The question
As a child, what career or life did you imagine for yourself?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.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
A lawyer. I did work experience and was sent to the public gallery at the high court. The man in the dock was a 50-year-old accused of buggering a cat on the Metropolitan line. I decided to become a musician instead.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 November 2021 source ↗
I wanted to perform in some way, but I didn’t think it was viable. Teachers told me I should be a barrister, because I was always arguing with them.
A paediatrician, then I was like, I can’t dissect frogs! Then I fell in love with making things and understanding how things work.
Huckleberry Finn.
A ballet dancer, but it changed to being an actress when I got put in a school play.
To the British public generally. They know why.
I put out a song called Monsters on my last album, about my father’s illness – he had stage four chronic kidney disease – and a handful of people offered him a new kidney. People’s kindness really touched me.
Like nothing else, I guess.
If my children could change their own nappies.
I’m sure it’s a cliché but I’d like to see as many of my friends and family as possible in that day. So I’d have my family around, I’d have my friends around, just to clock in with them.
Jim Kerr, Shaun Ryder, Gloria Estefan, Adrian Edmondson, Michael Stipe, Belinda Carlisle
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