Joanna Lumley

Hold the Bolly, sweeties. The globetrotting actress and activist is happy whether she’s milking a camel or wearing an apron.

What Joanna Lumley would do if she could go back in time

What’s your greatest strength?

I never give up and I’m very deft at carrying terrifically heavy objects by leverage.

And your greatest weakness?

Losing interest in things in a nanosecond.

What scares you?

Polonecks, forgetting to say thank you, knowing plans too far in advance and drowning, although I can swim.

What’s your most treasured possession?

A drawing of my son, Jamie [Lumley’s only child, with photographer Michael Claydon], when he was 12 by the great artist John Ward. I have walls of paintings that I love and boxes of darling things and actually need a much bigger house, possibly a castle, to display them all.

What virtue do you most admire in people?

Awesome abilities like sightreading music, and baking, but above all tolerance and relentless good humour.

What’s one thing about you that would surprise people?

That I don’t drink very much and am nothing like Patsy [her iconic party-girl character from Absolutely Fabulous].

If you could do any other job, what would it be?

I’d like to teach English literature and poetry or do a job that requires wearing an apron. I love aprons!

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Watching the thrilling and appallingly addictive reality television show Don’t Tell the Bride.

What travel experience is on your bucket list?

I’d love to see Cuba before it’s ruined by being smartened up. Otherwise, I wish that my birthplace, Kashmir [in northern India], were at peace because I’d go there every year. It’s paradise.

What’s your idea of absolute happiness?

Reading a book while lying on the grass in the sunshine.

If you could turn back time, what would you change in your life?

I’d have continued playing the piano but my husband [conductor Stephen Barlow] plays like a dream and that’s enough for me.

What would you say is the most British thing about you?

I speak very “English” English, I’m polite and don’t mind queuing.

Where would we find you at a party?

In the kitchen, washing up. I hate parties and washing up gives me the chance to wear an apron, which I find soothing.

How do you switch off?

Either glazing over while watching television, walking in the hills in Scotland or decorating unwanted boxes that I then give to people to keep pencils in.

What’s your greatest achievement?

That, 26 years later, all the badly stitched curtains that I made for our London house are still hanging. And, of course, being part of the Gurkha Justice Campaign, which we won in 2009. [Her father served in the 6th Gurkha Rifles and she fought for the right of all veterans to settle in Britain.] That made me as happy and proud as anything on earth.

If you were an animal, what would it be?

A camel. I have ridden and milked them so they would welcome me.

If you could have dinner with two famous people, who would you choose?

Elvis Presley and William Shakespeare. We’d talk until dawn and I’d serve them delicious vegetarian food.

If you were down to your last $20, what would you spend it on?

I’d give it away immediately and then put on an apron and start offering to clean cars.

How would you like to be remembered?

Vaguely by friends and family… then faintly, then not at all. I shall slip my moorings and swoosh off downstream towards the open sea.