The question
When were you happiest?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Flying over the Australian outback in a jet, looking down at the incredible orange scenery, the uninhabited hills and gullies, listening to Tchaikovsky on my headphones and drinking champagne with a cigarette in my hand. It was 1984, I'd been to the Adelaide Book Festival and was going back to my husband and my children.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 January 2007 source ↗
Living in London in the late 60s—setting my hair with beer cans and shopping for shoes in Knightsbridge.
Happiness is the target one only has to aim at in order to miss.
When the acting is going really well – when I am flying.
Last summer, swimming in a waterfall in Cumbria with my daughters.
Losing my independence.
Joanna Scanlan, Malorie Blackman, Kathy Lette, Kurt Vonnegut, Jane Asher, Margaret Atwood
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