'Ave a Butcher's at This, Me Ol' China
Doctor Terror visits The Cockney Museum (Stoneleigh)
Now, be honest: you probably think that the only Cockney Museum in the country is in the East End, right? Or at least in London...? But no. Quite the opposite. Stoneleigh, the museum's location, is so far south west of Piccadilly Circus that you leave London behind completely and find yourself in Surrey. Founded by former pearly king George Major, pearly kings feature prominently, but not before a harrowing walk down a pitch perfect recreation of a Victorian street somewhere in Whitechapel or Stepney..
I sometimes forget just how ghastly it must have been to a child born into poverty in such a street. Dickens' words did much to educate us, but it is seeing the shoe of boy who, as a chimney sweep, died on the job and was simply left to rot in the chimney that served to remind me that a sentimental evocation of 'Victorian values' by the likes of Maggie Thatcher was enough to chill you to the bone.
I shivered, pulled my torch closer to me (the electric kind, not a flaming one), as I shuffled further down the 'road', wondering whether the museum's generosity in opening out of usual hours entirely for my benefit was actually a case of 'be careful what you wish for'. However, optimism lay around the corner as the 'pearlies' entered the picture..
The Pearly King tradition, very deliberately aping the monarchy up in Windsor Castle, is fascinating and seeing the mannequins decked out in all the kit and caboodle (tradition maintained that every shiny button had to be sewn on by the wearer by hand) lifts the spirit. As you read up on rhyming slang (the museum freely admitted that much of what is used now was actually written by Minder and Porridge's writers back in the early eighties) the mood turns more jovial.
The pearlies never tired of raising money for charities in their own communities - after all, who else was going to do it? Archive footage of them doing this as the PA system pumps out Run, Rabbit Run, The Lambeth Walk and my personal favourite, Hold Your Hand Out, You Naughty Boy, creates a warm glow.
The museum has been endorsed by everyone from Norman Wisdom (who lived nearby in Epsom) to Barbara Windsor and, as I liberated the gift shop of a t shirt, a CD of Cockney songs and George Major's autobiography, I couldn't help thinking that even Jack the Ripper, Ronnie and Reggie and Dirty Den himself would have approved.