GJ
I’ll be at my happiest today, and probably my gloomiest at some point today, too.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 December 2017 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 →
Olivia Williams
British actress
People are often traumatised by the sleeplessness in the first years of their children’s lives, but I was insanely happy to be married and have two children. The only dark cloud was how much we were loathed for having babies who slept through the night.
Terence Conran
British restaurateur and designer
At the opening of The Conran Shop in Michelin House: it took a long time to achieve.
I remember going to my auntie Pauline’s house in winter when I was eight or nine and she made me a roast beef sandwich. I ate it and fell asleep next to a fire. I felt like a cat, fed and left to nap.
Adrian Dunbar
Irish actor
My first year of drama school: a sense of freedom, doing something I wanted to do and being with lovely people.
More from Griff Rhys Jones
View profile →The next morning. It rarely turns out as bad as I think it’s going to be.
Adolescent love feels like exquisite self-indulgence. Long-term love feels like a warm bath that needs a trickle of extra hot water every now and then.
Sorry, I’m British and middle class, so I’ve already apologised to virtually everybody I have ever met.
As a charming, helpful, solicitous, generous, loving, carefree and constantly funny companion, lover and father. Some hope of that.
An actor. Then I grew out of that and became one by default. Or sort of one: “Not really an actor”, said Michael Billington.
No songs, please. Don’t make a fuss.
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
Samuel L Jackson, Cynthia Nixon, Adrian Dunbar, Pauline McLynn, Ice-T, Alan Cumming
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