Maybe in the 1990s, but I was so selfish at the time, I wouldn’t really have noticed what was going on.
How close have you come to death?
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
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.
Childbirth. And the wheel of our camper van coming clean off on the M1.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 February 2018 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 209 →Physically, falling off my bike two years ago. Emotionally, when my mother died when I was 27.
Nicola Walker
British actress
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?”
Rose McGowan
American actress and activist
Falling down a mine shaft in New Mexico while filming.
More from Julie Hesmondhalgh
View profile →Worrying that I’ve upset people.
That the last general election didn’t take place later. We might have got rid of the Tories with a couple more weeks.
I cleaned for a very posh lady in Knightsbridge who made me handwash her knickers. I’d advertised myself in The Lady as a dog walker, so I’m not sure how I ended up there.
Every time I got drunk and out of order. Especially in my teens and 20s.
An old camper van that has cost me more in repairs than my house, my wedding and all the holidays I’ve ever been on.
To all those whose fleeting interaction with me has fallen short of what they’d hoped; the unwitting recipients of my occasional grumpiness.
More on death & what remains
- What would you like to be remembered for? 214 answers
- What song would you like played at your funeral? 178 answers
- If you had only one day left to live, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid doing? 54 answers
- What happens when we die? 51 answers
- How would you like to die? 43 answers
- What would you like to leave your children? 42 answers
Also answered this · A–Z
Adeel Akhtar, Adrian Edmondson, Aidan Gillen, Andy Serkis, Anna Friel, Bertie Carvel
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All death & what remains questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject