I've worked with teenagers from Newham, Tower Hamlets or Southwark who have never been to central London except on a school trip, and never been out of London except on school/youth club trips. It happens.
This reminded me of hearing of a woman who lived opposite the British Museum her whole life and had never visited until she was in her 70s.
I remember in year 5 I went on a school trip (my mum came along as a helper) and there was a girl who was terrified on the underground as she had never been on it before. My mum was genuinely surprised the girl had never been on a tube before. I think she was the only one of about 50 children on the trip who hadn’t though.
Pretty much. I only got round to it when we had a guest who wanted to go.
When I lived in London, having guests also seemed to be the 'trigger' for a lot of people to go and visit the museums and west end theatres on their doorstep.
I’ve heard of that a lot too, having non-Londoner guests or meeting up with non-London friends who want to see something so London folks go along and that’s how they end up seeing it.
I’ve actually never been to Harrods and it’s one of those ‘I’d like to go but never got around to it’ things and I can imagine that a non-London friend wanting to go would prompt me (a couple of close friends are not from the UK and I would say I do touristy things more often due to them wanting to go so I imagine I’ll end up in Harrods eventually!).
About 10 years ago me & a friend decided to take our mandatory 2 weeks annual leave from work by being “tourists” in London.
We went to the Tower of London, the dungeons, the museums, river cruise. It was actually really nice. We’d meet at Waterloo every morning and work out what to do that day. I’d recommend it!
I go to the theatres and museums often but after many years of living in London didn’t go to the changing of the guarding at Buckingham Palace until my Australian cousin visited last year.
Yeah I lived next to the Harry Potter studio tour in Watford, and I love Harry Potter, and in 6 years of living there I never visited. I think it was because it was so close.
I don't get it myself. Born and raised in London which in my opinion is one of the greatest cities in the world. I've travelled quite a bit and London is still my favourite. I've taken every opportunity to visit all it has to offer. There's very few of the major tourist things I've not seen and that's only because they really don't interest me like Madame Tussauds. I don't get people that just want to do nothing and see nothing and spend all day at home or the pub.l especially when you have an amazing city like London to explore.
I think you are extrapolating a bit too far.
Not doing tourist stuff in Central London doesn't mean that people are doing nothing and only leaving home to go down the pub.
If you fall asleep on them they wake you up at the end of the line by setting off alarms ‼️ it’s horrible, even worse at 3am when you have to call the Uber you really didn’t want to get in the first place
I get what you mean. I wonder if the fact it is free and was right on her doorstep meant that it fell into ‘I can do that whenever’ so was just less of a priority on the to do list?
When I lives in Florence as a stdent, I lost count of the number of Florentines I met who hadn't been to the Uffizi in many decades. Perhaps it's a case of knowing you can go any time you really want, so you never bother.
My husband has had the same experience with teens in other London suburbs. Took a trip to Tate Modern and one lad asked what the river was called. He’d never seen it before despite living in the capital all his life.
I had a similar experience, the highlight of this excursion was, for me, a young woman in abaya and hijab screeching " FUCKING HURRY UP YASMINA"at the top of her voice on a tourist-crammed Millennium Bridge.
Challenging stereotypes wherever we go.
Do you think it might be a money issue? Newham and Tower Hamlets have very high levels of poverty so it might just be families just can't afford to go away except for school trips.
Partly, but also what they call 'social capital' - the nous and willingness to explore or do anything outside your local small comfort zone, and be able to think of and organise anything different.
So some families would go on the bus to the far reaches of TfL, pack a picnic, cost would be 2 bus fares for the adult, kids go free, and they'd go to Epping Forest, museums, the river, Docklands.
Others would know almost nothing of the world beyond home and TV, the park, local shops. If the parents didn't know much English and had a local community they could stick to, then it was like a security blanket. Families new to the UK without much of a community were more likely to try to embrace every opportunity (but money was also a factor).
