I have a deep-rooted fear of being in trouble. I once tried to sneak into the back of a photography exhibition with my husband when one of our kids was in a pushchair. We’d arrived late and he suggested we go in through the gift shop and see the last room. As we poked our heads round the door, the security guard noticed us. I shouted, “That man’s trying to get in!”, then ran away.
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim recurring question in The Guardian's Q&A series.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 January 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 122 →Walking with Eric Clapton’s tour manager Mick to meet Eric backstage, and when I met Eric I said, “Hi Mick.” I wanted to die.
When I was losing my sight, I couldn’t see where I was going, and I went into an undertaker’s thinking it was a barber’s. I asked the undertaker whether he had many waiting.
Also my most triumphant: 2017 at the Royal Court. Julie Hesmondhalgh reads my psychologist’s report over two hours. Every excruciating intimate word of it. Extreme verbatim theatre. One night only.
More from Helen Skelton
View profile →That you get out of life what you put in. When you grow up on a farm you literally reap what you sow.
Getting to the end and thinking that I haven’t laughed enough.
Losing my eyesight – I live for the view, and the sunset and the sunrise.
To Gorka Márquez, who was my Strictly partner, for not winning the glitterball in 2022.
More sleep – my children do not sleep.
As someone who made you think that anything’s possible. I did three marathons in a day once but walking the high-wire at Battersea Park station was the challenge I loved most because I had to master a skill.
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