Episode 56: Clara Francis
Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Kat Rulach
4.8 • 527 Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2022
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Clara Francis is an actor and businesswoman, who’s recently started her own online dress company 'O Pioneers' with a friend. Happily married to actor Jason Watkins, she has an older daughter, Bessie, and a younger son, Gilbert.
On the surface she has the perfect life.
But Clara came to speak to me about how she is surviving the death of her child. Her middle child Maud, who was 2 when she died of sepsis, would have been 13 now.
This is a difficult listen. It’s emotional, it’s painful, it’s unthinkable.
I’m very grateful to Clara for speaking so openly about the taboo subject of the death of a child, and by this story being heard, I hope it will help someone. I also hope it will help me to talk to any bereaved parents in the future.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Sophia Lusbexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to |
| 0:09.6 | to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. |
| 0:14.0 | I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, |
| 0:20.2 | so I spin a few plates myself. |
| 0:22.1 | Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, |
| 0:24.6 | but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. |
| 0:28.1 | I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. |
| 0:31.6 | Welcome to spinning plates. |
| 0:35.6 | Hey you. I am walking back through the dark Friday evening. It's surprisingly mild. |
| 0:46.3 | I think I said that to you last week as well. It's just not that cold and I am not complaining. |
| 0:53.3 | And it's actually just been the end of a very sparkling winter day. |
| 0:58.5 | Beautiful blue skies, sunshine. |
| 1:01.6 | And then one of those lovely sunsets where the sky's all pink and blue |
| 1:04.7 | and it reminds me of a t-shirt I had in the 80s when I was about four |
| 1:08.1 | that had a sunset on it. I thought it was great. |
| 1:12.6 | I have been recording so many podcast chats for you. |
| 1:18.5 | This week I've done four. |
| 1:20.7 | I think in the last few weeks I've done about number six. |
| 1:25.4 | I've had some brilliant conversations. |
| 1:32.6 | Oh my goodness. The diversity as well. Blimey. |
| 1:40.9 | And this conversation today that I'm sharing with you was actually recorded a little while ago. |
| 1:44.4 | And I don't know why I just felt a bit protective of it. |
... |
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