Mariella Frostrup: How close have you come to death?

How close have you come to death?

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.

Recorded Mariella Frostrup said elsewhere, not written here

I’ve had a few hairy scrapes as a scuba diver.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 November 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 210 →

Jon Snow

When interviewing Idi Amin of Uganda in 1975, he shouted: “We have ways of dealing with people like you.”

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 March 2024 source ↗

Anna Friel English actress

I nearly died by burst ovarian cyst in 2001. I was doing the front cover of a magazine and someone said, “Can you not pull your tummy in?” It turned out that I had been carrying two litres of blood in my stomach. I was rushed to hospital the next morning and nearly died of septicaemia. They had to give me two blood transfusions. Had it been an hour later it would have been bye bye.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 August 2019 source ↗

Julian Lloyd Webber British cellist and conductor

Twice I should have died in car accidents when both my cars were written off. I was completely unhurt; the cello was completely unhurt, too. A complete miracle.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 July 2023 source ↗

Pauline Black

I fell asleep in a room that had an oil heater and it filled with carbon monoxide and, if it hadn’t been for my husband, Terry, I would have died.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 April 2025 source ↗