I've never really been unhappy.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 February 2014 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 →When it’s just us as a family on our island hideaway in Wales.
Joyce Carol Oates
Novelist, short story writer and essayist
On two dates: 23 January 1961 and 13 March 2009 (my two weddings).
In 1993, making love on the beach of a deserted island in the Bahamas.
Olivia Colman
British actress
When my husband and I first said we loved each other, in our student flat in Cambridge.
More from Barbara Taylor Bradford
View profile →Not having my parents around to share my success.
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
Jonathan Safran Foer, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Jessica Hynes, Viv Albertine, Chris Addison, Siri Hustvedt
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