Sandi Toksvig: How close have you come to dying?

The question

How close have you come to dying?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Sandi Toksvig

Danish and British broadcaster, comedian and writer

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

I’ve had a surprising number of near-death experiences: I was nearly blown up by a landmine in Sudan; I was stranded on the Zambezi river at night; I was bucked off a rodeo horse in Arizona and had to be airlifted to hospital; and, worst of all, I once ate a Pot Noodle.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 March 2018 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 209 →

Tom Lubbock Art critic

It is a very rare affliction. A GP would expect to meet it once in a career and this form of brain cancer is unpredictable and dangerous. Usually, this tumour might give you only a two-year span since its discovery. I have had two operations and one course of radiotherapy and now three chemotherapies (one currently starting). My death is, in a sense, imminent. I say to myself: I am dying. Something in my head is hurrying to kill me.

Recorded The Observer, from the journals he kept between 2008 and 2010; published on the Guardian website under the title 'When Words Failed Me', 7 November 2010 source ↗

Martin Clunes English actor

Abseiling down a cliff for Doc Martin in a suit, carrying a medical bag.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 September 2018 source ↗

Tom Ellis Welsh actor

Every time I let my wife drive.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 September 2021 source ↗

Edwina Currie Former British politician, broadcaster and writer

Brighton, 1984. I was in another hotel just a few yards away.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 June 2017 source ↗