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.
In the early 90s, in the Andes, caught in an atrocious storm above 20,000ft with three others. We were all in a very bad way. Some guys close to us perished; we were lucky.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 May 2020 source ↗
Horse riding in a steep canyon in Los Angeles. A couple of paparazzi had hidden under camouflage blankets and when a horse sees a lens, he thinks it’s the eye of a predator. My horse flipped out. When he landed, I ended up on his neck; that was pretty close.
My sister saved me from drowning. I shouted at her because she pulled me out of the pool and hurt my arm.
I had spinal meningitis when I was 13.
Modelling in South Korea, aged 19. After a party, I flopped into bed, lit a big candle and balanced it on top of a massive box of matches. I created my own firework display when the candle burnt down and set fire to it. It made the biggest noise ever which, luckily, woke me from my slightly boozy slumber.
Being exquisitely alive.
As an interesting, amusing father by my children.
David Hare – he’s always fascinating and funny.
Rufus Wainwright’s Get Happy.
A case of Chateau Margaux 59.
Father Christmas at a department store. The plaintive sadness of the children’s unrealistic requests was almost unbearable.
Julie Hesmondhalgh, Julia Ormond, Shirley Ballas, Laurence Fox, Ed Harris, Olivia Williams
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