Douglas Stuart
Scottish fashion designer and novelist
My mother and my brother would still be alive. So much of my life has been coping with the grief of losing them.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Question
Are you afraid of death?
Death & what remains
Question
Has knowing that you will die changed how you live?
Death & what remains
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Repeated verbatim in The Guardian's long-running Saturday Q&A; two publisher-hosted examples establish recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
When I thought maybe I've just got a few weeks, I thought God this is what they mean by the reckoning. I've got to sort all this stuff out in days. Is it possible to sort out all those things in your past that you'd prefer not to have done? ... But actually by going through the process we've gone through, I think we have. And it's a real blessing to have this time do that.
Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian, interview at Gould's home in London, 20 September 2011 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 203 →
Ronnie O'Sullivan
English snooker player
I would go back to when I was 14 and keep to my own style of playing snooker. I was perfect, but I didn’t think I was, so I started playing like everybody else and created bad habits. With a little more time, I could have been the ultimate player. I look at my career and I probably got 75% out of it instead of 100%.
James Bay
English singer-songwriter and guitarist
I couldn’t do it. I realised recently that all the things that have gone wrong are just as important as all the things that went right.
Michael Kiwanuka
English singer-songwriter
Nothing. Everything happens for a reason.
More from Philip Gould
View profile →From the moment I resolved and reconciled things with Gail the fear went. I don't feel I've got any fear now. I think acceptance is the key. If you accept death, fear disappears.
Recorded
Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian, interview at Gould's home in London, 20 September 2011
source ↗
I live by the day. Just sitting in the park, looking at the flowers thinking how beautiful they are. It's almost … not hallucinogenic but it's a much stronger feeling than previously. For me, at the moment, going for a walk in the park with Gail is heaven.
Recorded
Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian, interview at Gould's home in London, 20 September 2011
source ↗
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