Wilkie's career spanned five decades, during which he met and performed for several British prime ministers, including Edward Heath, Harold Wilson, Alec Douglas-Home and Margaret Thatcher.

His mother was a housewife, but during hard times she worked at Paterson's, a music shop in Perth's Methven Street, as a caretaker.

[1] During service with the Royal Air Force in World War II, he formed a concert party and dance band.

Upon being posted to Tealing, he joined the station's entertainment section as a solo accordionist and found himself doing theatre shows at the garrison.

[1] He drew the attention of stage director Ralph Reader, creator of the Gang Show, and travelled to India (performing at the Maharaj) and other parts of the British Empire with an ensemble called Just Five, which included Norrie Paramor and a young drummer by the name of Peter Sellers.

[1][2] In 1959, he converted a cobblers' shop, wedged between Perth's Canal Crescent and Charterhouse Lane,[3] into Wilkie's Music House, which was very popular over the next fifty years.

After also having a shop in Perth's James Street and in Dundee, the three were combined into the Canal Crescent location in 1984, initially known as Wilkie's New Music House.

[8] Wilkie's grandson, Richard Colburn, is a drummer who has played with Snow Patrol and Belle and Sebastian.