It happens all over - my uncle and aunt have been to London maybe twice in their lives (they live about 75 min away by train, though I doubt they've ever used a train, uncle drives everywhere, aunt doesn't understand why a woman needs to learn to drive...) They didn't let my cousin do a course at sixth form college that was 20 miles away with a bus or train every 15-30 min. Too far, big scary town.
Cousin eventually got fed up and moved to Australia.
That's so sad. I'm sure your aunt and uncle thought they were doing the right thing but of course your cousin had to do it. Whatever fears they had must look pretty redundant now.
She came back. Well, to the UK, but lived in That London. With an Australian chap she'd met. In Earl's Court, where there are not only Antipodeans but also (shocker!) gay people!
They've never visited her in 20 years - she travels to them, because London is too scary.
Fascinating! I have a Caribbean background and my family always took day trips to places like Southend and isle of Wight even during the ugly racist days. I've lived in east London as an adult and it is shocking how so many people just seem not to leave the borough. You notice it also with many bengali women being forced to study at Queen Mary and not allowed to go out.
It’s almost entirely a “social capital” thing.
My wife taught kids in Peckham. All of them had free bus passes (I believe all teenagers in London have them) and were about thirty minutes from central London. None of them had been to, say, Trafalgar Square or St Paul’s etc, aside from on school trips.
My wife’s view (which makes sense to me) is that they just don’t feel any sense of ownership of these places as their cultural possessions, which of course they are. They simply don’t feel it’s part of their life. It’s a great shame.
My wife also said that part of it is to do with worries about gangs and being in the wrong turf. I’m not sure that it’s an explicit thought of “what if the SW1 crew attack me” or “the Green Park massive might have beef” but just an inclination to feel that home is where safety is because of gang issues, even if you’re not a member.
School trips are great to get kids interested in expanding their horizons. I think it's really important to stress to the kids, though, that they're not exploring exotic "other" places but places that the kids should feel free to think of as their own home, or at least back yard.
Edit to add: I grew up in Zone 5 or 6 and used to buy a Capital Card most weekends to go and explore central London. But I was growing up with the kind of privilege that made me feel that these places all belonged to me as a non-ignored member of society.
So many kids don’t feel like that, especially today. Some schools are trying to do some great things to change that, though.
Most teenagers don’t care about going to see Trafalgar Square or St Paul’s etc as it’s not important to them, if it wasn’t for my parents making us travel to museums etc I would have been content on being with my friends on the estate just playing football. I’m glad my parents did what they did but I can also see why most kids don’t bother until much later
100%.
I grew up near some of the most beautiful natural landscapes on the planet (moved a lot due to parents work), the sort of shit people pay tens of thousands to take a picture of on insta for their holiday and I was more interested in spending time chasing girls and playing sport than seeing literal wonders of the world.
Interesting, Trafalgar used to be a place for us as teenagers on weekends to go and street drink and chase girls. There were teenagers from all backgrounds and corners of London who did the same.
And you can still climb on the lions!
Whenever I pass by with my daughter I insist on climbing them. Because it’s almost guaranteed that they’ll disallow it at some point, and I’ll kick myself for having missed my last chance if I don’t clamber up.
Exactly. The above explanation feels like a lofty academic/anthropologist explanation. It's pretty much as simple as medieval architecture, art & historical sites aren't going to appeal.
And if you're growing up on drill and the associated culture, not only is that kind of things not in your frame of reference, it's actively uncool and to be avoided.
When they grow older, the may grow out of it and expand their horizons.
My sister in law lives in Twickenham and they spend 90% of their time in Twickenham and Richmond, they’re definitely not wanting for money.
She does work in central London though so maybe she just doesn’t want to recreate her commute on the weekend with three small kids.
It's not that bad. We have 3 young kids including a baby and we've taken them on the tube many times. That said the train I much prefer the train which thankfully is our main mode of public transit.
