Tales of Peter Potter

Author: 
Hugh Gunter Frostick
ISBN: 
9780995793804
Published: 
16 May 2017
List price: 
£12.99 (But special offer available from this site).
Attributes: 
Paperback, 294 pages with 75 black and white illustrations and 6 maps. Laminated full colour cover. Dimensions approx 212mm x 148mm x 18mm, 470g
Availability: 

First Edition published 16th May 2017. RRP £12.99. Available here for only £11.00 including postage to UK, signed by Hugh. Also very limited stock signed by the late Peter - please enquire.

Synopsis: 

Cover - Tales of Peter Potter as told to Hugh FrostickPeter Louis Potter shares his eventful life from “clodhopper to cloud-topper and fire-stopper”. His revealing and sometimes risqué tales range from Essex farming and village life, wartime service on Lancaster bombers, working in a mental asylum, and as a fireman in Colchester.

Never short of an idea for a laugh or an adventure, and often bending the rules, Peter gives a wonderful feel for how he and his family lived and worked at Fobbing on the Essex marshes and the industrialised Thames, and farming near Colchester at Easthorpe, Fingringhoe and Mersea Island.

When war came, Peter ran away from home to volunteer for RAF Bomber Command, leading to many exciting episodes in Churchill’s Secret Army and as a Lancaster rear gunner.

Peter’s skill as a raconteur has been well captured by Hugh Frostick. This highly entertaining account gives a fascinating insight into life and war in the 20th Century.

Peter Potter now lives in Elmstead Market and is a regular attendee at Boxted Airfield Museum, where he was stationed just after the war, as part of RAF liaison to hand over the station from the USAAF.

Peter celebrated his 93nd birthday on 30th May 2018! Click here for a picture of him taken a few weeks before, with his Legion d'Honneur award.

UPDATE: Sadly Peter passed away in October 2019, aged 94.

Chapters: 
  1. Shattered
  2. A childhood on the marshes
  3. Work and play around Fobbing
  4. School days
  5. Farming ways
  6. My pets and other animals
  7. A real farm at Easthorpe
  8. Taking to the skies
  9. Back to the marshes at Fingringhoe
  10. The Connie Kent mystery
  11. Running away from home
  12. The Home Guard
  13. Our part in Churchill's Secret Army
  14. RAF call up and training
  15. My Air Crew and Lancaster bombers
  16. 626 Squadron at RAF Wickenby
  17. Some operational procedures
  18. Our Erks and Lancs
  19. My Tour of Operations
  20. Crew disbandment and extended leave
  21. Flying Control duties
  22. RAF Boxted to demob
  23. On two wheels and four
  24. Nursing - giving something back
  25. From birds and bees to marriage
  26. Marooned by mud on Mersea Island
  27. American friends and police attention
  28. Hard winters and the 1953 floods
  29. Putting out fires
  30. An obsession with pigeons
  31. From entrepreneurship into retirement
  32. Whatever happened to...?

Appendix: List of 626 Squadron Ops