Carol Vorderman: If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change?

The question

If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change?

Originally asked

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.

Carol Vorderman

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

There are one or two relationships where I’d see the red flags much earlier.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 March 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

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Erin O'Connor English model

The bits that consumed me with guilt.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 March 2008 source ↗

Gloria Steinem Writer and feminist organiser

Since hostile people still call me a former Playboy Bunny, even at 82, I probably shouldn’t have done that in my youth, even to write an exposé. And since a couple of times they’ve also referred to me as a former CIA agent, because I went to two Soviet-era communist youth festivals, I probably shouldn’t have done that, either. Yet if I hadn’t done both, I might have judged other people by such empty symbols, too.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 March 2017 source ↗

kd lang Canadian musician

When I was working hard, I was going so fast that I didn’t absorb a lot.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 May 2021 source ↗

Jennifer Hudson American singer and actress

I wouldn’t change a thing. Every experience is a lesson learned.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 January 2018 source ↗

More from Carol Vorderman

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Question What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy? Time & hindsight

I was happiest in every aspect of my life in the 1990s, when I was married to Paddy [King, a management consultant] and we had the two children and my mum lived with us, and Countdown was the biggest show on Channel 4.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 March 2026 source ↗

Question Excluding property, what is the most expensive thing you have ever bought? Money & investment

My aeroplane, a Diamond DA42. It’s a twin-engine aircraft and I bought her brand new to fly around the world solo. Very sadly my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer about six weeks before I was due to take off, in May 2017, and she died early June. After that, I lost interest in doing it.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 March 2026 source ↗