something you live with rather than something you fear. And if you're around in August, come and see Kaye and Karen live at the Edinburgh Fringe, 7-9 August at the Gilded Balloon at the Museum. Tickets at https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:7161/. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Midweek Catchup: The Amalfi Verdict, a Digital Detox, and Six Pillow Protectors 08.07.2026 23хв

  On this week's Midweek Catchup, we get Kaye's verdict live from the Amalfi Coast: stunningly beautiful, wildly overpriced, and Positano is basically Disneyland with a coastline. She's also two days into a self-imposed digital detox, phone banished to the bedside drawer, after Bonnie stopped her mid-scroll in the pool and asked if they could just take a moment to appreciate where they are. The child has a point.Karen, meanwhile, is not detoxing from anything. She's deep in a Vinted spiral, six pillow protectors down (new with tags, she'd like that noted), and fresh from a hygienist appointment she remembered eight minutes before it started, followed by an airflow clean she describes as a pressure washer to the face. Come and see us live at the Edinburgh Fringe, 7th to 9th August, 2:45pm at Gilded Balloon at the Museum. Tickets via the Gilded Balloon or the Edinburgh Festival Fringe website.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Bibi Lynch: Nearly Destroyed at 50, Buoyant at 60 02.07.2026 43хв

  On this week's episode, we're joined by Bibi Lynch, who moved house 30 times in ten years, nineteen of them in a single stretch of 24 months, all while writing for the national press and turning up on live radio as if nothing were wrong. Bibi was hidden homeless for a decade after losing the flat she'd bought on her own, and she was carrying it alongside the death of her dad, the collapse of what freelance journalism paid, and the slow realisation that she wasn't going to have the children she'd always assumed would arrive. She calls that last one social infertility, and she is still angry about it, in the most articulate way you'll hear. Bibi turned 60 three months ago, and rather than the end of things, she's found it buoyant, her word, not ours. She talks to Kaye and Karen about looking back at two brutal decades with something closer to compassion than regret, why she reckons the worst has already happened so there's not much left to fear, and the book, the screenplay and the frankly excellent name story she's taking into the next chapter. If you've ever measured your life by what you didn't get rather than what you did, this one stays with you. We're also live at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on the 7th, 8th and 9th of August, 2.45 at the museum, with Retirement Rebel Siobhan Daniels. Tickets are at the Gilded Balloon.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Midweek Catchup: The Influencer, the Endoscopy and the Tablecloth 30.06.2026 25хв

  Kaye's had a nightmare. Cancelled flight, a 6.20am rescue seat, and a live telly show to present on no sleep, softened by a lunchtime pisco sour and a nap she snorted herself awake from.This week: Ian gets diagnosed by Dr Kaye and ChatGPT, then refuses the sedative for his endoscopy to save himself a phone call. Karen hunts for the perfect white tablecloth and earns a new nickname. And after a friend books Puglia entirely on the strength of Karen's holiday photos, a star is born.Plus: Charly turns 24, and a preview of Friday's guest, the spectacularly upbeat Bibi Lynch.Catch How to Be 60 at the Edinburgh Fringe, 7th–9th August, 2.45pm at the Museum. Tickets via the Gilded Balloon or the official Fringe website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Cindy Sheahan: Every Day Is an Adventure - Leaving a 32-Year Marriage and Travelling Alone 25.06.2026 43хв

  How much time is left on your warranty? Cindy Sheahan, 64, left a 32-year marriage, packed a backpack, and turned a two-week hike into a whole new life in Sicily. She tells Kaye and Karen about travelling solo after 60, why her son cheered her out the door, and making friends with uncertainty. Plus we're bringing How To Be 60 to the Edinburgh Fringe this August, with retirement rebel Siobhan Daniels joining us fresh from her camper van trek to Alaska. Tickets on sale now at the Gilded Balloon. Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Midweek Catchup: The Floor Ice Cream Dilemma, Karen's Water Butt Caper, and the Eighteen-Year-Old Mattress 23.06.2026 22хв

  Karen's back from her "sex retreat" in rural Italy (the most relaxing time, she swears, two trips to the beach and not a thing else), and she's convinced her feet have put on weight. Kaye's hosting an awards do in a jumpsuit so sheer it'll need industrial-strength knickers, which leads, naturally, to a deep dive on thongs versus hearing aids. There's the photo of Karen's backside disappearing through a first-floor window over a blocked water butt, Bonnie discovering cup-a-soup like it's a brand-new invention, and the great moral question of the week: your ice cream falls on the pavement, lands perfectly, only the underside touched down. Do you put it back on the cone?How To Be 60 is at the Edinburgh Fringe, 7-9 August, Gilded Balloon at the Museum: https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:7161/And this Friday, meet Cindy Sheehan, who walked out of her marriage in her late fifties and has been travelling the world ever since.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Donna Lancaster: Turning Your Wounds Into Wisdom 18.06.2026 48хв

  On this week's episode, we're joined by Donna Lancaster — therapist, author, co-founder of The Bridge Retreat, and a self-described "elder in training" who turns 60 next March and genuinely cannot wait.Donna grew up with violence, addiction and racism in 1970s Britain, became a social worker trying to save versions of herself, and was eventually "brought to her knees" by a breakdown at work. She talks about why she sees that collapse as a gift, the "turd-wrapped gift" buried inside our hardest experiences, and why getting older doesn't make you wiser unless you do the work.There's also the line that stopped Kaye and Karen in their tracks — it's not an old face, it's a new one — plus elderhood as a purpose, why she runs a workshop called Preparing for Death, and what she's planning in the forest for her 60th.How To Be 60 is at the Edinburgh Fringe, 7–9 August, Gilded Balloon at the Museum: Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Crepey Chests, Second-Hand PJs and Why We're Too Old for Loud Bars 16.06.2026 18хв

  Karen's calling in from sunny Puglia, and after last week's second-hand pyjamas confession, the internet has voted: for once, it's Team Kaye. What follows is a spirited defence of "vintage" nightwear, the wearing of pants underneath it, and whether any of it is, frankly, minging.Plus crepey skin, why loud bars now feel like punishment, un-labelled moving boxes, and a lovely summer read: Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin. Look ahead to Friday's guest, Donna Lancaster, and catch Kaye and Karen live at the Fringe, 7th–9th August. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.