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early 1950s. When my father bought “Oriana” Pilkington was already over 70 and he
‘retired’ to Hermanus where he remained until about 1956. In the interim he and his wife

celebrated their golden wedding on 6 January, 1954. (Fig. 4.2) Granny Pilkington died in
1956 at “Oriana” and shortly thereafter Pilkington came to live with us at “Oriana” and

then “The Ley”, where he died quietly in April 1958.

Pilkington the painter

Pilkington retired from the Civil Service in 1923, aged 45. He was already painting and had

been for some time – examples of his earlier work hang in the club house of the Royal Cape
Yacht Club in Cape Town. During this period he also painted a series of postcards dated

1904, illustrated a book called “at Moseti’s bidding - a tale of the Gcaleka War” by Telkin

Kerr, published in 1904, and wrote and illustrated a history book for children called “Tales
from South Africa’s History for the Little Ones”. I am not sure when this latter book was

published but it seems to have been in the period before 1923. The book ends with the

admonition to readers that “Today it does not matter whether your Mummies or Daddies
are British or Dutch, German or French: you are all little South Africans who play together

and later on will work together to make your country better and better.” Spot the omissions!
This book was translated into Afrikaans and published by the Afrikaanse Pers Beperk in

Pretoria, so I assume it was politically acceptable to both sides of the [white] political
spectrum. After leaving the Civil Service Pilkington tried his hand at cotton farming (very

unsuccesfully it seems), and then for a short while was a political organiser. Time obscures

the party for which he organised.

It could be argued that he had some painting in his veins as his father had been taught by
Thomas Bowler whose paintings of early Cape scenes are well known. It was at Bishops

that Pilkington learnt to draw and started to paint. Apart from some later life-drawing work
at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT, this was the only tuition that he had.