Associated Press
Sept. 7, 2004
After distinguished service with the Army during the Second
World War, Bill Pilkington had a long career in acting,
taking supporting roles in Coronation Street, Till Death Do
Us Part, Z-Cars and many other television sitcoms, as well
as films including O Lucky Man! (1973) and The Mind of Mr
Soames (1970).
He also made money for charities by sponsored sit-ins
in
places alleged to be haunted: pubs, houses, castles, morgues
and churchyards. The press used to give him the title of
"Ghostbuster", which he detested. In 1989, he was awarded
the British Empire Medal for having raised £1m by these
efforts. By the time illness forced him to retire a few
years ago, he was close to his second million.
Besides these activities, Pilkington served for 21 years
as
editor-in-chief of the Talking Newspaper for the Blind in
the Greater Manchester area, where he lived for most of his
life.
Bill Pilkington, son of a Wallasey police inspector,
studied
Medicine at Liverpool University but, two years into the
course, realised that his father would never be able to
afford the £2,000 then needed to start a practice. He
switched to a general arts degree followed by a spell at
Rada. When war was declared in 1939, he was master of
ceremonies at the Argyle Theatre, Liverpool.
He joined up and was sent to France, where he drilled
with a
spade and in civilian clothes because that was all they had.
When the Army discovered that Pilkington spoke passable
Norwegian, having learned at night school, he was recruited
into military intelligence and sent to what was then the
Ringway Airport near Manchester for parachute training.
Soon, Pilkington found himself in the Norwegian campaign
with the task of testing the extent of enemy infiltration
into local Norwegian society.
Killing was not what Pilkington had in mind on a spring
morning in 1940 as he and a colleague, Jim Beech, walked
along a country lane approaching the small town of Bodo.
Both were dressed in what somebody in an office back home
had said was correct Norwegian clothing. An elderly,
grey-haired lady with a pleasant smile approached them.
"Good morning," she said, in English. "I think that you are
British, is that so?"
"Yes," Pilkington replied.
"I can always tell the British. If you will come to my
house, I will give you breakfast. We are allies in this
terrible thing that has happened to my country. Come with
me."
The woman led them to her house in which was her son,
a
teenager. "Ingvald," said the nice lady in Norwegian. "These
are British spies. Go out and telephone the SS that we have
them here."
Ingvald began to put on his boots.
"Do you have a toilet?" said Beech.
"My boy will show you," said their hostess. Then, to
Ingvald, "Show him, then get off quickly."
Beech followed the youth round to the rear of the house.
There he drew his knife and, with a swift, professional
thrust, stabbed Ingvald through the back and into the heart.
In the kitchen, the lady turned from the stove and
Pilkington said in Norwegian: "Madam, you should have found
out first whether we spoke your language." Drawing his
revolver, he shot her as Beech returned wiping his knife.
In
later years, whenever he was asked if he had killed anyone
in the war, Pilkington would reply: "Yes, I shot a nice old
lady who was just going to give me breakfast."
He served with distinction in the Norwegian campaign
and
earned the DCM. He was then sent to France in time to be
evacuated from Dunkirk. Transferred to the newly created
Special Operations Executive, set up by Churchill with the
instruction "Set Europe ablaze", Pilkington was given the
job of teaching unarmed combat to members of the secret
resistance force being formed in case Britain was invaded
and occupied. (Some of his unarmed combat methods are
incorporated in the current police training manual.)
Promoted from sergeant to captain, he was appointed to
teach
Princess Elizabeth the same techniques. "For myself and the
princess, it was a complete waste of time," he said
afterwards:
You are not supposed to throw a future queen over your
shoulder when teaching karate! So I could go no further than
theory: sometimes, her Highness would appear in WAAF uniform
and would shake hands with me if she was wearing gloves. At
the end of the course, she said: "I think you must be a hard
man, Mr Pilkington."
Pilkington also gave the Prime Minister a lesson in how
to
use a sub- machine-gun and Churchill was much photographed
in the press a few days later cuddling the same gun.
Raised to lieutenant, Pilkington found himself having a
crash course in conversational Arabic at the Royal Language
School in Beirut, followed by attachment to the Eighth Army
in the desert campaign to look for enemy infiltrators.
Dropped by parachute into Italy, he had a period of liaising
with Communist partisans before being brought home and
promoted to major and landed on Gold Beach on D-Day. In
Berlin, he was entrusted with accumulating evidence to be
used at the Nuremberg trials.
Instead of being demobbed, Pilkington had to spend the
next
two years as an inspector with the Palestine Police. He was
only 200 yards from the King David Hotel when it was blown
up in July 1946. He returned at last to civilian life when
the state of Israel was declared in 1948.
Bill Pilkington was always contemptuous of those ex-
army
officers who insist on still being known by their title.
Address Bill as major and he would growl: "I'm a civilian."
As originally published
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