To think if you live in a London Borough you live in London

[MariahLynn]

Saw this on twitter and thought about it twitter.com/yougov/status/1319226163278057472?s=21

Why does this create such controversy?

Surely If you live in a London Borough you are part of London.

I can’t see how anyone can live somewhere which has red buses, can vote for London mayor, pays council tax to a London Borough and maintain they live in Essex or Kent or Surrey.

Is it about pretending to be posher?

@PercyKirke

I've friends who live in Wallington. They class it as London.

I'll lay money they weren't born there.

They grew up in Mitcham. And classed that as London too.

@baller20

born & bred here, Clapham North (or Brixton hill). The kids I knew from TH or Mitcham were Surrey dwelling. My good friend is a very proud Croydon boyz!

I spent most of my weekends in Kingston, Sutton or Croydon because the shops and cinemas were better there

Better than where?

Better than Wimbledon, where I grew up (which I did say in my post). Centre Court shopping centre was nothing compared to the big centres in Croydon, Kingston and Sutton. Favoured cinema was the UCI in Sutton, but we used to go to the one in Kingston too (depending on whether I went with Wimbledon based friends or Mitcham based ones). At the time Wimbledon had its old (now demolished cinema). The UCI in Sutton was shinier. Also there was bowling in Sutton, Lazer Quest in Kingston. As a teen in the mid-nineties, those centres offered more entertainment.

Oh I didn't realise you were comparing to Wimbledon, I saw you grew up there. I liked centre court in the 90s but did think UCI was a good cinema. Kingston was good for occasional (underage) clubbing & Croydon had some good shops back then.

I really loved 90s Oxford street & Covent Garden though & Camden market.

@EggyPegg My aunt is from Sutton and never stops complaining about the high st and how she has to go to Wimbledon for decent shops. grin]

I live in Sussex and regularly commuted to my job in Morden. It has it's own underground station on the Northern Line and red routes everywhere, but I was laughed at by my local colleagues when I said I worked in London!!

[quote MariahLynn]@EggyPegg My aunt is from Sutton and never stops complaining about the high st and how she has to go to Wimbledon for decent shops. grin][/quote]
Ha! I don't go back regularly anymore so I can't comment these days. Especially about the range of shops in Sutton. But back in the 90s, Sutton had Mark One, Miss Selfridge, and most crucially, C&A.
It was also a teen Olympic past time to just dick about in the St. Nicholas Centre for hours on end. I still have the many photo keyrings we had done at the stall that was set up on roughly the 1st floor near the escalators.

@baller20

I really loved 90s Oxford street & Covent Garden though & Camden market.

As did I. And I certainly spent time there. But the friends I used to go to Sutton with (who were my closest friends) weren't allowed to go into central London. They were barely allowed to go to Kingston. Sutton and Croydon were their permitted areas, so that's where we went.

Why?

@baller20

Oh I didn't realise you were comparing to Wimbledon, I saw you grew up there. I liked centre court in the 90s but did think UCI was a good cinema. Kingston was good for occasional (underage) clubbing & Croydon had some good shops back then.

Yes! I had a couple of good underage nights in Kingston. The Blue Orchid in Croydon was where I spent my 17th birthday. They sent me all sorts of things in the post to entice me for my '19th' birthday (free entry, promise of a balloon, bottle of bubbly and a group photo). Only the free entry materialised and I still have a scar on my chest where someone burnt me with a fag as they were dancing. The end went straight through my (Mark One, completely synthetic dress) and stayed trapped between the dress and my skin burning me.

@baller20

Why?

I don't know to be honest. They were allowed to get a bus and a tube to Clapham to see their dad, but weren't allowed to go any further on the Northern Line.

I had significantly more freedom. Where did you grow up?

Clapham North/Brixton Hill.

I had lots of freedom but was very sensible.

Oh yes I remember the Blue Orchid, was there a buffet? Shame about the fag burn, I remember some dick burned a hole in my brand new velvet coat one night in Kingston. Kids are so lucky to have no smoking these days.

@Ginfordinner

This is interesting.

When I was at school in the 1960s and 1970s all of our exercise books had GLEA (Greater London Education Authority) printed on them.

that cannot be right. there never was such an authority. are you sure it was not, ILEA. which boro were you in ?

MRex
explains it well.
thank you

@DadDadDad thanks for mansplaining the thread to me.

@AuntImmortelle

Ah, "mansplaining" - I accept it's a thing, but why use that to try shut me up rather than address the points I make? I wasn't mansplaining, just disagreeing with the points you made...

[quote MariahLynn]@EggyPegg My aunt is from Sutton and never stops complaining about the high st and how she has to go to Wimbledon for decent shops. grin][/quote]
I go to Wim Village for Petit Bateau or more upmarket women’s clothes (Brown’s, Reiss etc but Lk Bennett has just become a Spar). Sutton has a fair range of high street shops like Debenhams, H&M, TK Maxx, Next etc. There’s also a Flannels for flashier designer stuff.

[quote DadDadDad]@AuntImmortelle

Ah, "mansplaining" - I accept it's a thing, but why use that to try shut me up rather than address the points I make? I wasn't mansplaining, just disagreeing with the points you made... [/quote]
How dare you disagree dad😀

Yes you make perfectly valid points

I grew up in Kent. But also in a London Borough.

Didn't really feel like I lived "in London" as I had to get a train to get there. I couldn't walk to a tube station. Nearest was a 20 minute drive.

Just because red buses are going past doesn't mean you're in London.

My address said "Kent" not "London"

We just moved from Woodford and classed it as London when we lived there. It’s two stops from Leytonstone which is absolutely London and 10 mins from Walthamstow, again, definitely London.

Maybe I’m biased because we did live right near the tube station (so no driving or leafy suburbia) so to me it felt no different than when I lived in Walthamstow or Bow or Islington. Just because over half a century ago it was Essex, doesn’t make it so now.

There was ILEA up to the 80s. You got to vote for a councillor (I did once). They went along with the GLC for daring to not cheer the Tories.

Plus ca change I guess.

Oddly enough, Woodford joined Greater London on the very same day as Leytonstone and Walthamstow. I suppose the more urban places outside the LCC area already felt they were London whereas the more rural areas on the outskirts identified more closely with their old counties.

There was ILEA up to the 80s. You got to vote for a councillor (I did once). They went along with the GLC for daring to not cheer the Tories.

While the law of unintended consequences turned some ‘loony left’ councils into Education Authorities for the first time!