Ruby's "Black Dog"

Winston Churchill said:

"I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation."

Samuel Johnson wrote this to his biographer James Boswell:

"In the place where you are now, there is much to be observed... But what will you do to keep away the black dog that worries you at home? ... The great direction which Burton has left to men disordered like you, is this, Be not solitary; be not idle: which I would thus modify;- If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle."

The ‘Black Dog’ has been known to chase me. My best form of escape is to write about it. To distance myself further from his clutches I use the Pen Name ‘Ruby’.

SJA

Samaritans

UKDF

...also described as a potpourri of words