The question
What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
When we had children at home. But recently I finished a book about old secrets that I’ve been working on for a long time, and when I was done, I felt a gigantic, joyful relief in having escaped from the corn maze of remembered facts in which I’d been wandering for so long.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 August 2020 source ↗
My first summer working, in 1984. I’d come out of drama school, I’d landed a job that got me an Equity card doing Godspell in Aberystwyth – and it was just unmitigated joy.
Swimming down the Thames on a full moon night 10 years ago. It was dangerous, but extremely joyful.
My wedding day last year. It was supposed to be 4 April and, in the end, it was 12 September.
With time and experience you figure stuff out, so I am happiest right now.
I made too much money in my 30s, and it distorted my writing and made me less hungry. Then, in my 40s, I spent all the money on daily life – and now I don’t have it.
It’s like all your emotions are apples and they get crushed all at once into cider.
In 1999, the British Library auctioned off some of its newspaper holdings. My wife and I formed a non-profit and saved more than 20 tons of these irreplaceable bound newspapers, including the last intact run of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World.
Jessica Hynes, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Jonathan Safran Foer, Siri Hustvedt, Rose Tremain, Chris Addison
Search the directory for somebody in particular.