Cockney Pearly king George Major arrives in style in his suit with 22,000 pearl buttons and weighing � cwt on a horse and cart to launch his children’s book in London’s East End at lunchtime today (Thurs).

His book is about a ghost pearly king coming back to earth to rescue sad kids.

But George is not using a ‘ghost’ writer—he’s penned his cockney novel, The Pearly Gates, himself.

The 78-year-old arrives at Spitalfields Market from Tower Hill at 1pm dressed in his heavy ‘whistle and flute,’ with his ‘trouble and strife’ Pearly queen Katherine—they’ve been spliced 31 years—and two grandchildren who are the Pearly prince and princess of Lambeth Walk.

He is donating the profits to the Sick Children’s Trust at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

“I got the idea for the book during a talk I gave in an East End school about the history of pearly kings and costermongers,” he said.

“One little girl put her hand up six or seven times when I asked for questions, but wouldn’t speak when I pointed to her.

“I found out she had problems at home. She came up to me afterwards and asked if she could be a pearly queen—when kids want to help others they often have problems themselves.”

His story, published by The Book Guild at �8.99, is about a Pearly family of ghosts which includes a horse called Mr Buttons, cat called Pearl and three-legged dog called Coster who find the sad children on earth by talking to their pets.