About John Pilkington
A writer for more than forty years, John Pilkington was born in Preston into one of the oldest Lancashire families. His father was then a director of the family cotton mill, established by their Victorian forebears. That was in Leyland, more famous for motor manufacturing, where John grew up in the 1950s as the eldest of four children. He attended private schools until aged ten, when his parents’ separation forced a change in circumstances, and after grammar school in the 1960s emerged as a rebellious teenager obsessed with pop music. He played drums and then guitar with various bands before finally accepting that he wasn’t likely to become a rock star. Fortunately he had developed an interest in writing, having scribbled (very bad) poetry and song lyrics.
He has worked at many jobs including laboratory assistant, farm worker, weaver in a carpet factory, garage attendant, shipping clerk, accounts clerk, picture-frame maker and cabaret musician. While living in London he had a wild idea to try script-writing, attended a writers’ group and had his first radio play broadcast on BBC Radio 4. As a mature student he took a degree in Drama and English, followed by a master’s degree at the University of London. He helped to found a short-lived theatre-in-education company and directed Twelfth Night for a school tour in the mid-1980s, before committing himself to a writer’s life. More radio plays led to plays for the stage, and later to three years of writing television scripts for a BBC soap. His first novel The Ruffler’s Child was published in 2002 (republished 2019) and went into audiobook and translation, since which time he has concentrated mainly on historical fiction. He is a former regional chair of the Writers Guild of Great Britain, and from 2012-2014 was a Writing Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund at the University of Bristol.
He now lives in a village on a tidal estuary in Devon with his long-time partner; they have a son who is a psychologist and musician. When not at the desk he walks, swims, listens to music and tinkers with DIY projects, in the comforting knowledge that there is no retirement age for authors.
