What a Pearly King taught me about Cockney rhyming slang and East London history

George Major, the Pearly King of Peckham, died Aug. 1 at age 88, and his family and community marked the loss with a Sept. 14 burial near the Cockney Museum he founded. Major was a local celebrity in London’s East End, where wartime docklands and factories have since been replaced by glass skyscrapers. In 2016, an NPR reporter struggled to understand Major’s Cockney rhyming slang and “backspeak,” despite walking and interviewing him in his sequined black suit and flat cap. At the gravesite, Major’s daughter Janet Major described him as a “Cockney cheeky chappy.”