Only three people have ever been given permission to whistle in this London arcade

Move over Paul McCartney, there’s a new whistler in town. Well, in Burlington Arcade, at least, where only the third person ever has been presented with the privilege.

For decades, not a soul was allowed to whistle on a jaunt past the jewellers, fashion boutiques and perfume parlours of the luxury arcade.

Opened in 1819, it was supposed to be a safe haven for London’s rich and powerful to shop away from the riff raff, rabble and robbers of the city.

But such a concentration of wealth lured the pickpockets to Piccadilly. To evade capture by the ‘beadles’ – guardians of the arcade – the pickpockets would whistle secret codes to alert each other to their presence.

When the beadles, caped and capped in black, cottoned on, they banned whistling entirely.

So it would remain until the 1980s, when a beadle asked a random to quit his racket, only to discover hit was Paul McCartney.

Not one to tell one of the highest selling artist of all time to stop making music, the beadle granted the Beatle lifelong permission to break the ban.

It would be another few decades until a young boy became the second to be blessed, following a trip in 2011.

Speaking to the Importance of Being Trivial blog, one beadle said: ‘He was only a strip of a lad, about six years old.

‘He was going through a tough time on the family front, and because of that things weren’t going too well for him at school either.

‘We started chatting to him, telling him about the arcade and its history and everything, and he loved it.

‘Eventually we said to him, “Tell you what – if you can get a good report at school, you come back here and we’ll give you a permit to whistle”.’

Do you know the identity of the young boy allowed to whistle in Burlington Arcade? Contact danny.rigg@metro.co.uk

Four years later, the boy, then 10, did exactly that. The beadle said: ‘His uncle brought him along again, and we reminded him what we’d promised. Then we gave him the permit. You should have seen his face. Lit up, it did.’

Now the pair have been joined by Cirque du Solei’s Geert Chatrou, the whistling ringmaster in its production of Corteo, which is on at Royal Albert Hall until March 2.

In honour of those who won these rights before him, Chatrou whistled a rendition of the 1963 Beatles hit ‘Love Me Do’, followed ABBA’s ‘Mamma Mia’, in a performance at arcade on Thursday morning.

Burlington Arcade shared: ‘For over two centuries, luxury resides at Burlington Arcade and is has been a sanctuary of refinement and tradition, where history and elegance converge.

‘Welcoming Geert Chatrou, a world-class artist of extraordinary skill, as only the third person permitted to whistle within these iconic walls, adds a remarkable chapter to our storied legacy.

‘This rare moment beautifully harmonises the Arcade’s grace with the creative brilliance of Cirque du Soleil.’

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