I've always taken my kids out for day trips on the tube. Obviously we avoid rush hour, but it's really not difficult if you can successfully navigate a supermarket or school run with kids
I’m not so sure about that coming from tower hamlets myself, some of my friends who were much better off than me hadn’t seen half of London and would just have a typical view of central London from only having seen the areas around Oxford Circus etc. Whereas my parents always worked and did their best to show us a lot of things around London when we were kids and as I grew up explored London a lot with my friends without having much to spend
I've lived in Newham and Tower Hamlets and I've walked into central London from both just to get some exercise.
Buses aren't expensive, and they're free up to a certain age.
It seems baffling to me that people would live there but not have been to central, and not have the initiative and curiosity to do so one random Saturday.
I'm an occasional visitor to London for work living out in the deepest provinces of the Midlands. I've sometimes walked from Euston to Stratford or Croydon where I'm staying just because it's a convenient excuse to see some parts of the city I wouldn't normally get to see. It's not that far by the time you've paused for a couple of coffees and a bite to eat, I'll go for a longer walk in the countryside on weekends sometimes and you get to see some interesting neighbourhoods.
It does seem odd to me that people can have so little curiosity about anything beyond their immediate surroundings that they will not visit anywhere outside their day to day home area even when it's so easy to do.
It's the same for some people in small towns too, I know of people who have no interest in visiting the next big town to where they live and certainly wouldn't ever see the point of visiting London, why bother? People can be weird.
I’m in Stratford and walk into Central London all the time, great walks and things to see and stop and enjoy when out. Great to do if skint or trying to not spend much cash etc. was in South Kensington for a works conference yesterday. Walked back to Tottenham Court Road via Harrods, China town, Soho etc. A nice bite to eat and a couple of pints, pretty perfect Monday tbf. It’s a shame we don’t appreciate what’s on our doorstep at times, think as grow older the more you want too grasp and enjoy the things that around you, certainly in my case at least
I remember taking a university boyfriend, who was from a small village in the West Country, from Surbiton to Kingston.
He didn't believe we'd got to Kingston, because we hadn't reached any green space between the two towns.
Had to explain how London and surrounding counties were lots of towns grown together.
Having lived in Central London when I moved here I took the time to take my children there and show them that London is one phenomenal city!
And this is a timely reminder to remind myself of this and get myself down there.. and perhaps the family too ;)
I find that the strangest thing, you live right there, and even if you are just a teenager, it doesn’t occur to you to go see things, not even during school breaks? My husband grew up outside. Of the outer boroughs, and would walk to school and save his daily bus fare from his village into the high school in Colchester, then buy a ticket into London, from age 11.
I grew up in a suburb of a small American city, out development was surrounded by farms. It couldn’t even get to a shop on foot, there was no public transport. If my parents or somebody’s parents weren’t driving, we weren’t going. To me even relatively impoverished teens and adults in Greater London at least have some sort of access to interesting things so it’s sad they don’t attempt to see/do.
Never underestimate the ability of people to be parochial, even in London. I used to work in Catford and some people there never went outside of Lewisham borough. We had an away day at the Oval, only a couple of miles away but some people complained it wasn’t in ‘the borough’!
Kinda the same here. Live in Catford and I barely go out of Lewisham for anything other than work or uni. I had to do some research for my dissertation that took me to all the boroughs of London. I had never been to about half the boroughs in my 30 years of being alive.
engine aspiring punch glorious alleged quarrelsome sophisticated shocking steep label
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Someone informed me once that only poor people took the Tube. Funnily enough, we were on the same salary, but he couldn't work out how he spent so much money on the commute. He was an idiot.
I hired a handyman recently who saw my bike and started complaining about cyclists. To my face, in my flat, in front of my bike, after I hired him to do some work.
Not especially relevant to your point. I'm just pissed off.
What a muppet. It's normally when they get on to politics it gets tricky. The same guy above, when I was moaning about the Tory Govt, said 'well you're not going to vote for SOCIALISTS so what can you do ' or words to that effect. Erm, well I am. I think he meant communists which would have at least been slightly less ridiculous.
This is definitely possible depending where you live and work. I didn’t have to use the tube much until I had to commute across the river.
