Sweep Philip Wall is used to people being pleased to see him when he turns up at weddings.

"I always get a warm welcome, even though some people aren't entirely sure why I'm there," he laughed.

He is, in fact, following a tradition which started about 200 years ago when it's said that a London chimney sweep saved the life of King George III. The sweep had apparently been the only person brave enough to stop the King's out-of-control horses and carriage.

So, following the daring exploits, the King proclaimed by Royal Decree that all sweeps were good luck bearers and should be treated with respect.

The folk law was established and, to this day, chimney sweeps are invited to attend weddings and kiss the bride for good luck.

The one stipulation is that it has got to be a genuine working chimney sweep so Philip is all right because he has been a sweep for two years.

"I'm full-time cleaning people's chimneys in about a 25 mile radius of Malton," he explained. "I was an electrician for about 25 years before that but I got sick of being stuck inside and of the same job."

Philip, 42, of Dickens Road, Malton, started working for sweep Walter Williamson who was based in Malton and who had swept people's chimneys for 52 years like his father and grandfather before him.

"When I stopped being an electrician I worked with him and he trained me before retiring. I bought his business, " said Philip.

He soon found that people started to ring him up and ask if he would attend weddings and he thought 'why not?'

Now, when somebody books him, he dresses up in top hat and tails, blackens his face and hands and goes along to stand outside the church with his old-fashioned brushes like Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

"I stand outside the church whilst the ceremony is going on and then I greet them when they come out. I usually say good luck and give the bride a kiss - depending on what she's like!" he joked. "Then lots of people take photos.

"I'm often booked by the mothers or mothers-in-law and I tend to go to weddings in the same sort of 25 mile radius of Malton that I work in. I'm busiest during the summer but I have had one in the winter which wasn't so good because I had to stand outside whilst it was raining."

Another theory is that it is felt to bring great good luck if, on her way to church, the bride sees a rainbow, a black cat, or most fortunate of all, a chimney sweep in working clothes, with blackened face and sooty brushes, because of associations with warmth and hearth.