When I visited my mother in Bishops Cleeve in April 2009, she showed me an obituary notice in 'The Gloucestershire Echo" of Friday April 3rd 2009, reading: "JOAN POTTER - passed away peacefully on 24th March 2009 at Orchard House Nursing Home, Bishops Cleeve, aged 88 years. Her funeral service was held at Bishops Cleeve Methodist Church on Thursday 9th April at 2.00 pm. Joan was the widow of Bill Potter who died twelve years earlier in 1997. This small selection of photographs, most of which had been taken by Bill, is intended as a tribute to a friend who is now sadly missed by all who knew her. She loved travelling, writing poetry and drawing and painting scenes from nature and I have many poems that she sent to me along with the many letters she wrote to me over the years. She lived with Bill in a house in Meadoway Bishops Cleeve and continued to live there for several years after his passing, but unfortunately after suffering a series of falls at home she had to be admitted to Orchard House Nursing Home in Bishops Cleeve where she was cared for until her passing. This tribute is posted here in the hope that it may remind others who knew her that she was a kind soul who does not deserve to be forgotten.

These are some pictures which have kindy been contributed by Geoff Sanders who is a member of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway.

Michael Mensing very kindly provided me with several colour prints of the Honeybourne Line. There are four views at Winchcombe, three in the Hunting Butts area near Cheltenham Race Course and one at Honeybourne Junction.

Bill Potter was born in Manchester in 1911 and during the latter half of the 1920s he served an apprenticeship at the firm of Beyer Peacock. In the early 1930s he worked as a boilersmith for Beyers, however, the firm had to cut back on their workforce and he was made redundant. Fortunately he was able to find further employment with the Clock and Watch Division of Smiths Industries in Manchester. After the War he was relocated by Smiths Industries to a new factory they had opened near Bishops Cleeve in Gloucestershire where he worked until his retirement in 1976. His interest in railway photography began in the 1930s and his collection of black and white photographs eventually covered a span of sixty five years. However, it was not until the 1950s that he started taking colour transparencies and so the greater part of the Bill Potter Collection consists of black and white negatives. I knew both Bill and Joan Potter personally for a number of years as they lived in a house next door to my brother Pete, in Meadoway, Bishops Cleeve and whenever I visited my family there, I would always pop in and spend an evening with Bill talking about the railways of yesteryear. Bill would always pull out a tray of slides or prints for me to look at and I was always amazed by the quality of his pictures and of the wide variety of subject matter that had accrued from his illustrious photographic career. Following his tragic death in 1997, his remarkable collection of slides and photographic negatives was, eventually, transferred to the Kidderminster Railway Museum. In accordance with Bill’s last wishes, the collection is now available for inspection by researchers, historians and enthusiasts and, following Mrs Potter’s instructions, the Trustees at Kidderminster Railway Museum have adopted an open access policy regarding those items of the collection which, so far, have been fully, listed, collated and catalogued. This lengthy and time consuming task is being undertaken by a specialist team of volunteers at Kidderminster Railway Museum, currently (2008) under the supervision of David Postle and Audie Baker. With respect to the profusion of Bill Potter material which is shown in this gallery, I am grateful to Mrs Potter for having allowed me access to the collection in order to obtain copy prints of black and white photographs and to have duplicate colour slides made from the originals which have since been transferred to the safe custody of the Kidderminster Railway Museum. I am also grateful to Mrs Potter for the many letters she has sent me over the years and for granting me permission to use this material in my public slide show presentations and here, in this fotopic gallery.