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On a plane with Meryl Streep in 1984: the engines blew and we had to make an emergency landing.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 March 2017 source ↗
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.
Others on this question
View all 209 →A picnic on the beach at Seaforth during the war. Somehow I managed to wriggle through a barbed-wire fence and run across a minefield. My teenage aunt Kat bravely followed suit and rescued me.
Bobby Gillespie
Singer and songwriter
In 2016, I fell off stage in Switzerland and broke my back in four places.
Gary Numan
British musician
I was an air display pilot for 15 years, and watched most of my friends die in crashes. When the children came along, I got out of it.
Gemma Chan
British Chinese actress
In 2012 I stared into the eyes of someone who had just stabbed a man in the neck on the street. I was trying to help the victim; for a very long three or four seconds, I thought he was going to come for me next.
More from Tracey Ullman
View profile →I did a crap impersonation of JK Rowling a few years ago. Sorry, JK. Can this apology put me on a casting list for your next mega-franchise?
I would have stopped making records after They Don’t Know.
Realising as I grew up that people don’t really know what they’re doing.
When I met my husband and had babies. They have made me happy ever since.
The End by the Beatles.
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- What would you most want to leave your children? 44 answers
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