Navigating a maze of symptoms from hot flushes to suicidal thoughts, perimenopause is a women’s health issue that has slipped under the radar until recent years. It’s now the focus of Effin Hormones, a podcast created by four friends and indie producers in Manchester trying to figure it all out alongside their listeners.
“When we first started [the podcast], the bog standard image would be a pained looking grey-haired woman in front of a fan, who looked probably 20 years older than certainly I and all my mates felt,” Helen Brown, producer and the brains behind Effin Hormones, told Prolific North.
The podcast recently won Gold for Best Wellbeing podcast at the British Podcast Awards, as the group continue to challenge perceptions with a healthy dose of Northern wit.
“The problem in this country is we don’t do public health messages. We don’t do women’s health. We don’t talk about the things that you can do to help yourself,” said Terri Sweeney, proudly showcasing the award on her mantlepiece.
Helen Brown is joined on the podcast by host Emma Goswell, co-hosts Terri Sweeney and Beena Khetani, with new guests featuring on each episode.
“We are ex ravers sort of but we didn’t really meet on the dance floor,” teased Emma Goswell, who is also a radio presenter on Virgin Radio Pride.
The four friends, three of whom are ex-BBC staff, initially met by the smoking shed at the BBC when the office was based on Oxford Road in Manchester.
Although Khetani currently works at BBC Studios, both Brown and Goswell worked together initially as producers at Radio Manchester, whilst Sweeney moved up to Manchester after working at both BBC Radio 1 and 2 in London.
“We had a redundancy round at the BBC called Delivering Quality First and I set up something called delivering quality thirst, which was a drinking session,” joked Sweeney.
