The time Michael Caine converted to Cockney

Candles flicker in the darkness of St Mary-Lee-Bow in London’s Cheapside, the light glinting off the sovereign rings of those who have gathered for the ceremony.

A Pearly King and Queen stand by the altar.

The doors open and the organist softly plays Knees Up Mother Brown.

Michael Caine enters the church.

Born in 1933 in a small village on the outskirts of leafy Windsor, young Lord Michael of Caine was heir to the Caine family fortune and the barony of Winchester.

“A delightful young man,” remembers a neighbour.

“He could often be seen striding about the village in his little top hat and cane, and always had a kind word for everyone.

“Unless you forgot to call him ‘your Lordship,’ of course and then he’d give your shin a whack with the cane, and quite right too.”

However, despite the outward appearance of one groomed for lordly work, young Michael Caine longed for a different life.

“I’d gone up to London with my Dad this one time,” explained Sir Michael in a 1989 Wogan interview.

“But, I’d got lost and ended up wandering around Southwark.

“I thought the place was magical – the Pearly Kings and Queens, the shouting barrow men, the marvellous songs – it was like I’d come home.”

So, on his eighteenth birthday, he renounced his inheritance and travelled to St Mary-Lee-Bow to officially convert to Cockney.

Walking down the aisle of the church, the congregation show their approval in the time-honoured cockney fashion, by softly shouting ‘Oi-Oi.’

The Pearly King calls for silence with a bellowed ‘shut it, you slags’

The Pearly Queen begins the ceremony.

“Do you Lord Michael of Caine renounce all your bees and honey and your big drum in the pick and mix and promise to be a right salt-of-the-earth geezer of the East End?”

“I do,” replies Caine.

“Then I now pronounce you cockney, now let’s have a right, proper east-end knees-up.”

A huge cheer of Oi-Oi echoes around Cheapside and forever more Lord Michael of Caine would simply be known as Michael Caine, the lovable cockney.

He would swiftly go on to huge Hollywood success and leave the east-end behind him for good.