Ciarán Hinds: If you could edit your past, what would you change?

If you could edit your past, what would you change?

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.

Recorded Ciarán Hinds said elsewhere, not written here

My penchant for having just one too many.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 July 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

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Sara Pascoe English comedian, presenter, writer

I would be a bit nicer to myself.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 July 2018 source ↗

Gareth Bale Welsh footballer

Nothing. Without my past I wouldn’t be who I am today.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 August 2021 source ↗

Keir Starmer

My mum died in her early 70s, and for the last six or seven years of her life she couldn’t move, didn’t speak. By the time our children were born, she was too ill to communicate. I haven’t many regrets in life, but I do regret that they never got to know her, even though she was still alive for a few years. They couldn’t see her warmth, her spirit, her courage.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 August 2023 source ↗

Shirley Ballas English ballroom dancer

I would be much more available for my brother when he was not well and try to understand more about mental health, which I didn’t know anything about at the time.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 June 2018 source ↗