I was a serious little girl growing up in Leeds and had supportive parents who were instrumental in my success.
The Guardian, The Guardian, 13 November 2021 source ↗
The question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
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Others on this question
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Edmund Hillary
Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
I really had no idea whatsoever. I feel that my life developed as I went along. I was never one of those people who, at an early age, had picked an objective and worked steadily towards it. All I knew was that I wanted to get involved in adventurous activity. I didn’t have any specific type of activity in mind, but I wanted to do things that were exciting and adventurous. I had a fairly diffused feeling as to what precisely it should be.
Salman Rushdie
Indian-British-American novelist
A writer, I’m sorry to say. Boring, I know, but true.
John Prescott
Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007
A trade union official.
Griff Rhys Jones
British actor and comedian
An actor. Then I grew out of that and became one by default. Or sort of one: “Not really an actor”, said Michael Billington.
More from Barbara Taylor Bradford
View profile →I've never really been unhappy.
I see a woman I like, who is always worried about her hair.
I was a serious little girl growing up in Leeds and had supportive parents who were instrumental in my success.
I don't believe it's wrong to try to make yourself look nice, even if you're an older woman.
I told Sean Connery he’d have to lose his Glaswegian accent and take elocution lessons if he wanted to be an actor. When he became James Bond, I never got a chance to tell him how wrong I’d been.
I try not to be a burden to people, I’m too strong and independent for that.
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