Cut Meghan Markle some slack - she's allowed to be unhappy

Go on, admit it. However fortunate you feel, in general. Even if, most of the time, you’re fully and contentedly committed to what you do and try your hardest to do it well, there’ll have been occasions when you’ve been utterly fed up. Right?

That’s the way jobs are. It’s the way life is. Money doesn’t figure. Privilege and position are neither here nor there. Some days – weeks or months, maybe – will be close to miserable.

When you’re looking for recognition for performing well – or at least trying hard to be your best – and keep receiving tediously repeated negativity and irrelevant criticism instead, you’re entitled to feel a bit peed off.

Which is why I’m happy to cut Meghan Markle some slack. She is clearly deep into one of those cheesed off, down in the mouth phases. And now she’s under attack for saying so.

Not that it matters much to me. Meghan’s moods, be they up or down, will never touch my sides. Her life, she having married recently into a family which, let’s face it, is pretty weird, touches mine in no directly personal way whatsoever.

But in an extraordinary outpouring of venom against a young woman who, led in a scripted TV interview to admit she was struggling with her new life, touches us all. If she can be targeted with poisoned darts so readily, perhaps any of us could.

She’d anticipated media scrutiny when she married, she said. Her friends had warned her about the particular character of some sections of the British tabloid press. But she’d expected it to be fair. Less cruel in other words.

Big mistake, that. Huge. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.

“But it does matter! She made her bed, she should lie in it,” an angry friend argued. “She’s a royal, for goodness sake. She should get on with the job and stop whining. Our taxes pay for her!”

“You’re a teacher,” I replied. “Our taxes pay you too. Aren’t you and she both deserving of fair treatment?”

I’m a snowflake, apparently. Still not entirely sure what that means – and she couldn’t or wouldn’t go into detail. But that’s what I am. Could be worse, I suppose.

It has long been the case that anyone with the temerity to peep over the parapet sets themselves up to be shot at. It goes with the territory. If you value a safely quiet life, keep your head down and say nowt... and no peeping.

You’ll still have bad times, though. Lousy days are necessary to let us know what truly good ones are like. Perhaps the lesson the Duchess of Sussex has taught is that, when you’re asked if you’re OK, you should cheerfully insist that you are – even when you’re not. But doesn’t that go against current wisdom?

It’s not only royals, politicians, high profiled public servants and the very rich who can expect flak. It comes uninvited, usually when you’re trying to do your best in a job – or life – the spin-offs from which you’re pretty sure you’d never knowingly signed up for.

I’m not sure why I’m surprised at how quickly so many millions have bought into hateful media hysteria about a woman most will never meet, never mind take tea or spend a holiday with.

We’ve seen it all before, when another struggling royal dared to show her scars; when one part of that dysfunctional family was set against another in a frenzied popularity contest. It could be I thought lessons had been learned. Snowflakes tend to do that.

So, I’m cutting her some slack – Meghan, that is. The reasons being that she has beggar all to do with me and I’m hoping she gets the hang of the new job soon. Because no one like to see another person struggle. Apart from those who do.

It’s all hyped nonsense anyway. Nobody died... oh wait. Someone did. But that was a long time ago and muck-raking tabloid folk know better now. It could never happen again.

Could it...?