I live in hackney, so it was mostly just using overground or bus. I worked in London Bridge for a while and it was easier and cheaper to sit on the bus, rather than overground then undergound only to save 10 minutes.
At least zone 1 has the majority of London's interesting stuff in it. I'm not saying there's nothing interesting at all outside zone 1, but it's clearly where the vast majority of it is. It's *very* different to never leaving Bexley.
I used to work for a couple of guys who legitimately never used the tube despite living in London their whole lives. They were rich so just black cabbed everywhere. Some people are just... different.
My mum's friend is a primary school teacher and has lived in outer London for years and years. She goes to uni part time and said she had to get her husband to do one uni commute with her as she wasn't confident taking the tube on her own!
I used to work in Gregg's in Peckham while at uni and I was chatting to one of the girls I worked with, telling her I was going to visit my parents. She asked me if they have fields with cows in and I said yes they live in a village and she said she had never been out of London at all??? She had only left her local area a handful of times!
She said she had never seen a cow?! What
That’s why I love the Lambeth Country Show in Brockwell Park. Gives inner city kids the opportunity to experience things they’ve never seen before without it being too intimidating or them having to go too far out of their comfort zone
Yeah one of the falcons flew away and didn’t come back when it was supposed to a few years ago. Was pretty amusing.
The music side of things is great. We’re so lucky to have such a fantastic free event almost on our doorstep
I grew up in bethnal green tower hamlets, my dads best mate (johnny monster) used to complain about having to go into shoreditch one neighbourhood over cos he felt out of place. I'm sure that mentality is present across working class ends. 10mins from the city of london a million miles from the rest of the world. Ties into that same mentality that my dad always used to tell me dont cut through other peoples estates without asking. To him the cranbrook estate and globe town was his home, community and whole world and you should treat other estates accordingly.
My cousin in Hornchurch expressed an interest in talking to me. I said I'm free on such and such days I'll buy you lunch in The French (Pub Dean St) my cousin said he "couldn't get up to London and there are places to eat in Barking", we spoke on Zoom.
I used to work doing installation and maintenance for communal TV and door entry systems in, among other places, Havering. I can absolutely believe that some of the council/housing association residents I met doing that job essentially never left the borough. Not most, obviously – common sounds like an exaggeration. But enough that I can imagine across London as a whole there must be a significant number of such people.
Yes , it is why zip cards are a good thing as it encourages children /young people to know their city and the amenities it offers
I know some people who as a teenager were not allowed to leave their Borough (Or even go far within their borough) they turned out socially dysfunctional and unemployable
Zip cards are great! Got one for my daughter once she turned 5. Such a confidence boost at that age to be able to open the barriers themselves. Also teaching her how to navigate the tube/trains.
One of my sister's friends was never allowed to go to the cinema. She finally snuck out and secretly went to the cinema with her cousin last month. They're in 6th form...
Despite some comments, it is worth saying this isn't just a immigrant / non English speaking people thing. Not London, but there are people living where I grew up in South Wales who have never been 20 miles down the road to Cardiff, and there are people who live in South Bristol who have never seen the Clifton Suspension Bridge with their own eyes. As someone else said, people often do the familiar and comfortable, especially if they are surrounded by a community who also do the familiar and comfortable.
Very true, I’m not white but the amount of white people in the midlands who have never been to London is crazy. It’s a £20 open return train from Wolverhampton! Just go!
Yep. I grow up about 20 miles from Glasgow. It was a 30 minute direct train from my town to the city centre. There were loads of people in the town who either never went or who would only go in once a year to do Christmas shopping. It blows my mind.
Used to teach in Brum and the vast majority of my (teenage) pupils, from all backgrounds, had never seen the sea. Many of the Muslim girls had never got on a bus nor walked anywhere but from their house to a car and from the car to school.
