Courtney Pine
British jazz musician
When my new-born daughter Cleopatra died and I wasn’t there. I was doing a US tour and I remember sitting down in an airport and losing it.
What most recently made you cry?
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Last week, while I was wet-wrapping my child’s chronic eczema.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 March 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
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John Grisham
American writer and lawyer
When my mom died, on 18 January this year.
Sandi Toksvig
Danish and British broadcaster, comedian and writer
When I read the story of a blind, bisexual goose called Thomas who had died in New Zealand after a lifetime of love for a swan called Henry. It sounds ridiculous but is entirely true.
Robert Bathurst
English theatre and television actor
Funerals and, annoyingly, athletics medal ceremonies.
More from Maggie O'Farrell
View profile →Darnella Frazier, the teenager who filmed George Floyd’s murder. It took astonishing courage to stand on the pavement in front of those policemen, and we all owe her so much.
How long have you got? I have written a memoir and the subtitle is Seventeen Brushes with Death.
“You’ll never walk again.” This was when I was eight or nine and recovering from viral encephalitis.
To keep going and never give up, and to enjoy it to the absolute full because, at any moment, the curtain can fall.
I started stammering badly the first time I was on live radio, on Woman’s Hour on Radio 4. When I think about it now it brings me out in a cold sweat.
Last summer, swimming in a waterfall in Cumbria with my daughters.
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