Playing the Cowardly Lion in our fourth-grade production of The Wizard of Oz. Thank you, Mr. Riccobono.
When were you happiest?
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
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.
In 1982, having travelled for three years to do the first journey around the earth on its polar axis. Charles Burton and I were trying to get from the north pole down to our ship on the edge of the Arctic Sea. We had to float for three months on a diminishing ice floe. Eventually we had to leave the floe and try to get to the ship in canoes with skis under them. In the maze of broken ice we saw its masts on the horizon. That second was probably my happiest moment.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 May 2008 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 581 →
Robert Bathurst
English theatre and television actor
When I turned 30, married and had a place in Brixton. My flailing twenties were over, though the flailing continues.
Viggo Mortensen
American actor
Right now. The past has gone.
Michael Morpurgo
British children's writer
When I was a young father and teaching at a local primary school in Kent.
More from Ranulph Fiennes
View profile →An angina attack 300 metres below the summit ridge of Everest in 2005, having spent 72 days getting that far.
More on time & hindsight
- What is the most important lesson life has taught you? 141 answers
- What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore? 82 answers
- What scares you about getting older? 63 answers
- What is the best advice you have ever received? 31 answers
- If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why? 24 answers
- What is something you were told by a parent, teacher, or mentor that you still repeat to yourself? 23 answers
Also answered this
Julian Lloyd Webber, Lance Black, Mary Tyler Moore, Cathy Rigby, Jerry Hall, Martha Stewart
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All time & hindsight questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject