A cellist, inspired by my mum and dad’s friendship with Jacqueline du Pré, and seeing a documentary about her.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 October 2018 source ↗
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 cellist, inspired by my mum and dad’s friendship with Jacqueline du Pré, and seeing a documentary about her.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 October 2018 source ↗
A botanist or a florist.
A radio journalist or on the till at Marks & Spencer.
I wanted to be in the circus.
An eye surgeon. I had an operation on my cornea when I was little, and remember being deeply enamoured with the team who looked after me. Subsequently, I was very disappointed to learn that a degree of scientific aptitude was required for the job, which ruled me out.
Dawn French, because I am sitting next to her and she says if I don’t say her, she will hurt me.
I’ve been to two postmortems in real life, and spent the last 14 years talking about death at work – so, pretty close.
In my childhood, when I didn’t think about whether it was happy. It just was.
I would like the poem Cherish by Raymond Carver. It was read by my dad at my wedding, and is my absolute favourite.
Any writer who thinks I’ve ruined their work in performance.
A birthday present I hoped would mean a lot to the person. I had their family history researched and a book made.
Martin Kemp, Charlotte Church, Patricia Hodge, Dan Stevens, Fay Ripley, Sue Perkins
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