Anne Atkins is a novelist, broadcaster and journalist. She is the author of three novels, The Lost Child, On Our Own, and A Fine and Private Place, and is a regular contributor to the radio feature Thought for the Day on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Anne Atkins was born in 1956 at Bryanston, Dorset, and moved to Cambridge at the age of three when her father became headmaster of King's College School. She went to Byron House School, the Cambridgeshire High School for Girls and the Perse School for Girls. After school, she went to the Decroux School of Mime in Paris and studied harp under Solonge Renie. She studied English Language and Literature at Brasenose College, Oxford, and then trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
She started her acting career at St George’s Shakespeare Theatre in Tufnell Park. Her career moved increasingly into writing until her last theatre appearance at the National Theatre in 1991.
The Lost Child is based on a true story, in which a family makes a decision one summer which haunts five-year-old Sandy into adulthood. Interwoven with the history of Cassandra, sooth-saying daughter of Priam King of Troy, The Lost Child was described by The Sunday Times as “ambitious and very readable”, and in The Telegraph, “the perceptions of childhood are excellent.”
On Our Own is its sequel: a murder mystery set in Cambridge, featuring a ten-year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome and his violinist mother. It examines issues around domestic violence; just as A Fine and Private Place, also a murder mystery set in and around Cambridge, tackles child abuse.
Anne Atkins is an Anglican and is a regular contributor to the radio feature "Thought for the Day" on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. One of her contributions on this programme reputedly had the distinction of prompting the first ever complaint to the BBC from the Church of England Press Office . She was The Daily Telegraph’s first agony aunt (1996—2000), and also writes for The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Mail, The Evening Standard, Country Life, and The Express, in which she has a weekly column about raising children.
She presented The Agony Hour series for Channel 5; Watch Your ****ing Language for Channel 4; Why People Hate Christians for BBC Radio 4; and frequently comments on programmes such as Question Time, Any Questions? and the Today programme.
Her contributions to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day have sometimes been controversial. She raised the question, for instance, as to whether religious self-righteousness could be considered a worse sin than paedophilia and also questioned the efficacy of psychotherapy.
In November 2007 she defended a motion for Free Speech on BBC2's Newsnight, when the Oxford Union invited extreme right-wing figures David Irving and Nick Griffin to speak: "When you say that the majority view is always right I think that is a deeply dangerous and disturbing thing to say. I am not for a moment saying that I agree with David Irving or Nick Griffin but I am saying that once you start having truth by democracy you risk silencing some of the most important prophets we have ever had."
In 1996 she used her slot on Radio 4's Thought for the Day to attack Anglican bishops for supporting a celebration in Southwark Cathedral marking 20 years of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement. Her opinions prompted the Church of England's first ever complaint about the programme.
In 1998 the Press Complaints Commission ruled that an article written by her in The Sun objecting to Government proposals to make the age of consent for homosexuals equal to that for heterosexuals broke the industry's Code of Conduct. In the article she stated that "this is not opinion: it is fact. The life expectancy of a gay man without HIV is a shocking 43 years" and "a gay man is, alarmingly, 17 times more likely to be a paedophile than a straight man". The PCC ruled that these were not proven facts and that she had been misleading the readers. The Sun apologised.
In September 2008, Atkins caused offence on BBC Radio 4 after making an attempted stereotypical joke about the people of Norfolk. There was a discussion about the "compensation" culture. She said "No more chestnut trees lining the streets of Norwich, in case the conkers fall on your head - as if that would make a difference, in Norfolk." Soon after complaints poured into the BBC by telephone and email. Atkins then went on a BBC Radio Norfolk phone-in to try and defend herself but did not have much luck. The radio station was overrun with telephone calls due to the people of Norfolk not finding her joke very funny. However, Atkins insisted she had cleared the "joke" with a BBC producer prior to the broadcast, and states that she will not apologise over the incident because the remark was only intended as a joke. She said "I find it sad that we seem to have such a dearth of humour, but I can't say I've lost any sleep over this." She further said "I was trying to demonstrate how we don't like to be too politically correct, thinking that Norfolk people have a sense of humour. Obviously the people who have complained have too much time on their hands."
