It's strange how often cockney rhyming slang gets explained with the example of "Apples and pears" for stairs .I never heard it used all the time I was in London.
If you were out with your old chinas ( china plates= mates, friends) doing a bit of tealeafing (tea leaf =thief)and you lost your bottle (bottle and glass = arse) that meant you had the willies (willie pitts- shits), so you scarpered quick (scapa flow = go) . But you never run down the bleedin' apples and pears when you scarpered .