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.
Travelling Europe with a friend, when I was 29. She was driving and the brakes went, on one of those vertiginous Italian mountains. It was terrifying for the 20 minutes it took to coast down the mountain.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 July 2020 source ↗
When I was seven or eight, I got run over and was actually under the car, which was scary. I just ran out; it was totally my fault. I was fine – all I got was a tiny scar on my knee.
Horse riding in a steep canyon in Los Angeles. A couple of paparazzi had hidden under camouflage blankets and when a horse sees a lens, he thinks it’s the eye of a predator. My horse flipped out. When he landed, I ended up on his neck; that was pretty close.
In 1995, I discovered I had two brain tumours. The process of having them removed went on for about three years. It was a long and drawn-out time, wondering whether or not I was going to die.
I was stabbed in my 20s. It was a late-night mugging and, while taking my wallet, they stabbed me in my chest.
A pair of Russell & Bromley boots with studs. I have had them for eight years and wear them all the time.
The people I never thanked for what they selflessly gave me in my career; when I was younger I just took it for granted.
On a cosmetics production line. I walked out after half a day.
Disappear by Beyoncé.
I cried after I won the Booker.
When I met my husband, David, in 2006, on Dating Direct.
Irvine Welsh, Jenny Diski, Julian Clary, Ronald Harwood, Kathy Lette, Fatima Bhutto
Search the directory for somebody in particular.