The question
What is the harshest thing anyone has said to you?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
An English teacher said, “You’ll never make anything of yourself.”
The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 September 2025 source ↗
It happened when I was younger, somewhere outside London. We were on bikes, and this older girl pulled up and said something racist that I won’t repeat. I will never forget that, because it was the first time, and I was like, “Oh, I am feeling different from everyone around me right now”.
I was thrown out of a club by bouncers when I walked into somebody and told them that I was registered blind. They said: “Don’t give a fuck – you don’t belong in here.” As a straight white man, it gives you a taste of what other people have to contend with.
When I was growing up, my mother would accuse me of showing off. That’s the most shaming, humbling, horrible thing. What was I doing? Showing off!
“You can’t play Maxim de Winter with ginger hair.”
It was reading out loud, but no longer. (I am dyslexic.) I was encouraged by my husband to do a speech for the Royal National Institute of Blind People, which helped me gain my confidence, and the fear disappeared.
The children. As a mother you are constantly worrying whether you’ve done the right thing.
I’m a bit of a hoarder.
Trusting someone and being let down.
Clearing up someone’s sick – it was on police duty.
Lack of empathy.
Mariella Frostrup, Maggie O'Farrell, Dervla Kirwan, Jason Manford, Clive Myrie, Rita Wilson
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