Monday, September 13, 2010

So damn beautiful .........

This is Potter.
Years ago I lead a team running a seven day a week club and we lived in the flat above.
At 10pm we kicked the teenagers out and welcomed the gang from the local pub and often stayed open until 2am.

Potter was one of the kids growing up with us.
My earliest memories of him was his continues stream of talking/asking/opinions/questions ......" Hey Wilson" he used to say ......... at the same time everyone else was talking of course ....

The visual Potter was a 15 year old with a Leather Jacket, eager to catch up to his older role models.
His hair was long and always hanging over and into his eyes. His eyes were full of puss. Really infected eye lids - the bacteria from his hair I guess.

I have an old cassette recording of an interview I did with him when he was 15/16. He had become a Christian and he was telling me all about the harassment he was experiencing in school and in the Y Club.
We were at Gwynfynydd in North Wales, a deserted Farm with out electricity, water or sanitation. We used to go there almost every month with a gang of kids of different ages. Massive memories - the isolation brought us all together as well as the stories of how someone had hanged himself in that bedroom upstairs, where we all slept, and that he still walks around the creaky floorboards at night............

As Potter was doing his interview there was abuse and heckling penetrating the sound. Unique indeed.
He later went of to work on a travelling Fun Fair - working on the waltzer!!
He joined the army, went to the Falklands during the war there and I have his letters which he wrote from the troop ship as they drew nearer to the conflict zone and his fears and his faith ....

He was a Royal Marine Commando and did the chomp over the island and eventually recaptured the town. Time passes ..............

We had moved to the East End of London working with young offenders in large quantity and their older brothers who had professionally qualified in the same industry - with their BMWs to prove it.
Then Potter turned up in his battered red Nissan. He came into the family home and slotted in with Joy and Ann, the Sheilas, eating his own meal and all their left-overs too.
He slept on the downstairs floor at nights and then had usually disappeared by morning.
This was his pattern - in and out of whatever Army work he was doing and in and out of the Family home.

Then came his extra time running up and down mountains with a rucksack full of bricks. He was in training for the SAS. He was determined to apply and be the fittest - and he was so fit as he would have to be to join the elite.
He did it. He pasted all his tests including the endurance and torture testing.

We saw him irregularly after that. But he returned to us at every break in his assignments. He visited the Club often and the local villains were keen to ask him questions and offered him great respect - even with his odd northern accent!
He told us some vivid stories from his camping experiences in harsh hot and cold conditions. Never about his missions.
One time we let him use our home when we were away for a week-end. He has a gang of SAS staying and our home was - let's say, a bit misused.

He came to Greenbelt. Talked about his faith with everyone. Argued. Struggled with the fact that God loved him.
He carried the Greenbelt takings to the Bank - a true armed guard. He met many of our friends. He loved the Sheilas.

When we went to live and work in Romford YMCA he again joined us, dropping in unexpected and fitting in with anything we were doing and eating.
We later moved from the second floor tower block to a Staff House in Romford.
Potter helped me to screw the wardrobes to the walls. I always remembered him, for eighteen years we lived there, every time the wardrobes wobbled when the doors opened.

He died.

We heard about it via a network of friends.
Natural causes it was said.
I don't believe it.
We will never know I guess?

7th October 1987
The south of England and London was devastated by a massive storm that stopped trains, blocked roads and became headline news for weeks.

Joy and me were not experiencing this in East London - we were in St Helens, Lancashire, at Potters funeral........

So sad to remember all this but he left a stamp on my soul.
We, the family, loved him, accepted him and I believe he loved us ........
So damn beautiful .............



PS Thanx to my mate Pea for sending me this photo this week ..........

PPS If anyone out there remembers Phil Potter - please send me a few words so I can post it on my blog. We will remember him ..........