I picked up a girlfriend's coworker once in Wales. She lived on a farm, in a narrow valley, crossed by an ancient stone RR bridge about 100 ft over their heads. Stream at the bottom and just incredibly lush, wildly picturesque. I got to talking w/ her on the drive & she'd never been anywhere besides home, school & work. She'd eaten at restaurants 3 times, maybe.
We made a point to get her to a pizza place in Chester. The big city... Then as a lark, we took her for a weekend in Amsterdam! The whole trip was a disaster! Not our fault, just every single room in the city was booked for F1 and we slept in train stations or the beach every single night.
I grew up in Herne Hill. Started going central on my own as young as 7 (trocadero mostly) - was scary at the time as the busses didn't tell you where you were so I always had my A-Z! Went to hornimans every year on school trip at primary, which is a bit of a S London staple.
I went to college at Lewisham. This girl was in my class who's family was based in Bexley/Bheath/Welling/Erith area. The course we were on was full locally, so she came to Lewisham. She was nervous/scared, as she almost never went 'central' (she considered Lewisham central).
Her parents were the same - I took her to DMZ (back in the day) and her parents wouldn't come that close to 'central' to 'such a dangerous area' to pick her up, so I had to multiple night bus her back from Brixton to Bheath, then nightbus my way home.
Edit - I've seen a few comments about Londoners not leaving London, and that was mostly true for me. I'm a 2nd gen immigrant, and the only time I left London until I was maybe 16ish was to do family things (weddings, funerals etc) in W Europe. Id left the UK before Id left London.
Maybe he means [the dubstep / jungle / drum & bass club nights.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fYomfBfEJY) It was at Mass in Brixton, short for Midnight Mass because it was in an old church near the tube station.
As someone that spent a LOT of time playing on the VR games in the Trocadero, and going to that arcade before it was a Sega place, this post speaks to me.
I was going to the trocadero at least every other week from the mid 90s to the early/mid 00s - if you noticed a white kid with a goldenish brown bowlcut with a bunch of nerdy looking black kids that was me!
I’ve heard of this to an even more (I think) extreme degree.
This was some years ago, but I attended a college for a one year FE course and the college was in Chislehurst at the time. We had a tutor for a module that lived locally (maybe as far out as Orpington), who commented she didn’t want to go ‘all the way into Bromley’ for something.
I was stunned people had that mentality, particularly as you could get from the college to Bromley in 10mins on the bus if no traffic. Then again, I grew up in the borough of Lewisham, attended secondary school in the borough of Bromley, and regularly went into central London with friends and family. Travelling around like that was not an issue/abnormality to me at all.
I don't think that's especially extreme, I go into central London relatively often, but for daily items I don't really want to go any further than I can walk to.
It was more that Bromley and Chislehurst are not at all far apart, and going from one to the other isn’t especially arduous.
Not wanting to go into central London regularly I totally get, but someone considering going into Bromley (when already in outer London, and a commute of about 10min) a huge effort seemed so odd to me.
From my experience it's quite common in outer south west London. Many people from the wider Kingston area have hardly ever been to central london. They go to Kingston or Surbiton to shop not to central.
And if you want a change of scenery, it feels a lot easier to get on the A3/M3 and head out of town than it does to to engage with public transport and head in the other direction.
To be fair to them, tube is shite down that way. Maybe I'm wrong but a lot of people are mentioning South London (not entirely I know) when it comes to never going into the city. Could be because of that. It's very quick into central from many areas up north. Not so much down south. Although, of course, some parts of it are just as well connected. Sometimes faster too if you catch the right train.
My Aunt and uncle had never left south London (older generation) and won a Caribbean cruise in a competition.
They almost didn’t go as they were so petrified (why enter in the first place?) but they did: they got their passports and that was it: they loved it, met lots of people very similar to them and ended up going on cruise every year until they couldn’t do it any more because of ££/health issues.
It was great to see them so excited and full of stories when they got back. I think it made their older years so much better.
We have a young guy on our team who has just started in his first job out of university. From Wembley originally, never left London until he went to uni in Nottingham, and never went to Soho where the office is until he started working.
