KR
On stage – the Old Vic in 1981 and Glastonbury last year.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 August 2025 source ↗
The question
What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Others on this question
View all 577 →
Speech Debelle
Musical artist
When my album was made in June.
Terry Gilliam
American-born British filmmaker
Lost in a piece of music.
Tracey Ullman
British and American actress
When I met my husband and had babies. They have made me happy ever since.
There are different kinds of happiness, but the simplest was when I was 13 because what one had to do was so obvious.
More from Kevin Rowland
View profile →I’d have stuck with the original Dexys Midnight Runners look we started in 1978, which became known as the New Romantic look a couple of years later. Our management and record label talked us out of it. Later, Duran Duran and Spandau came out with that look and that made us look old-fashioned.
Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” – I think that’s true.
My dad said, “You’re going nowhere.” I was seven or eight.
Gerry Adams, because he’s got incredible integrity and vision, and he’s had to put up with so much flak.
The contentment I have now.
I worked in the stores of Edgware hospital when I was about 17, and it was grey and depressing.
More on time & hindsight
- What lesson has mattered most in your life? 138 answers
- What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should they ignore? 78 answers
- What worries you about getting older? 61 answers
- What counsel has proved most valuable to you? 28 answers
- If you could put a message on a giant billboard, what would it say and why? 25 answers
- What line from a parent, teacher, or mentor do you still repeat to yourself? 23 answers
Also answered this
Tim Minchin, Paul Weller, Melanie Blatt, Carl Barât, Philip Glass, Alexander Armstrong
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All time & hindsight questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject