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?

Lovecat- I had no idea! I don't see why anyone would care.

Changebags I can't work out which category I fit in... I need to say it out loud but my DH would think I'd gone crazy.

This thread is hilarious. One of my faves of 2013 without a doubt.

"Ruined my post you did."

AHA!

You are a Welsh. Or Yoda.

Either way, you're a Londoner.

Oh, apparently London is 'common' whereas Essex is more genteel... I'm not sure if the campaign is still going post-TOWIE, tbh , but it was a big thing when I first moved here (20 years ago now!).

Noooo! I am just about to move to E4 and will not be happy if I find myself in Essex!

perhaps your gorgeousness will unexpectedly increase. You will need some white stilettos. If you are too old for a mini-skirt, you should dye your roots black and wear a mini-skirt.

katese11 - North or South Chingford? Hatch or Mount? It makes a big difference... (I'm just jealous cos I live in Ilford - but some of my ILs live in North Chingford and seriously believe they're a cut above...)

If a foreign, clueless type asks me where I live I say Lndon.

I leave about 5 hours north of London but I've either got to say London or Manchester if I want to avoid a ten minute stilted conversation where I try and describe where in the uk my city is.

I think it was me who said Chingford is E5. You're right, it is E4. strruglingoldteach

I should have remembered because my friend's Chingford parents were really resistant to having an East London postcode.

Quite angry about it and used to bore on about it being Chingford, ESSEX.

E5 is Clapton, which is London and is one of those places I always think 'how do you get there?' because it doesn't have a tube station. Neither does Chingford.

lovecat It's not new. This was late '70s.

I don't think of Chingford as East London. Or South Woodford.

TruFact: There is no such place as Woodford, although there is a tube station called Woodford.

There are however places called South Woodford, Woodford Wells, Woodford Bridge and Woodford Green.

This was drummed into me in my job. None of these places are London.

lovecat Ilford is Essex, isn't it? Please say yes, this is very important to me

It annoys me when people say it's East London. It's not a snob thing, it's just not.

Just because places are in the London Borough of Redbridge doesn't make them London. I can't think of anywhere in Redbridge that I'd describe as London. It's all Essex.

Parts of the London Borough of Waltham Forest are London like Walthamstow, Leyton and Leytonstone. Chingford is Essex.

You have to have grown up there round about the time when new postcodes were allocated to know this.

You can't learn this knowledge. It seeps into you by osmosis. It will probably die with me.

=D LimitedPeriod

Yes, Ilford is Essex to me (been here 23 years). To be fair, these days you could quite easily mistake it for parts of Leyton...

As I said earlier in the thread, if someone with no knowledge of London whatsoever asks me I say near East London purely because if I say Essex I get slapped with the TOWIE label...

What about Wanstead and South Woodford? They have E postcodes... (although I agree, S Woodford is more Essex than Brentwood!)

Lovecat Highams Park...so not even really Chingford! We're just outside Walthamstow though, which is proper London

Excuse me but TW is not Middlesex! Some TW postcodes are like TW1 which is Twickenham but TW9, TW10 and others are Surrey.

The rest doesn't really matter. I live in Richmond (don't use the Upon-Thames bit because I'm not a twat) and I use London or Surrey depending on the context. I am less than 1 mile from Middlesex, less than 1 mile from London (East Sheen SW14), am in zone 4, less than a quarter of a mile from the Thames, less than 400 yards from the tube, there is a night bus that stops nearby and buses are red London buses. My local authority is a London Borough, we get a vote in the elections for London mayor... but my postal address is Surrey.

What is taking the piss are universities in places like Uxbridge that claim to be in London. They're not.

my postal address is Surrey

not any more it isn't. The post office has now at last sprinted into the 1960's

eh? My postal address ends Richmond, Surrey.

Or are you saying it's changed and they've not told me PigletJohn?

It changed and you didn't notice.

www.postoffice.co.uk/how-to-address-mail

Ah but if someone didn't have the postcode the county is still required... which is Surrey.

I keep getting asked for my county when doing postal address for online ordering even when my address has been found using PAF. Very annoying.

However, I am more horrified by the instruction not to avoid commas. Surely to goodness one still puts a comma at the end of the line when handwriting an address? Of course I may just be an old fogey.

Yes K8 - but those are on the Surrey side of the river (and, along with Egham, are the only ones that are). TW11 (Teddington area) and TW12 (Hampton area), and in fact all of the rest of the TW postcodes are on the Middlesex side of the river. :)
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/TW_postcode_area_map.svg/550px-TW_postcode_area_map.svg.png

If you live in a London Borough, you are not in Surrey.

You might as well put Richmond, Mercia.

Or Richmond, by Hagrid's Ham near the Vale of the big river.

Wanstead and Snaresbrook are on the cusp lovecat. I can't say. If a loved-one was being held hostage I'd probably go for East London.

South Woodford is Essex. Fact.

When people ask me where I grew up, if they're Londoners, or Greater Londoners , I say the eastern end of the Central Line.

If from further away in Britain I say Essex, but the Footballers Wives bit, not the Constable Country bit. Foreigners never ask. I suppose they assume I've always lived where I live now. Which is London.

I don't watch TOWIE. Is it Brentwood or are some parts of it Chigwell?

What is taking the piss are universities in places like Uxbridge that claim to be in London. They're not.

K8Middleton A young Spanish friend was thrilled to land a job working in London. Imagine his disappointment when he realised where Stansted Airport was in relation to the bright lights and groovy social life of the capital.

Are you not entitled to call yourself a Royal Borough? That would be the height of twatdom.

I you sent a letter to 'door number' 'post code' it would get there. It would probably help their address scanning machines if that was all people wrote!

None of the rest of the address is actually necessary.

From post office link;
you don’t need to write the name of the county if you have included the post town and postcode

That doesn't mean that your address is no longer xxxxxx county, just that its inclusion on your written address is not necessary for the post to be processed.

But if you live in a London Borough you are in London, and not in some nearby county.

Apart from whimsy, there is no need to pretend to yourself that you live somewhere else.

Exactly, Amberleaf.

Ilford's postcode is IG which was my postcode for Loughton.

This is despite the fact that Ilford is in the London Borough of Redbridge and Loughton is Epping Forest District Council.

If I was addressing something to Ilford the correct way would be: Mrs Ilford-Dweller, High Road, Ilford, Essex IGxx xxx.

Therefore it is in Essex. No London in it.

This is a very important matter to me. Wars have been fought for less.