On Tuesday, the Oamaru painter started work to repaint the school — a long-time centrepiece in the tiny goldmining settlement.
Opened in 1885, the building housed pupils until the school closed in 1954.
It sat empty for three years, until 1957 when it was relocated to Becks to be used as a Sunday School.
In 2006 the building was returned to the community and placed on the land it originally occupied.
Locals got together to scrape and paint the school with the Cambrian Valley Trust acting as caretakers ever since.
Today, the school sits open for locals and visitors to come and learn the stories of the area and the families who originally settled there.
Mr Pitches’ connection to the area extends back to the early families — his grandmother Rachel Morgan hailed from Cambrian and married Ernest Pitches of Ophir.
Every year he would stay at Pitches Store in Ophir and said it was an "emotional" experience seeing his grandparents’ photographs and paintings on the walls.
Knowing his grandmother, and other family members through the generations, went to the school made working on it "pretty special".
"How many times did they run up [through] these doors? How many times did they sit in that classroom and then 100 years [later] here I am."
It was on a trip to the area to share the family history with his grandchildren that Mr Pitches struck up a conversation with Cambrian Valley Trust member and resident Bob L de Berry who was mowing the school lawns.
The school was the heart of the area but 18 years of wear and tear had been hard on the building and it was time for it to be repainted to extend its longevity, Mr de Berry, who is in his late 70s, said.
He noticed the master painter sign on Mr Pitches’ vehicle and the rest was history.
"Until we brought the school back, [Cambrian] was just a street in the countryside — this is the key to the whole valley.
"The history of the valley is contained on these walls ... people absolutely love it."
Locals and people with connections to the area had pitched in to fund the work, Mr de Berry said.
"We think this paint job [will be] better than the last one because it was done by a bunch of amateurs."
He was pleased to have a painter with a connection to the area undertake the work because part of the area’s appeal was how everything was "intertwined".
"I’m absolutely chuffed," Mr de Berry said.
"The painting just gives it another 15-20 years and I’ll be gone by then — on holiday."
