My father, Tony Potter, who has died aged 88, greatly enjoyed his working life as a scientist, but also had a hinterland as a church singer and as a supporter of charities for blind and partially sighted people.
Born in Ilford to Jack, an art dealer and a printer, and Mildred (nee Cox), a housewife, Tony was brought up in Croydon, south London, where he spent his teenage years living through the heavy bombing of the second world war. After Selhurst grammar school he qualified in chemistry through painstaking evening study at Chelsea Polytechnic in London. He then joined the laboratory of Dr Bernard Dyer & Partners in 1953 and worked for the company as a public analyst, specialising in food safety, until his retirement in 1998.
A fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry (now the RSC), he absolutely loved his job, and our childhood was full of scientific chat and related paraphernalia: starched white lab coats delivered to the front door for him every week and chromatography and copper sulphate crystal kits that he brought home with him.
Music – mostly classical – was his other passion, and later in life he became a singer, which gave him great pleasure. It all started with my sister, Frances, persuading him to join the local church choir, and by the mid-90s he was with two other groups, including the Thursday singers at Southwark Cathedral in south London. He sang complicated bass parts, could sight-read, and knew many scores off by heart. A lover of the arts in general, he was also a linguist, and could speak French, German and Italian.
Tony was a Catholic, but showed respect for all religious beliefs – and none – and maintained an internationalist perspective. Throughout his life he was generous towards charities, especially those supporting the blind and partially sighted. I remember, as a child, being lulled to sleep by the sound of him downstairs recording books on economic and social theory for blind students. Right up until last year he was producing a regular audio magazine podcast at home for Croydon Vision, giving the lie to the idea that digital media belongs only to the young.
Tony was married to Bernie (nee McManus) in 1960 after they had met on a plane while travelling to Rome on a pilgrimage. She died in 1990. He is survived by Frances and me, and by four grandchildren.
