the claims were only exposed as false after his death when he received an obituary in a local paper "the worthing herald", as well as in national papers "the express", "the mirror", and "the times", all of which accepted his story. "the times" subsequently retracted its obituary in a new article after doubt was thrown on the content in reader feedback. potter's son neil, an anglican priest and vicar of the church in camborne, cornwall, was quoted as saying "to the best of my brothers' and my sister's knowledge none of this ever happened ... he was too young to serve in the war. this was a claim he made up to impress his second wife and we cringed when we heard it. it is not the only thing he lied about."