REGRET S? WE’VE HAD A FEW!

Turning down a millionaire. Wasting youth on unsuitable men. Rejecting TV stardom. As it’s revealed we all have four great regrets in our lives, our brilliant writers dare to confess theirs...

EDITH PIAF proudly sang ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’ — but when it comes to selfdoubt, most of us are more like Frank Sinatra, who famously crooned: ‘Regrets, I’ve had a few.’

In fact, a recent study suggests we all have four big regrets on average, those faux pas that still wake us up in the night years later and bad decisions that make us kick ourselves thinking of what might have been.

The poll of 2,000 adults found affairs, cruelty to loved ones, choosing the wrong job and breaking the law were the most common mistakes. So, what do Femail writers truly regret?

SO SILLY TO GIVE JUDO THE CHOP . . . AND NOT SAIL THE ATLANTIC SOLO LIBBY PURVES, broadcaster

MY FOUR greatest regrets are these: 1) giving up judo. I loved it at school, was tipped to get a brown belt or even a black one, and gloriously brought down the Terrifying Big girl Of Tunbridge Wells grammar with a crafty hip-throw in a school match. If only I’d kept it up at university. Hajime!! 2) Wasting three years of youth and really very adequate looks in unrequited passions — for men who were either gay, or who were stupidly in love with annoying trollops. On the other hand, I got a great husband eventually. 3) Constantly having sensible, convenient haircuts, when I could have had long swishy hair and learned to do grown-up stuff like French plaits and up-dos. Or peered through my fringe in the manner of Princess Diana. 4) Being too chicken to sail singlehanded across the Atlantic when given the chance. I went with an annoying skipper and his wife instead, so didn’t appreciate the flying fish nearly as much as I should.

WISECRACK CAME BACK TO BITE ME BRIAN VINER, Mail film critic

IF THE average person drops four massive clangers in their lifetime, then I don’t mind admitting to being pretty average.

What counts as ‘major’, though? I have loving relationships with my wife and three healthy children. I enjoy my work and have a nice home. So far, so good.

But if I dig deeper, clangers start to crystallise. Some years ago, in two separate episodes, I allowed two men in my life — one in a professional sense, one in a personal capacity — to treat me very badly.

Actually, they were so unpleasant that I don’t think I could have avoided getting hurt entirely. But I should have challenged them much more robustly. Failing to do so made me think less of myself.

It was also a big mistake not to spend more time with my dad. He died suddenly when I was 14, an age when I was far more interested in hanging out with my friends. It took me years to come to terms with that.

And I have never subscribed to the theory that the biggest regrets are things we didn’t do. Things we actually did, and shouldn’t have, can sting far worse.

As a callow journalist, I once reviewed a play and made a cheap crack at the expense of a young actress, purely in pursuit of a laugh. Years later, she wrote that she was still haunted by that line.

More and more, I think the really whopping mistakes are those which cause pain to others.

JUST ONE MORE DAY WITH MY CHILDREN SARAH VINE, Mail columnist

I’VE made so many mistakes in my life, it’s hard to know which to select. The first, I guess, is not spending more time with my children when they were small.

Like many women, I went back to work after six months maternity leave with both of them. It wasn’t just that we needed the money (although we did); it was also that I was restless.

Having worked all my adult life, I found motherhood difficult and, if I’m honest, rather discombolulating. I didn’t have the confidence, either as a parent or as an individual, to really embrace parenthood.

I did my best; but if I were doing it now, I would do it so much better. In fact, if I could have any one wish it would be to have one more day with them aged, say, five and six. I would relish every nanosecond.

My second is a more practical one: selling the tiny ex-council flat I bought in the Nineties following a disastrous relationship break-up.

At the time it felt like the right thing to do, but in hindsight it was a deeply stupid decision, and it left me disastrously out of pocket. It was also an important lesson in life though: never make life-changing decisions with a broken heart.

Lastly, I wish I had listened more to my father. He is a very difficult and on occasion impossible man, but as I enter my 50s and he enters his 70s, I realise more and more that so much of what he tried to teach me when I was too young and too arrogant to understand was actually pretty spot-on.

If I had heeded his advice more often instead of thinking I knew it all, I would have saved myself a lot of unnecessary aggravation.

I SHOULD HAVE SAID ‘YES’ TO BRANSON MAEVE HARAN, novelist

1. Always wanting to be thinner. I’ve been on every diet known to woman — the egg diet, the low-fat diet, the high-fat diet, the banana-only diet, the champagne diet (I enjoyed that one).

I was never seriously overweight — just seriously obsessed by an unattainable image. But the happy ending to this story is that not being thin means that you don’t get wrinkles! Who knew?

2. Turning down Richard Branson. No, not like that! When I was 18 he offered me a job at Student Magazine, which he had just founded. It was the strangest interview I have ever had. Branson, in a holey old jumper and pink NHS specs held together with Elastoplast, fired questions at me while an assistant wandered in and announced she had Jean-Paul Sartre on the phone.

It was like a Monty Python sketch. Idiot that I was — and to be honest a bit overwhelmed — I said no and regretted it for years. 3. Which leads on to . . . saying no rather than yes. I think this is a female thing, but I have this instinct when asked to do challenging things to assume that I’m not qualified.

For instance, I was asked to deliver a prestigious lecture at an Oxford College and immediately thought: ‘Oh no, I couldn’t do that!’ I suspect a man would have said yes and to hell with being qualified. After many years of this mistake, I’ve finally learned to just say yes — and doing so feels very exciting. 4. Delaying my dreams. For years as I built a career in TV, I secretly longed to write. When I finally quit to become a writer, my colleagues all said I was mad — but 19 novels later, how I wish I’d done it sooner. And yes, they’re all jealous now!

