To be annoyed at people who live in a London Borough but insist they don't (i.e Im in Surrey, Kent etc)

[Rosehip10]

As in people in places such as Richmond, Kingston (insisting they live in Surrey) or places such as Bromley (insisting they are in Kent).

These places may used to have in a different county but have been part of greater London and a London Borough since 1965.

Is is snobbery? They usually drone only about postal towns which also no longer exist.

However if you walk to the south along the river from Bentalls, you will reach the Surrey border - where is this, out of interest?

It’s part of Surbiton called Seething Wells. While most of Surbiton comes under Kingston upon Thames, there is a tiny bit of it near the river that is in Surrey, it is a bit of an oddity!

I live in Watford Hertfordshire, but many people assume Watford is in London.
The "Harry Potter" studious/experiece are advertised as in "London" no they are not they are in Watford Hertfordshire!

Just to add to the telephone confusion, 020 4 numbers come into effect this month.

Can't remember which poster mentioned the village thing. I totally agree. It's Bexley, just Bexley, not Bexley Village and definitely not Old Bexley.

@HazelBite
That is stretching the boundaries a bit 😂

It is within the M25 just though ...

I find that annoying as well Hazel because I am also quite close to that now too.

The postcode argument is just so flimsy because it renders Enfield homeless. If EN1/2/3 aren’t Middlesex because it doesn’t exist anymore, but old timey pre 1965 postcode “rules” state it isn’t London either, where the hell is it

I insist I live in London (albeit Greater London) but often get mocked for it. Their argument is my postcode is TW, my argument is I have an 0208 phone number, we have the Tube and it IS a London Borough whether they like it or not!

Evilmorty
I have an Enfield postcode. I dont live in Enfield or London or even onside M25. I live in Hertfordshire.
Im sure my birth cert actually says something like Haringay ,Edmonton Middx.

Same. Mine isn’t in Enfield but starts EN. But the question remains, if EN1/2/3 which are within the London Borough of Enfield (I’m guessing you are Barnet borders or Broxbourne) then where are they. They aren’t Herts. They aren’t Middx. And according to people who say only postcode matters, they aren’t London either.

If you were born pre 1965 then Middlesex still existed then, so that will be why it says that.

The Surrey border on the south side of the river is at Nuffield gym.

The north side of the river at Kingston (due west from the bridge) is Richmond borough and you don’t hit Spelthorne until the reservoirs.

Postcodes don't have anything to do with counties at all. The initial letters are just an indication of your postal area, which could be a town or City in a completely different county - ours certainly is. They are a Post Office invention. They tell you nothing about who you pay council tax to. (They don't even help the postman find my parents' house....).

Anyone who uses sat nav knows the limitations of postcodes.

i live and work in richmond. always assumed was surrey, but for work put address as London purely because our overseas customers would recognise it. didn't realise it was actually correct!
So YABU as the assumptions you're making for why people say it are not universal.

Post Codes denoting a 'post town' have nothing to do with local authority boundaries. It is just the nearest big sorting office where the mail goes. Much of north Notts has a Doncaster post code. Chesterfield is S40, for Sheffield. Etc.

Everyone! Please watch the short video DreamsComeTrue posted at 9.33 last night. It explains everything

So OP, I’m afraraid YABU because its obvious from this thread that a motif people are genuinely confused about where they live because “living in London” means different things to different people - eg does it mean -

Having an 020 phone number?
Having a “London” postcode?
Your nearest station is a tube?
Being inside the M25?
Being classed as within “Greater London”
What borough collects your rubbish?

There are so many different boundaries, it’s not surprising people are baffled really, is it?

many not motif

As an aside, I live in East Surrey. When I say my town, almost without exception, people will say "oh in Kent?". NOOOOO! It's Surrey! It's always been in Surrey!

(Although I suspect it will be in Greater London eventually).

What a fascinating thread, particularly as I live in Richmond (town as well as Borough). I always thought that London postcodes were the determining factor as to whether you can claim to live in London, and in Richmond we don't. But when talking to strangers I would always say South West London, similar to the poster above with the Chicago example. Nothing to do with any perceived kudos, just to give them a better idea geographically.

On a more local level, where I live people seem to be split as to whether they describe themselves as living in Richmond or Kew. I always plump for Richmond as we are much closer to Richmond town centre and station than we are to Kew village and Station. I checked the postcode finder and that said Richmond, but then so it does for addresses which are most definitely Kew. By the definition of some posters above, Kew mustn't exist as it isn't recognised as a Royal Mail postal address?

I think this illustrates why postal towns according to Royal Mail do not always align with people's own idea of their addresses.

I used to live in Wimbledon with a SW19 postcode. I have also lived in Wallington with an SM postcode and Worcester Park with a KT postcode. The only one of those which I counted as being London was Wimbledon. Worcester Park, Wallington (and Kingston, Richmond, Croydon, Sutton..) are Surrey to me.

It’s usually the opposite, OP, people who live in what many people think of as Surrey (or Kent, or wherever) saying they live in London, and people who live in London being annoyed by that.

Most people in London aren't from the UK so they'll hardly have an attachment.

Yes. It’s well known that immigrants don’t have emotions about where they live.

"Most people in London aren't from the UK so they'll hardly have an attachment."

This statement is also nonsense. The 2011 census had nearly 2/3rds of the people resident in London as being born in the UK. The latest estimates for 2016 from the GLA have shifted a bit but not by much (a % point or two).

Remember that these figures will include people living in places Richmond. Because whatever those people might think or feel they are, most definitely and indisputably, Londoners.

What you have to understand is, of someone in their late 30s now (like many on this thread) grew up in Essex and saw themselves as an Essex girl/boy and their parents and/or grandparents also grew up in Essex and saw themselves that way, a change of border at a political or administrative level within their lifetimes isn't going to change their view of themselves culturally. And probably not that of their children either. We're always being told 'England has no culture - what a shame' and yet when certain people do feel a strong attachment and cultural belonging to a county it's only a matter of time before it's ripped away from them anyway in a "computer says no" sort of fashion.

@rufflecrow

Late 30s? The changes happened in 1965 so some who is 54 or so may be able to say (just) they were born in Essex for example in relation to those parts that became part of greater London.

It doesn't matter. I was at high school in Redbridge in the 90s and those who had RM or IG postcodes were 'Essex girls/ boys' and those who had London postcodes were Londoners. I daresay it hasn't changed much even now. That's the difference between cultural identification and dull administrative rules. Nobody there gives a shit about the latter. If people had to write their addresses they'd always put Ilford, Essex, Postcode, for example. Just the way it was. It's emotional, not rational.

"What you have to understand is, of someone in their late 30s now (like many on this thread) grew up in Essex and saw themselves as an Essex girl/boy and their parents and/or grandparents also grew up in Essex and saw themselves that way, a change of border at a political or administrative level within their lifetimes isn't going to change their view of themselves culturally."

The border change from Essex to London happened in 1965, so it wasn't in my lifetime yet alone the lifetime of someone in their late 30s.

But yes your points about culture and attachment do stand when looking at the previous generation that we, or certainly I, are the children of.

Personally I can only say that being older than my late 30s I do not remember a time when I thought of my home as being "Essex". It was always the edges of London to me. Maybe that is because I lived through the 30th anniversary of Havering and they made a very big deal about it. Who knows.

But the point is that in the end London has grown steadily since Alfred the Great ordered the city reoccupied in the 800s. Bits of what none would consider to be anything other than London, such as Westminster or Southwark, once weren't. I'm sure people at the time had bumps and issues, but they adjusted, and now it's just London. This will be the same with Upminster or Richmond.