KH
Hop-picking in Kent when I was 13. The smell was dreadful, and put me off beer for life.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 September 2019 source ↗
The question
What is the worst job you have ever had?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
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Others on this question
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Daryl McCormack
Irish actor
I once had to dress up as [fast food chain] Supermac’s bunny during a St Patrick’s Day parade and shake people’s hands. Kids kept trying to take off my gloves and punching my bunny head. It was awful.
Frank Cottrell-Boyce
British screenwriter, novelist and actor
I spent an advent in my late teens throttling turkeys.
Michael Ball
English singer, presenter and actor
Handing out leaflets for a European coach trip wearing just lederhosen, in February and March in Surrey. It was freezing, and I got fired.
Being a cocktail waitress and having to wear a compromising dress in an unwoke 1990s world.
More from Katharine Hamnett
View profile →A hydrogen-powered private jet for me and my dog. We’d be zero carbon dioxide emissions, so could go anywhere we liked.
Camping with my parents in the south of France. We went every year with the beautiful bell tent they made on a sewing machine. We even had a lavatory tent which was fabulous except, one day, it blew away with my father in it.
Threat of nuclear war, Iran/US situation, Syria, everything. I take sleeping pills.
Boarding school. It was horrible.
Raising awareness of ethical and environmental issues in the clothing industry. I think I was the original whistleblower within fashion.
To my parents, for being such a bitch.
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