What would you say if you could write a letter to your 16-year-old self?
Journalist Jane Graham says that has been one of the most important questions she has asked in her career — it encourages interviewees to talk about their lives in a truly revealing and honest way.
She says: ‘The one person we all try not to lie to, who has known us at our worst and best, is ourself.’ During 12 years of writing in The Big Issue, Jane has asked 500 people the question and has never ceased to be amazed at what she’s discovered.
She has collected the answers in a new book to raise money to support The Big Issue Foundation.
Here are some of her favourite replies . . .
JOANNA LUMLEY: Being vague and dim won’t get you ahead
The Absolutely Fabulous actress, producer and human rights activist, 73, says:
I was born in India, raised in Hong Kong and Malaysia, and went to my first boarding school at eight, which now seems paralysingly young. It seemed par for the course, as my parents had been brought up abroad and sent home to school.
I especially loved my second boarding school, an Anglo-Catholic convent in the hills behind Hastings, East Sussex.
The nuns wore blue stockings and were brainy and lovely. I was happy as a clam.
Joanna Lumley: ‘I’d tell my younger self to concentrate. I was a show-off, a comedian and a clown’
We were very innocent teenagers. By 16, we may have kissed a boy on the cheek.
If we could, we would have all looked like Brigitte Bardot or Claudia Cardinale, with their tiny waists, stiff petticoats, cute expressions and pink lipstick.
We were besotted with the idea of riding on a Vespa, wearing silk scarves like Sophia Loren.
I’d tell my younger self to concentrate. I was a show-off, a comedian and a clown. We were so vague and dim about the future — when other people were revising, I drew pictures in my book. The idea of studying filled me with horror and I never wanted to go to university. I couldn’t wait to get out into the world.
‘Playing Patsy, spanning 25 years, has been the best fun in the world. I’ve always loved getting older, so being 70 is fabulous’
I was already mad-keen on acting, but usually had to play the men’s parts because I was tall. So when Patsy started wearing moustaches in Absolutely Fabulous, it was already second nature. I loved making people laugh.
Jennifer Saunders and I are as close as can be. In Ab Fab, Edina and Patsy are inseparable, and in real life — although we are grown-up women with husbands and children and are both now grandmothers — you can’t put a cigarette paper between us. Playing Patsy, spanning 25 years, has been the best fun in the world.
I’ve always loved getting older, so being 70 is fabulous.
You never lose the little you who is within you. We are like trees — we grow more and more circles and more layers as we grow older, but inside us is always the person we were when we were tiny.
To be 70 and still working, I’ve been very lucky. Mind you, I have also worked jolly hard.
My happiest day was probably my 12th birthday. It was a lovely spring day in the beautiful hills near Hastings. My parents gave me the pair of flat, cream-coloured sneakers I’d always longed to have and I was in a beautiful dormitory with lots of funny people.
I remember thinking: ‘I’ll remember being 12 because this is the best birthday ever.’
And I feel like I’m 12 every day — it’s quite wonderful.
JAMIE OLIVER: You won’t believe it but you’re going to marry a pukka model
Essex-born chef and campaigner for healthier school meals, Jamie, 44, shot to fame after The Naked Chef TV show in 1999. Now a MBE, he says:
When I was 16, I couldn’t wait to get to London and get my first job.
I’d had a rough time at secondary school and didn’t do well. I’m dyslexic. I’ve always struggled with writing, and I’ve never had the ability to concentrate long enough to read a narrative book: letters get mixed up.
I’ve never had a problem with imagination, but when I write my cookbooks, I speak into a Dictaphone and my editor takes down what I say.
Jamie Oliver: ‘My love-life was like a bloody desert. There was nothing going on, and they were running a bloody mile, basically. I wasn’t very confident; my voice shook when I talked to girls. I’d like to sit down with the teenage me, have a pint and tell him to stick to his guns and trust his gut instinct’
I think it’s fine to tell kids you don’t need to be good at everything.
Most 16-year-olds aren’t scared of much, and I certainly wasn’t, but I did worry about not getting a bunk-up. My love-life was like a bloody desert. There was nothing going on, and they were running a bloody mile, basically.
I wasn’t very confident; my voice shook when I talked to girls.
I’d like to tell the 16-year-old me he’d end up with a model — he wouldn’t have believed that.
Actually, I’d already met Jools [his future wife] by then. She’d joined the sixth-form in my school, but every time I went to talk to her, I just sounded like Scooby-Doo. So I just sort of avoided her.
A year and a half later, she had a change of heart and decided she quite liked me. I was all over it like a rash — I didn’t want to miss that opportunity. But when I asked her out, I still sounded like Scooby-Doo. She didn’t understand me but laughed and said: ‘Yes, to whatever it is you just said.’
I’d like to sit down with the teenage me, have a pint and tell him to stick to his guns and trust his gut instinct.
When I was young I just wanted to cook, run a nice little pub in the country and have a nice wine cellar and good local beers. That’s all I dreamed of. The idea of five kids would scare the life out of the younger me. I only ever saw myself having two.
I’ve had a fast, mad life. If I could go back, I’d take more time to enjoy that time when we had no ties, no responsibilities and no baggage; those weekends when we could just be selfish and have a conversation without being interrupted a million times.
OLIVIA COLMAN: You have to eat — the dark moods will pass
The Oscar-winning actress of The Favourite and TV’s Broadchurch, 45, says:
Boys were my main preoccupation when I was 16. I was fairly successful with them, against the odds.