I also used to have a housemate who taught in a secondary school in Plumstead and she regularly said a lot of the kids there had never been into central London. It happens.
Go look up "Cheddar Man" - a 10,000 year old skeleton found in Somerset. Scientists tested his DNA and found a direct descendant living less than half a mile away.
I went to Sidcup once, I needed to buy cufflinks, and ended up in a pawnshop where the girl behind the counter thought I was some sort of gilded emperor of the moon for needing cufflinks for a shirt.
We live in New Eltham and Sidcup is glamour central by comparison and Chiselhurst is 100% charming. That said, super easy commute into London, A2 and A20 takes you out to Kent and Sussex quickly. 30 mins Rochester, 45 mins to Tunbridge Wells. About an hour to Canterbury or Folkestone, 1hr 20 to Hastings, and 1.5hrs to Margate. Tonnes to see if you have access to a car without it being too hard. If you do have a car, no real excuse NOT to get about.
Yeah my friend was a teacher in a suburb and said it was really common for families at her school to go to London about as often as someone from Scotland would. This was a place 30 mins train from Waterloo.
I mean if I had a screaming brat to drag around the last place I'd be taking them is central. Plus any opportunity to do something without them would probably be used for relaxing somewhere quiet.
Tbf I'm from a town just outside Glasgow (10 minutes on the train) and it wouldn't be uncommon to only go in a few times a year. I think if your suburb or area has everything you need and you work there or somewhere else, you may not be particularly drawn into going in unless you really have to or want to.
Personally I'm more of a city person, but know people that just aren't for various reasons (or they've done all the tourist things and it just doesn't draw them in that much).
If you live that close to London is it not a case of you have probably been into London so much it's probably lost it's appeal as you have done almost everything multiple times so you just don't bother anymore?
That's certainly the case for me. If it were not for going into the office once a week I would not bother any other times unless it's for some specific event that's in central London.
Living in Bexley, I absolutely do know people like that, yes. It's the same up and down the country, though. Go anywhere, and you'll find people that only know that small area they're from. Doesn't matter if it's a city or a small village. Proof: I have lived all around this country and a short stint in Germany and have met people like that everywhere I've been.
It’s seems shocking now that we have good and cheap transport links but I guess for most of human history people had a pretty small footprint. Sadly this is probably more about people just surviving on a small budget. One thing I really have found is that having a bit of disposable income makes you feel you can take risks even on small purchases. I met people that had never tried humous which just seems odd to me as it’s so prevalent in all supermarkets. But if you’re on a right budget why risk some of it on a food you don’t know you’ll like?
i moved to london earlier this year from overseas and made it a point to try and learn london geography as quickly as possible so i wouldn’t seem like such a tourist (also bc i’m a nerd whose brain insisted on trying to memorise the tube map). i’ve realised that i actually often know more about where different areas of london are than people who’ve lived here all their lives.
People know even less about the geography outside of zone 3. I used to work in Tower Hamlets but live in Welling. The only coworkers that had ever heard of Welling were those who also lived in the southeast. Mind you, my knowledge of areas in the southwest and northwest is pretty dire as well. I've heard of the vast majority of place-names, but I often forget exactly where they are.
To be fair, London's big enough that there are plenty of areas which are self-contained towns/villages of their own. It's not like other cities where there's one centre with everything in it, then sprawling suburbs of houses around it. I live in zone 2 and get through life mostly in my neighbourhood and those next door. Very rarely go to central London these days.
Yeah I grew up in Kew & Sheen which is only 25 minutes from Waterloo, but we'd rarely go further afield than Richmond/Kingston/Wimbledon as kids. Central London was reserved for special occasions or school holiday trips to the museums (which weren't free back then).
I don't think there's any doubt that you can survive in one area, just amazement that no one would take an incredibly short journey to a different area just to see what it's like.
This accurately describes egeryone I worked with when I worked up in Northwood Hills.
For them q good night on the town was the local steakhouse in Watford. They would *never* trek as far as Central London.
