Phrase Finder

As lucky as Jack Risby

Posted by Gary Martin June 17, 2009 at 09:41In reply to As lucky as Jack Risby posted by Dick Parsons on June 17, 2009 at 09:37:

My mother and her family used the phrase "as lucky as Jack Risby", usually in response to a green-eyed comment like "so-and-so has got a new bike". Any ideas as to the origin?

I've not come across that one. There's no Risby listed in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, so Jack wasn't a prominent person in the UK.