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.
When I was raising my children.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, May 2019 source ↗
An eight-hour walk along the north Cornwall coast with my eldest children - aged eight and 10. Whoever has eight hours of solid conversation with their children? I loved every minute.
When I realised that I could be a musician. I was 16.
Childhood, up until the age of seven, when my sister died.
In my first bedsit when I went to art college in Leeds. It was a hideous basement, but I loved the freedom.
That I would have focused more on languages.
Discrimination, for any reason.
No contest: seeing my grandchildren enjoying each other.
The current occupant of the White House.
My husband, Paul, who is an enabler of the exuberance of his wife and five kids.
I’m not into self-deploring.
Zoë Heller, Sarah Brown, Jacqui Smith, Samira Ahmed, Bob Schieffer, Angela Eagle
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