Paul Potts

Paul Potts 1970 - contact sheet

John Deakin

Paul Potts 1986

Christopher Barker

Writer & Poet

By Fiona Green

Paul was an extraordinary man.A rare combination of man of the street & an eccentric member of the gentry.

Canadian by birth, but Irish by background, he was published by MacGibbon & Kee & later he moved - in loyalty with Martin Green & Tim  - to their small imprint "Martin Brian & O'Keeffe " near the British Museum, where they continued a happy partnership. Paul lived in real poverty in Islington funded by well wishers.He was a quiet,gentle man of some stature, & he loved women & children to a romantic degree. He drank in the pubs of Soho & Fitzrovia, but he had lived on Jura with the George & Sonja Orwell for years in rural bliss. Paul became a family friend & spent part of most weeks with us up till he became unable to leave his flat

His books, with their wonderful titles : "A Poet's Testament", "Instead of a Sonnet", "Dante Called You Beatrice","Invitation to a Sacrament" & "To Keep a Promise"  were all pure poetry & praised by his peers : Barker, T.S Eliot, MacDiarmid, O'Casey, Orwell, Spender & Dylan Thomas

He died tragically in a fire in his council flat in 1990