To wonder why people increasingly refer to places not in London as 'in London'

[redpipe]

I genuinely don't understand why people say they live in London when in fact they live in a town within the M25.
Croydon is not in London is it? Nor is Kingston. I never remember people referring to these towns as London years ago. Is this a new thing?

Parts of Richmond tube are in zone 3... how can that not be London despite TW postcode.

To be in London, you need one thing:

London borough

Truefact.

The fact that once upon a time the place you live was in Mercia, or Wessex, or Middlesex, or was ruled by Boudicca, is irrelevant.

Mind you - to the welsh family once I got as far as Windsor I was "in London"

Excuse me piglet I'm originally just three tube stops east from South Woodford and we are all Essex girls. And we speak the same. But you are not wrong on one count. We are all gorgeous.

If you can get on a tube then you're in London

I live in an inner london borough and would need to get a bus to a tube stn.

I had more success in South Woodford and Ongar, but was very fond of Buckhurst Hill and Loughton.

Debden and South Woodford do not speak the same.

Possibly not now. But when I was going to Jets in George Lane in 1985 they did. Though granted, I was considered the posh bird behind the bar in Cheeks Fun Pub in E17.

OK - or a bus - as long as its red.

'Stow is not posh.

nor Essex.

so not gorgeous.

Not necessarily kewcumber. When I first moved to Westminster we had green buses on the 24 route.

They're red now and open-backed. Thanks for that one Bo-Jo, me old mucker. They're also fucking boiling because the windows don't open.

God those 24s are boiling! I complained to tfl after sweltering on one, heavily pregnant this summer. They gave me the brush off.

I'm in Epsom, my postcode comes under Kingston, why? Honest! Why can't it just be EP... Rather than KT. I don't live in Kingston..

If it's in a London borough it's fucking London. It really doesn't matter if you don't think Croydon or Harrow should be, or you can't grasp that somewhere with a TW postcode is in London... they ARE in London.

Yes, mister. Every time you see a sign saying 'London 125' or whatever on a road sign, the number of miles are measured to Charing Cross.

I feel your pain OP. I'm from Lancashire, but if someone non-local asks I say I'm from near Manchester. Its just easier. Technically I live in greater Manchester but I'm not a manc. In the last few years I've noticed more and more locals suddenly decide they are Manchurian.

Or even mancunian.

To the OP...

Are you a Londoner (born and bred) or are you some Yorkshire lass whose turned up recently and become confused ?

I'm a north London girl born and bred.

Richmond is Richmond upon Thames and, therefore, London. Greenwich is definitely London - Greenwich meantime and all that! I don't see Croydon or Bromley as London, sorry.

Only the City airport is in London.

If you are talking to somebody who doesn't know London, you would just say that you lived in London to put it into context for them, whether you lived in Chelsea or some outer lying area of London. And yes, it's getting bigger all the time!

However, if you were talking to a fellow 'Londoner', the actual area you live in would be much more specific and identifiable. So, Enfield is Enfield and Covent Garden is Covent Garden and the City is the square mile.

TBH, I don't really see the cachet in living in London, unless it is within at least zone 2 or one of the smarter areas such as Hampstead.

Yup, it's all about postcodes. We are just about to move from indisputable-within-the-sound-of-Big-Ben London to nearly-Essex, but it has a London postcode, so that's OK. Mind you, even where we live now was once considered to be part of Surrey...

Having just re-read my own post, I think I regard proximity to the Thames as one of the most relevant factors in defining London.

Lots of lamentab le errors here.

The oldest continuously inhabited area of the conurbation known as London is, in fact Westminster. Therefore, only Westminster is, properly speaking, London.

Those from EC1 or EC2 are jumped-up parvenus, and all the rest of you are straw-chewing yokels.

I'm from Greenwich and consider myself a London girl, dh is from Coulsdon and thinks of himself as being from Surrey. Greenwich does not have a tube station (neither does most of SE London though) and has a 208 code, but a SE postcode. When we bought our first house it was in Penge, which is outer London and (just) in Bromley, known slightly ironically as 'The London Borough' still had a SE postcode and a 208 code. Then we moved 5 mins down the road and suddenly we had a BR postcode. Exactly the same sort of area, no demarcation and yes, still in London.

I'm not sure any of the 'rules' quoted here really work. dh and I used to do London walks and some of the places we went to at the end of the tube line were really almost countryside. Also I remember thinking that the smaller the number the closer in, but E4, SE2 and W7 are on the outside and SE16 quite close in. Whether or not an area is called a village is pretty meaningless too now, all accidents of history really.

The tube rule definitely doesn't work, unless you count Amersham and Watford as London.

Richmond is in London because it's "upon thames"? So is Henley-on-thames in London too?