Ex-Army driver Derek Ellerbeck is following in the footsteps of TV’s D-I-Y guru Tommy Walsh (pictured) with a cockney knees-up fundraiser for a children’s hospice at his local pub in London’s East End.

Derek has hired Stepney’s Dean Swift boozer for a right old Saturday night shindig tomorrow for the Richard House Hospice at Becton—in memory of his partner Jackie Woolf, a Petticoat Lane market trader who died exactly 10 years ago from cancer aged 47.

“It’s something to remember Jackie by on the 10th anniversary as so many people knew her,” Derek said.

“The children’s hospice sadly doesn’t have many anniversaries to look forward to, so I thought it would be a gesture to raise some money for them.”

The couple came from Cable Street, a few minutes from the pub, where Derek, now 65, still lives.

Grandfather Derek, who served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles in the early 1970s, has previously held charity nights which made £2,000 for another hospice, St Francis at Havering-atte-Bower, near Romford, where Jackie died in 2006.

Jackie worked as a finisher in the East End’s once-vibrant clothing trade when she left Stepney’s Bishop Challoner Collegiate School at 16, before running a market stall in Petticoat Lane.

Richard House has attracted wide support from many famous celebrities like Tommy Walsh, who comes from east London himself, as well as ordinary East Enders such as Derek and his late wife.

Tickets for Derek’s fundraiser starting 7pm tomorrow are £10 at the Dean Swift in Deancross Street, off the Commercial Road (near Shadwell Overground and DLR), with entertainment including karaoke, raffles for soccer memorabilia and food from Aldgate’s Acqua deli.