Tales of Peter Potter
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.
Peter 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.
- Shattered
- A childhood on the marshes
- Work and play around Fobbing
- School days
- Farming ways
- My pets and other animals
- A real farm at Easthorpe
- Taking to the skies
- Back to the marshes at Fingringhoe
- The Connie Kent mystery
- Running away from home
- The Home Guard
- Our part in Churchill's Secret Army
- RAF call up and training
- My Air Crew and Lancaster bombers
- 626 Squadron at RAF Wickenby
- Some operational procedures
- Our Erks and Lancs
- My Tour of Operations
- Crew disbandment and extended leave
- Flying Control duties
- RAF Boxted to demob
- On two wheels and four
- Nursing - giving something back
- From birds and bees to marriage
- Marooned by mud on Mersea Island
- American friends and police attention
- Hard winters and the 1953 floods
- Putting out fires
- An obsession with pigeons
- From entrepreneurship into retirement
- Whatever happened to...?
Appendix: List of 626 Squadron Ops