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

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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.

One of 24 questions in The Q&A here.

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Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 1 Arts and letters 29 Politics and public life 4 Business and finance 1 Sport 1
Read by age Any age In their thirties 8 In their forties 6 In their fifties 9 In their sixties 9 Seventy and beyond 4
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 ↗

Lemn Sissay
I would build relationships. I would remember people’s significant moments. I would not fear closeness.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 October 2023 source ↗

Imogen Poots
I would have been OK with feeling shy. In my teenage years, I thought being an actor meant that you had to be a little more performative.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 March 2024 source ↗

Douglas Booth
I’d give my younger self the lessons I’ve learned over the years, sparing myself the need to figure everything out so publicly.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 February 2025 source ↗

Russell Mael
That Sparks predates the Beatles and it’s kind of all too obvious where they got a lot of their inspiration.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 May 2025 source ↗

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