In a room full of girls, I’m not sure they would have pointed me out, but I always got on well with them and I think they thought I was fun to be with. I was low-maintenance and low-drama.
I was never very good at school and used to dread going. It never came easy for me; I always felt there must be something else.
Olivia Colman: ‘As I’ve grown up, I know when there’s a black fug coming and that it’ll pass. It would be nice to go back to those early fugs and tell my younger self: “You’ll be OK. This will pass. And you will be loved”‘
Then, at 16, I did my first school play — I was Jean Brodie in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie — and I immediately thought: ‘This is what I want to do. I don’t want to do anything else.’ And that was lucky, because I’m not qualified to do anything else.
I was a fairly jolly teenager, but even the most sane people go slightly nuts when their hormones are flying about.
There was a time when I had a problem with not eating and was struggling with body confidence. But I kept smiling at everyone. I had black clouds, and I still do.
As I’ve grown up, I know when there’s a black fug coming and that it’ll pass. It would be nice to go back to those early fugs and tell my younger self: ‘You’ll be OK. This will pass. And you will be loved. Don’t make any rash decisions in this moment. You can make the world work and have a brilliant time.’
I’m basically a pretty upbeat person. I always desperately wanted to be a mum. I wouldn’t tell my younger self about anything that will happen to her — if I told her she was going to achieve her dream, she’d stop trying.
I’ve always been in touch with my emotions; I’d be the one sobbing in the cinema. But when I had children, it took away my skin completely. So now, at the hint of feeling something, I’ll be crying on the bus. I have no armour at all.
Making Broadchurch for ITV, I couldn’t stop crying. It’s just awful, the idea that your children could go before you.
I’d have a scene and they’d say: ‘You’re not crying in this scene.’ And I’d think: ‘Yeah, right — good luck with that.’
OZZY OSBOURNE: Stop burgling houses
Ozzy Osbourne, former lead singer of heavy metal band Black Sabbath, 70, says:
I was a rebellious kid; I didn’t like commitment and I couldn’t hold a job down. I was always being yelled at by my mother for not bringing any money into the house. I was a bit of a drifter.
I left home but didn’t really have anywhere to go. I used to doss around on people’s couches. I was a bit of a social butterfly in a working-class environment.
I tried to find things I was good at. I tried burglary, but I was no good at that: it was less than three weeks before I got caught. Then I didn’t pay my fine and I got put in jail for a few weeks. That was a short, sharp lesson.
Ozzy Osbourne: ‘If I could live one day of my life again, it would be the day I got married to Sharon. I was off my face all day and didn’t make it to the bedroom suite. In the end, they found me face-down in the hotel corridor, unconscious. I’d like to go back to that day and end it by going to bed with my wife’
If my father hadn’t bought me a microphone when I was 18, I wouldn’t be here now.
He saw that I was really interested in music so he bought it for me, and it was shortly after that I met the guys who would become Black Sabbath. It was the fact that I had my own microphone and PA system that got me in the band.
Looking back, I feel very lucky. I’m 70 and I’ve had a great life. I still do stupid things, but I don’t get in my car drunk any more. The last time I got loaded I came back minus a Ferrari.
If I could live one day of my life again, it would be the day I got married to Sharon. I was off my face all day and didn’t make it to the bedroom suite.
In the end, they found me face-down in the hotel corridor, unconscious. I’d like to go back to that day and end it by going to bed with my wife.
ROD STEWART: You’re born to be a show-off
Sir Rod Stewart, 74, is one of the best-selling musicians of all time. The three-times-married father of eight says:
I’d left school by the time I was 16. My dad got me a job in Kentish Town working as a screen printer, printing wallpapers. But I was a very unhappy screen printer.
Around the same time, I lost my virginity, hence the song Maggie May, which is all about that. At 16, I was quite shy with women, believe it or not. I still am.
If you met the teenage Rod now, you’d probably think he was a cocky b*****d and that he liked himself too much.
Rod Stewart: ‘If I could go back to one moment in my life, it would probably be when I was in The Faces. I was driving towards Swiss Cottage in London, and the BBC came on and told me Maggie May was No 1. I turned the car round, went to my mum and dad’s council house in Highgate, walked through the door and told them. We all had a big hug and we all cried. Then I said: ‘Well, I’ve got to go now. I’m meeting some friends,’ and off I went’
The idea of being splashed all over the tabloids for years, that wouldn’t bother the young Rod — he’d love the thought of all that attention.
He was born to be a show-off. With a nose and haircut like that, there was nothing he could have been but a rock star.
If I could go back to one moment in my life, it would probably be when I was in The Faces.
I was driving an old Rolls-Royce and heading to Swiss Cottage in London, and the BBC came on and told me Maggie May was No 1. I turned the car round, went to my mum and dad’s council house in Highgate, walked through the door and told them.
We all had a big hug and we all cried. Then I said: ‘Well, I’ve got to go now. I’m meeting some friends,’ and off I went.
That was probably the most joyous moment I’ve ever had. But trust me, I’ve had many, many others.
Letter To My Younger Self, by Jane Graham, is published by Blink, £16.99. © Jane Graham. To order a copy for £13.49, call 01603 648155, or go to mailshop.co.uk. FREE delivery on all orders. Offer valid until November 26, 2019. All royalties from the book go to The Big Issue.