I COULD HAVE BEEN A NEW BEETHOVEN VIRGINIA IRONSIDE, agony aunt

REgRETS like to torment me in the early hours of the morning, perching on my shoulder like horrible goblins around 4am. ‘Why did you waste so much of your time obsessing over unsuitable men,’ they cackle, ‘when you could have been studying philosophy or doing something useful?’

It’s true. I spent far too long pining over men who I thought were cool and who were, in fact, as damaged as I was. Linked to that is the countless hours — and cash — I spent on useless therapists.

In the Seventies and Eighties many were untrained and, though they thought they were doing good, actually did untold harm that has taken me a long time to get over.

There’s the usual materialistic regret, of course. I could have bought a lovely house on a communal square in Notting Hill gate for a song, and would now be

a multi-millionaire as a result, but I was too nervous about spending the money.

And if only I’d stuck with learning the piano! I was taught by an Austrian refugee who’d been taught by someone who’d been taught by someone who’d been taught by Beethoven. But, bored with practising, I gave it up after Grade Six.

And finally, my biggest regret of all is not spending more time with my grandparents when they were older. I loved them dearly and they gave me an affinity for the countryside and an ability to make people laugh, as well as endless fun and kindness.

Yet when they were ill and lonely, I was too busy and wrapped up in myself to give them any more than cursory phone calls or the rarest of visits. Oh, goblins! Go away!

A (SMALL) DEGREE OF RESENTMENT SANDRA HOWARD, model and novelist

HIGH on my list of regrets is having turned down the chance to go to university. My parents, husband and three children all went, and they all have more confidence, are betterinformed and more rounded people — not to mention quicker at Trivial Pursuit.

I didn’t go because of a push to try to be a model, and I had some fantastic experiences as a result. But I’ve never lost the chip (more of a large notch, really) on my shoulder over that great missed opportunity. Modelling could have come later.

Another huge regret, to this day, is the time I got completely, hysterically furious with our then seven-year-old son, accusing him of hiding his sister’s shoe while we were on holiday.

She only had one pair with her, we were in the middle of nowhere, and she had to travel home in her socks. ‘What must I say to make you believe me?’ the poor boy wailed as I raged at him. The shoe turned up a week later; the cleaner had accidentally taken it home.

Then there’s my stammer. I’ve always had it but hated elocution lessons, so always dodged the hard work of curing it. When at 50 I finally got stuck in and went to the Michael Palin Stammering Centre I had a lovely tutor who tried very hard — but eventually confessed that I was her only failure.

Worst of all, though, is the memory of all the times I went hell for leather at my poor darling mother. She was so kind and unassuming, and I would take out my every frustration on her. I never felt I made enough amends.

If only we had our time again — in so many ways.

OUR RURAL IDYLL WENT WEST . . . SHONA SIBARY, writer and mother of four

I’D DEARLY love to channel a bit of Edith Piaf when it comes to my more monumental mistakes. But however dismissively Gallic and unapologetic you may act, the harsh truth is that a single mistake can change your life irrevocably.

Take moving to a West Country backwater in 2013, dreaming of a ‘simple life’ by the sea. What the hell was I thinking?

Our oldest child promptly dropped out of school and made friends with local drug dealers, and my husband and I nearly divorced in the process of stopping our family going to pieces. It has taken huge upheaval to reverse our decision, and I still can’t stop apologising to everyone for the fiasco.

Next on the list, in no particular order of magnitude, was falling out with my father over his decision to marry a woman much younger than both of us.

I was extremely vocal and public in my criticism — something he has never forgiven me for, and for which I have never forgiven myself because if I had kept quiet we might be speaking today.

Next up, dropping out of my degree. It hasn’t really affected my career, but I wish I had spent another two lovely years immersing myself in English literature and cheap beer, rather than working in a string of pointless jobs before finally finding my feet.

Last, but very definitely not least, I made a mistake working through the early years of my children’s lives. It seemed somehow crucial then, and I believed I could make up for lost time later.

But here’s a fact: my teenagers don’t care a jot about my nostalgia, and don’t want to spent time with me. So that ship has sailed, and I dearly regret not savouring every moment with them.

ROLE THAT BROKE MY ACTING SPELL OLIVIA FANE, novelist

I STILL don’t know whether the major regret in my life is actually a regret — or a relief. From the age of ten all I wanted to do was act. I had an encouraging aunt who knew famous actors such as Sir John Gielgud, and was always taking me backstage.

At 16, she took me to a bra fitting and explained in a very matronly way that I should be prepared for the ‘casting couch’ — this was in 1976. It was as though she was telling a newly qualified nurse that she’d have to work nights.

Astonishingly, looking back, I took it all in my stride. But perhaps I was just too young to really understand.

But then I failed my very first audition. Next, and worse, I was cast as a witch. My vanity just couldn’t bear it and I decided in a strop that I’d never be a real actress and threw in the towel. Foolish — but I may have saved myself from what can be a pretty unpleasant industry.

My second regret is turning down a job on breakfast TV because I hated getting up early. I trained as a social worker instead. My mother regretted that one even more than I did!

Then there’s the time I was invited on board a yacht by a minor celebrity, who I had a crush on. He was married, but had been in the Press for some infidelity or other.

We were sailing in the moonlight and I suddenly said to him, ‘kiss me!’ He looked at me as though I was mad. I blushed for about two years.

My final regret is easily the most painful. I don’t regret my first marriage, not one bit — I loved my husband and we had three sons together.

But when I was falling in love with my second, I was suddenly struck by how awful it was that my new partner wasn’t my children’s father.

‘Why is this all so mixed up and wrong?,’ I tormented myself. You never realise quite how special a family is until you lose it.