Nicola Walker: How close have you come to death?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Nicola Walker said elsewhere, not written here

Swimming off the north Cornish coast eight years ago. I remember thinking, “Why did they teach you how to inflate your pyjamas in life-saving classes at school, when they could have just told you what to do in a riptide?”

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 January 2017 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 209 →

Joss Stone English singer, songwriter, and actress

Maybe the night we drove a Hummer in Kabul and went to a cafe that Osama bin Laden supposedly used to frequent.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 April 2021 source ↗

Robert Carlyle Scottish actor

I was on a plane in India and I thought it was going to crash. It was an old, rickety thing. It was pre-children - I wouldn't do it now.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 February 2008 source ↗

Harry Redknapp English football player and manager

A car accident in Italy in 1990. Four people got killed. I was lucky, I got thrown out.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 May 2019 source ↗

Bradley Wiggins British former professional road and track racing cyclist

I had quite a chequered childhood. I had a knife put to my throat once when I was a kid, which was very scary.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 September 2019 source ↗