LONDON — He was one of my most memorable interviews.Even though we were both speaking English, I could barely understand a word he was saying."The costermongers, wheeze used to fly-pitch, on this frog and toad," he said — at least I think, after listening to my tape several times again, none the wiser.
Our interview was back in 2016, on one of my first NPR reporting trips to London.George Major, then 78, was a local celebrity.
We walked together through the East End, where the factories and docklands that Major grew up around during World War II have given way to glass skyscrapers.A vendor ran out into the street to slap him high-five.
Tourists snapped photos.Major had turned up in bling: A black suit and flat cap, both festooned with sequins, sparkles and mother-of-pearl buttons.His title — Pearly King of Peckham — was spelled out in shimmering buttons across the back of his jacket.He was a charming wheeler-dealer.
But his language — a mix of what he called "backspeak" and Cockney rhyming slang — was impossible for this hapless American visitor to understand.At one point in our video interview, I glanced at the camera and exclaimed, "We might need a translator here!"Ten years later, I chuckle whenever I land at Heathrow Airport, where a portrait of Major covers an entire wall.But this summer, a former colleague alerted me to an item in the local press, which hit me harder than I expected: The Pearly King of Peckham died Aug.
1, aged 88.He was buried Sept.14 in a cemetery not far from the Cockney Museum he founded.
A horse-drawn cart carried his casket into a little chapel, whose walls shook with mourners singing raucous pub songs.One of the gardeners outside looked bewildered.
At the gravesite, I approached the Major family, offered condolences, and hesitantly shared the story of my brief, confusing 2016 encounter with their loved one.A horde of pearly kings, queens, princes and princesses — four generations of Major's family, all in matching p...