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.
Diving in the Virgin Islands. I lost sight of the boat and had to swim to a tiny, deserted island. After a great deal of time, the rescue boat saw me waving for my life on the rocks.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 May 2021 source ↗
Undiagnosed VIPoma in 2018.
I was on a plane in India and I thought it was going to crash. It was an old, rickety thing. It was pre-children - I wouldn't do it now.
In the 1990s in New Jersey, being driven to a radio station early one morning. Our driver fell asleep and we were on the other side of a dual carriageway with cars coming at us. We all screamed and banged on the seat, and he woke up and pulled the car back across.
A death threat at Glastonbury festival in 1989. The police told me not to go on, but I said I had to because I was headlining. So I wore a bullet-proof vest. It seemed unlikely that I would be assassinated, but it was shocking and very stressful.
At the time, not landing the role of Lance-Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army, but it all worked out fine in the long run.
Not getting older at each birthday, but I appreciate it beats the alternative.
Dreaming that I am about to go on stage or set but haven’t got the right script.
Warmth and security.
Scrabbling about under dusty floorboards as an electrician in my early 20s.
Charles Dance, Joss Stone, Peter Capaldi, Tom Ellis, Bertie Carvel, Martin Clunes
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