East Enders Aren't Cockneys!
I was fascinated my Steve's post in my Millwall thread in which he asserts that while tradition states that the definition of a Cockney is one born within the sound of Bow Bells , St. Mary-le-Bow is actually deep in the city of London and “not to be confused with the Scabby church at Bow by the flyover.” Steve goes on to state that “The people of Southwark and Bermondsey are more likely to be within the sound of the original bells than those born out at East Ham, Plaistow and Dagenham.”
I had to check this out, and a quick glance at the map on the website linked below will demonstrate that St. Mary-le-Bow (which is incidentally quite a distance from Marylebone) is just around the corner from St. Paul’s and much closer to Lambeth in South London than the loop of the Thames at Limehouse and Poplar. And quite a long distance from Bethnal Green and even further from Bow!
Granted when Wren rebuilt the church in 1666 after the great fire, there was far less noise in our city and it may well have been possible to hear the bells from as far away as Bow. But if so, you could equally hear the bells from Paddington and Camden Town.
It seems that East Londoners have absolutely no more claim to the term Cockney than people from any other part of London!
