Wilfred grew up in an all female household consisting of  his mother and  his grandmother Bessie Bonfield, who is said to have ruled the roost. He told my husband John and me  that his father, Ernest Potter , who was the tenant at Thorncombe Farm,  lived separately from his wife and child  on Granny Bonfield’s orders, and that as a child Wilfred  had to visit his father  in secret at his house on The Terrace  at  4 High Street. 

Bessie sold Worcester and the field behind it to Wilfred  for £450 in 1948 but  continued to live there for the rest of her life. Wilfred  is pictured here  with Mrs Bonfield, behind Worcester  in  Potter’s Field  as it is known locally,  He also told us that he was threatened  by his grandmother with disinheritance if he continued to court a Winsham girl who’d caught his eye.  As a child Wilfred was  also forbidden to play with local children, so his seems to have been a lonely childhood with only books for company. Wilfred’s  strict upbringing resulted in him often being all things to all men.

Unmarried and childless, his gentle nature brought out protective instincts particularly in women. But while he was always amenable  face to face, Wilfred might subsequently claim to others after a given event, usually involving an invitation which he always claimed he felt obliged to reluctantly accept, that he had been coerced into acting against his will, which could result in misunderstandings between neighbours springing to his defence. 

 During World War II,  Wilfred was in one of the tank regiments but  evidently not the most effective  of soldiers. One day  he  fell asleep while guarding a group of German prisoners , and narrowly missed being put on a charge, the prisoners waking him up  and handing him back his rifle just in time as his senior officer approached. 

   A great cricket enthusiast, animal lover, and pianist, often to be heard playing at night, Mr Potter was a keen choir member  throughout his life. Wilfred was also a classics graduate from Worcester College, Oxford,  hence the name of his house, and had a career as a Latin teacher at various schools in Sussex,  and in  the Cotswolds, returning to Worcester in the holidays,  before retiring to Thorncombe in the 1980s.

  A gentle shy and nervous  individual with lovely old-fashioned manners, doffing his hat as ladies approached,  Mr Potter was a familiar sight around Thorncombe,  during his latter years, dressed in worn belted gabardine rain coat tied round the middle with string, an old peaked hat  with ear flaps pulled down over his ears on cold days, riding to and from Chard to do his shopping on his ancient sit-up and beg bicycle or striding off purposefully  clutching his brolly across the fields for lunch at a distant farmstead. Car driving  neighbours would often pass him on his way back to Thorncombe, his handle bars hung with supermarket carrier bags, pushing his bike up the hills. It took a lot of persuasion to get Mr Potter to agree to allow the bags to be taken on ahead and he rarely  accepted offers of lifts no matter how awful the weather.

  Back at Worcester, he appeared to live on Heinz tinned soup which was lined up neatly on a wooden shelf above an old electric cooker, and next to  a rickety 1950s ‘kitchenette’ cupboard with glass sliding doors and drop down flap.  In his incredibly untidy kitchen, a snug country  bachelor cave, the table  was piled high with  torn envelopes, letters,  papers and books etc. The last time I saw Wilfred, he  was sitting on his wonky armchair in front of a very shiny halogen fire, reading Cicero in the original.

  Such was the local affection which he enjoyed it was inevitable that during his final illness, Wilfred  would be  looked after by a devoted  team of local friends and  neighbours enabling him to stay in his beloved Worcester almost up to the end of his life. There was standing room only at Wilfred Potter’s  funeral which filled  the  parish church. It seemed as though all of Thorncombe had turned out to say goodbye.  Buried in the same grave as his father in St Mary’s overflow churchyard, father and son are finally  reunited.

 These photos were among those  found in  Wilfred’s house after he died and given to his cousin Marina Atyeo who has kindly given permission for them to be  reproduced here. If you have your own  memories of Wilfred to add to these recollections,  or would like to write a memoir about another Thorncombe resident , or  have photos of old Thorncombe you would like to share,  please contact Rachael Whitbread on (01460) 30525 or email her at  villagetrust@hotmail.co.uk .

 More Thorncombe village views from the Wilfred Potter’s  photo archive.

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Thorncombe Village Trust - caring for Thorncombe's environment