Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
John B wrote:

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...)

The main reason is almost certainly down to the survival of the counties in
the mailing addresses. A postal county was never needed for CROYDON, so
people have had much less of a reason to include "Surrey" in their
addresses, whereas until 1996 "Surrey" was needed for KINGSTON.

(That said, BROMLEY and TWICKENHAM also didn't require counties - what's the
view there? And aren't there some DARTFORD addresses within the Greater
London boundaries?)

Before 1965 Croydon was a county borough (then lacking Coulsdon and Purley
which formed an Urban District) so Surrey County Council had less of an
impact there. My experience of the Sutton attitude is different

Sutton is (Surrey) on timetables and (London) on tickets. Or is it the
other way round? General references to it as Surrey are quite common,
though might be because there are so many Suttons. Even in Greater
London it doesn't seem to be known for anything, other than occasional
Thameslink passengers finding themselves there rather than Gatwick or
Brighton.

In contrast, Croydon, Twickenham etc are probably well enough known in
their own right - you only need to specify if you mean a different Croydon.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK