Agony aunt Sally Brampton dies after long battle with depression

Novelist and agony aunt Sally Brampton, who wrote candidly about her clinical depression, has died at the age of 60.

Her body was reportedly spotted from a beach in Bexhill, Sussex, on Tuesday afternoon, and pulled ashore by a member of the public.

A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said: "An air ambulance landed on the beach, but sadly the woman was declared dead at the scene. There are not thought to be any suspicious circumstances."

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Brampton had studied fashion at Central St Martin's in London. She started writing for Vogue after winning a talent contest in 1979 and later became fashion editor at The Observer before helping set up British Elle, where she was editor-in-chief for five years.

She worked as a columnist and agony aunt for several national publications, including The Sunday Times, Daily Mail and Psychologies magazine, and her books included a non-fiction memoir of depression, Shoot the Damn Dog.

In 2003, she wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph about trying to kill herself the previous year after being diagnosed with clinical depression.

"For me, depression was a place – is still a place with which I now have (mercifully brief) encounters," she wrote. "The landscape is cold and black and empty. It is more terrifying and more horrible than anywhere I have ever been, even in my nightmares.

"It is an abyss, a black hole, a place where nothing thrives, where sound is muffled so as to be unintelligible, where vision is dimmed until it is like seeing through clouded glass."[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"content_original","fid":"94778","attributes":{"class":"media-image"}}]]

Fans paid tribute on Twitter to a "brave" woman who had helped them in times of need. "Her writing got me through such terribly dark times," wrote one, while others called her "a real inspiration".

Writer Tony Parsons said he was "choked" to hear she had died. "A great journalist, a lovely woman and as editor of Elle UK, she gave me work when I had none," he said.

Author Tammy Cohen said Brampton was a "brave journalist and human being", while Lorraine Candy, Elle's current editor-in-chief, said her team were mourning the loss of a "free-thinking, ground-breaking woman who will always be part of magazine history".