John B wrote in
:

On Jul 20, 1:55*pm, Peter Campbell Smith
wrote:
Another favourite is Kingston, Surrey. *Oh no it isn't.

As a relative newcomer to London (a mere 30 years ago) I'm still
bemused
by
the fact that people in Kingston, Sutton, Croydon et al do not regard
themselves as being in London and often do not even know that they
are.
*
I'd be reasonably sure that if you stopped 100 people in the streets
of those boroughs and asked which county they were in, 90+ would say
'Surrey', and probably 50+ wouldn't believe you if you told them they
were in London.

It seems to me that you have to get quite close to central London, at
least south of the river, before the locals regard themselves as
living 'in London'.

Hmm. Kingston definitely; Croydon and Sutton less so (or at least, I
don't think Croydonians view themselves as in Surrey - whether they
view themselves as Londoners is another question...)

At least part of that is down to the fact that Kingston and Croydon, on
the ground, are quite clearly self-contained towns in their own right.
Bromley is the same. I don't know Sutton well enough to know if that
falls into the same category, though I suspect it is as the key to these
things seems to be whether the place is on the Underground or not.

{Do you like the way I brought us back on-topic? ;-) }