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.
There are different flavours of happy, but I think my favourite is the quiet contentment when several generations of family are sitting together watching a crowd-pleaser like Harry Potter on the telly.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 February 2022 source ↗
My happiest moments are when I am wild camping with my family in Scotland and cooking on a fire by a river.
I don’t think there’s a single moment. Every day that you wake up and your family is healthy and OK is a daily gratitude and happiness for me.
Five to 10, when I was just playing out and I didn’t realise I was a girl. Before my boobs came in, basically.
Any time I’m in rehearsals.
It would have been lovely to have grown up in private like a lot of my friends.
My biggest disappointment is always myself. That’s my Catholic upbringing.
The Strictly Come Dancing final almost destroyed me. I was howling all the way through – John and Johannes and then Rose and Giovanni. Oh my God.
I wanted to be like my dad, who was an academic, because he had an office packed full of books, always had loud music on, and seemed to get to do what he wanted.
A caravan. I was brought up going on caravan holidays – but we quickly realised that a double-axle caravan was too much of a commitment and sold it.
I’d rather be enjoyed while I am still here.
Dawn O’Porter, Lisa Marie Presley, Chris Packham, Ai Weiwei, Frank Bowling, Nadiya Hussain
Search the directory for somebody in particular.