The question
How close have you come to dying?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Anna dared me to jump off a cliff in Menorca on holiday a couple of years ago. I did. I fell 30m through the air, hit the water at an odd angle and shattered my coccyx.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 October 2018 source ↗
I hit a bit of lumpy tarmac driving my motorbike over the Pyrenees in the early 1980s. There was no safety barrier and I found myself riding along the edge of a precipice on half the width of the tyres for 100 yards.
Last year, driving in California, I found myself on the wrong side of the road. I was 30 seconds away from hitting two cars coming the other way.
Death is always close.
I’ve had a surprising number of near-death experiences: I was nearly blown up by a landmine in Sudan; I was stranded on the Zambezi river at night; I was bucked off a rodeo horse in Arizona and had to be airlifted to hospital; and, worst of all, I once ate a Pot Noodle.
In my 20s, touring small arts centres with my best mate, performing sketch comedy to a handful of people.
Not accepting every dare.
An eye surgeon. I had an operation on my cornea when I was little, and remember being deeply enamoured with the team who looked after me. Subsequently, I was very disappointed to learn that a degree of scientific aptitude was required for the job, which ruled me out.
Cleaning toilets in a hotel in Croydon when I was 16. A guest once gave me a half-eaten bag of pistachios as a tip, so there were perks.
Meera Syal, Stephen Graham, Beverley Knight, Lesley Sharp, Julian Sands, Joseph Fiennes
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