Friday 20 May 2022 10:19 PM The cancelled arts lecturer who dared to use the phrase 'the dreaded Meghan' in ... trends now

When Dr Anne Anderson sat at her computer on a March evening last year to host one of her usually well-received lectures, she was relieved to see that about 50 people had signed up for her online chat on Scandinavian design.

Her previous talk, delivered in conjunction with the Arts Society, had been a different story: with the nation gripped by the broadcast interview given by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to chat show host Oprah Winfrey, in which they accused the Royal Family of racism and wrongdoing, Anne had struggled to attract double figures.

With that in mind, 65-year-old Anne cracked a joke, saying that she hoped attendance would be better now she didn't have to compete with the 'dreaded Meghan'.

It was the start of a brief, good-natured exchange with subscribers in which the academic observed that 'you couldn't turn the television on without some person of a colourful' (by which she meant excitable) 'disposition having a moan about something'.

It didn't seem to Anne that anyone was upset by this view at the time.

'The interesting thing was that people seemed to agree with me. I remember one woman said she was terribly disappointed in the whole affair, and someone else was critical of the Sussexes making their claims when people were suffering such a lot because of the pandemic,' Anne recalls now.

Not quite everyone, though. One lady in particular — a white, middle-aged woman — reported Anne to the Arts Society, telling them she considered her comment to be 'racist'. The first Anne heard of it was when she received a brusque email two days later, telling her she had been suspended for using 'non-inclusive' language.

It was the start of a chilling few months which culminated in Anne's 27-year-long status as an accredited lecturer for the organisation being removed on the basis that she was a 'risk'.

As a result, she has lost three-quarters of her income and endured many sleepless nights replaying the events of that fateful evening over and over. At one point, she was also facing the possibility that she had cancer.

'It was enormously stressful and upsetting,' she says.

All this, even though she immediately offered to apologise if she had unwittingly caused offence.

Certainly, many people will struggle to see this as anything but another damning insight into the way cancel culture has penetrated every element of British life — although Anne also has a simpler take on it.

'It feels like bullying,' she says. 'At no point has it felt like the society wanted to really understand my point of view. It felt like they had already decided I was guilty from the beginning. But guilty of what? Even they ultimately admitted I had not made a racist comment but still ruled it to be inappropriate. I am not sure that definition would stand up in a court of law, but it has been enough to decimate my career.'

It is one reason why Anne has decided to launch legal action claiming breach of contract. For even if you believe her turn of phrase was ill-advised, it surely doesn't justify what unfolded next.

'I realised enough was enough and I need to fight back,' she says. 'It is the principle as much as anything. I never once could have imagined myself in this situation, but sometimes you must stand up for yourself. If it can happen to me, then I feel this could happen to anyone.'

Quite.

An archaeology graduate from Eastleigh, Hampshire, mother-of-two Anne has spent most of her adult life navigating the genteel waters of the lecture circuit, specialising in ceramics and furniture.

Along with Scott, her husband of 44 years and an academic whom she met as a fellow student, she has enjoyed a successful career, lecturing first at evening classes, then subsequently as a full-time lecturer in antiques evaluation at Southampton Solent University.

During that time she studied for a PhD at Exeter University, where she was awarded an honorary professorship because of her extensive research and publications.

Throughout, Anne also often gave talks for local branches of the Arts Society, a non-profit organisation that promotes interest in all forms of the arts.

It was a regular source of income that became more vital after Anne was made redundant by Southampton Solent in 2007, aged 51.

As for many of us, the advent of the pandemic meant she had to pivot her work onto Zoom — which brings us to that fateful evening of Wednesday, March 10, 2021, when she gave her talk on Scandinavian design (labelled 'How We Got Ikea' to pique people's interest).

With official 'kick-off' at 7.30pm, Anne logged on to her laptop at about 7pm and found several people already waiting.

'I knew around 50 people had enrolled, of whom I could see ten or so on my screen,' she recalls. 'I didn't know any of them but we started chatting about family life and Covid, which were the primary topics of the time.'

That and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, whose 'tell-all' interview had generated worldwide media coverage. The talking point of the moment, it was hard not to speak about it, Anne says.

'After joking about attendance, I remember saying something about the fact that I didn't think Meghan had much to complain of in the Californian sunshine.'

She then made her 'colourful' comment, which she insists has been grossly misinterpreted. 'It wasn't targeted at Meghan or anyone in particular,' she insists. 'What I was upset about was that the television coverage had been incredibly heated and, in my view, unquestioning of their claim that the British were racist.'

It seems many of the audience agreed: Anne recalls how one said she had switched channels to watch a repeat of the quiz show Would I Lie To You?

'People burst out laughing and I asked whether that was her judgment on the interview,' says Anne. And that was that, or so she thought. After the lecture, Anne switched off her camera at 8.30pm with no idea that anything was amiss.

Two days later, however, everything changed.

'Around 5.45pm on Friday evening, I got an email from the education officer at the Arts Society telling me I had been suspended due to a complaint for using non-inclusive language,' Anne says. 'She demanded that I hand over a copy of my recording of the lecture. I was in shock, to be quite honest.

'I'd worked for them for 27 years but there hadn't been one attempt to contact me to hear my

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