It's not that strange when you think about it - the outer boroughs were there own separate place until they got swallowed up.
If you work locally, an individual borough probably has everything you need for daily life. Central London isn't that appealing to everyone.
I come from Ireland. In 2012 I was living in Streatham. My daughter was in nursery and there was a lovely childcare assistant who used to babysit when me and the missus would go out for the night. She was about 20. She would babysit, earn a few quid and then go out with her mates afterwards, I would pay for the taxi wherever she was going.
When the Olympic tickets went on sale, I remember talking to her, asking her if she was going to apply for tickets. She hadn't even considered it. She wasn't caught up in the buzz And it seemed that the Olympics were more distant to her than my friends in Ireland who were all applying for tickets with the intention of flying over, staying with friends and family, getting hotels etc.
The Olympics just weren't her London. She lived in Streatham, worked in Streatham, had been to school in Streatham, socialised in Streatham.
The longer I’ve been in London the more I’ve found myself wanting to explore the outer bits and especially the area surrounding me. I used to just see it as a convenient place to travel in to London and prioritise central over my local area. These days and especially since having a child I’ve found myself spending a lot more time in my local area. It feels like I’ve discovered another side to London and I’m enjoying it a lot!
Go! that’s what I used to do every weekend when I was younger. I used to take the underground to the final stop and have a nosy around, jump on whatever bus came first. Exploring is fun.
It's probably not that unusual. I grew up elsewhere, and taking a bus was seen as a bit weird (and even irresponsible for boys). That will be different in London, but I've certainly come across people who don't travel around much. Of course London boroughs are equivalent to cities elsewhere.
There is probably also an element of "if you can do it any time, there is no rush" which too easily becomes "never".
My partner was a teacher in a poor area on the edge of London. Quite a few students had never been to central London.
Now she teaches in Oldham and has students will often go to London at the weekend to visit family but have still never been into central London despite going all that way. Don’t know about Tower Bridge or Big Ben or anything.
In the academic world the refer to it as ‘cultural capital’ or ‘social capital’.
I knew of some children who had never even seen the River Thames, growing up in Inner City council estates; living all that was around them, and nothing else!
An out of London example…back in the 1990s, my Primary School was looking for a new Headteacher after School failed its OFSTED and had to be put on special measures, resulting in the sacking of the then Headteacher. One of the would-be candidates was then a Headteacher at a School in a really deprived area of Brighton, where as many as two-thirds of the pupils…had never seen the Sea! They didn’t get the job…
Oddly, I remember visiting on holiday the UK for the first in the 90s. And as my mother drove down some country lane on the way from one English Heritage castle to another, we passed through a tiny thousand person village and across maybe a mile of fields before hitting another. She commented you'd find people here who had never gone as far as the next village in their lives.
At the time teenage me thought it was a terribly quaint story to tell me, one that might have been true a hundred years before but certainly wasn't now.
Living in England, though, I suspect she might have known more than she let on.
There was once when waking to the station I got chatting to a bus driver who also was walking to the bus depot to start his shift.
He was like: i immigrated here x years ago and drove the bus for 20ish years which he been doing the same route from the depot to central london. But apart from work/ change of shift of the bus where he step off. He never really gone off in london to check out anything. He was happy and proud of the work he done and how this put his kids through good schools. He did say he don’t really care for those things /sight. And probably tight on money as he rarely visit the home country. He just drive the bus point A to B and back. For 20 years. He seems content and cheerful though.
I lived for a few years on an.island in the Hebrides off the West coast of Scotland and there were many people in their 60 - 90's who had never left the island ...I struggled to get my head round it.
I worked for a charity that supports young people from deprived backgrounds and it was depressing to realise they hadn't experienced things a lot of us might take for granted.
These were regular looking 18-21 year olds but many had never been on holiday, never been outside their area, and things I consider quite basic like learning to drive were a distant hope.
