大象传媒

This story is taken from an interview with Major John Potter, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interview and transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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Originally from England, but we came to NI about 1930-31 when my father was made Bursar at Campbell College. [I was] about 5.
[15 when the war started]
We lived in Holywood in those days. One of the things I particularly, I remember listening to the Chamberlain broadcast on the 3rd of September. And we had a nanny in those days, and I remember my nanny saying 鈥淒on鈥檛 go far away, because the Germans might be here at any moment鈥�. And I remember the barrage balloons going up all over Belfast. And I remember the dear old ladies who lived next door to us asking 鈥渉ow on earth did they get the rope so stiff to get the barrage balloons up?鈥� They thought it was a sort of Indian rope trick!

But I was, all that time I was at school in England. And my first experience of the war was after the second blitz on Belfast, which was May 1941. We had to travel up to Belfast, catch a boat to England. 3 days after the blitz we were walking around Belfast, which was still burning, and the firemen were still spraying their hoses. We walked all round this area [Belfast Central Library], by the cathedral, Hill St, Talbot Street. Terrible, absolutely terrible. To find places which you鈥檇 known all your life had suddenly disappeared was awful.

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