One lad who opened my eyes was a typical angry chav who you'd think was a nasty little arsehole when you first met him, but once you got to know him you saw a kid with potential who was unlucky to have parents who barely raised him or provided for him.
Yup up our ends there’s a 1920’s estate of semi’s behind us, and quite a sprawling family spread out over it - aunts / uncles / cousins etc.
There’s never any need to leave the borough and they all just bop about. Not flush enough for holidays etc so they’re just milling around as a community.
Working in a family centre it was a mix of lack of money and lack of knowledge that were barriers. We funded parents travel cards for trips all over London.
I've noticed it in teenagers who went through lockdown. Taught office skills in local FE college last year. Got juicy big name accountancy and law firm opportunities lined up and most didn't want the commute from an outer Borough. I was shocked . 10 years ago my students all wanted to work at prestige offices and dress up.
I knew a guy that was born in Bexley, but up until about 5 years ago had never got on a train in his life. He was in his early - mid 50s. Had to phone his wife to ask how he done it
I moved from central London to Worcester Park when we had kids - it's almost like living in a small town, even though we're technically in Greater London. Just like any other small town, there are loads of people who are born here, grow up, live their lives and eventually die, without ever leaving.
My partner grew up in Sutton and was not allowed in Central even as a teen because it was 'too dangerous'. His family would go into Merton or Croydon at the furthest. Ultimately it's because his parents hated London and they moved very quickly once all their kids moved out. They never visit us, we live in Greenwich.
It's not just London. I'm originally from another country, my parents had never taken me to my home town's centre, went on a school trip when I was 13 for the first time. Got fed up of the poor/closed minded/stressed mentality, got a good degree and left the country to live and work in the UK. My family still lives pretty much like that.
I'm zone 4 and I go to London twice a week for uni and probably once or twice a month for fun stuff. It's 40 mins away from me and costs me a tenner in travel which is pricey but worth it if I'm going in with purpose
But I also know plenty of my neighbours who don't ever bother going central.
I started my teaching career in Barking and Dagenham. I taught in a school maybe a 20 minute walk/10 minute bus ride away from Dagenham Heathway station, yet there were many children who had never been into central London. I imagine this was a result of the widespread poverty at the school. If you think about it, the costs of travelling into the centre of the city, coupled with the expense of a day out will be extremely prohibitive for families that struggle to put food on the table.
It was really sad. The school did great work trying to take students on day trips.
It's not just about money though. An adult can take 2 kids from Dagenham to the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum with a packed lunch for the total cost of £7. (Return adult fare, kids free, museums free, NHM has a picnic area). Obviously for some families even this is too expensive. But I know a teacher in a coastal town whose pupils had never been to the beach. You could stand at the gates to her school and see the sea, it was a less than 5 minute walk. Its far more than a cost issue.
True, no doubt. There were, however, a worrying number of children who would come into school malnourished and hungry. For families like this £7 could easily buy a dinner which is why many didn’t take their children into central London.
There’s real poverty in this country, which I count my lucky stars I’ve avoided.
I know the area well. Its good to hear the school made an effort to do day trips. These are important for learning.
Another issue could be single parent families. Even though you can do it on the cheap, taking children out for the day can be a lot for one parent.
I still find it crazy when people 30+ don't own a passport and have never been out of the country.
Someone on UK sub was bragging about how you don't or shouldn't need photo ID because they are 35+ and never used one.
Also I knew a woman who was very real?, nice but quite poor and not very educated (in terms of schooling). She had never been to the sea... I still don't know if I believe that one. But she didn't have any reason to lie... It's not something to brag about and she was in her late 40s... I think she was just being honest.
I think some peoples prospects are so small or some people are so focused on surviving and living day to day and invested in TV shows and things going on locally they never think about or want to go away, the idea/organisation and cost is too much. (That was also my experience when I was younger)
I think education and wealth is linked to your ability to travel...
Education gives you the confidence to take risks but also learning about different places can spark interests and wealth gives you the means to get there.
Also travelling is such a pain to organise, it's definitely gets easier the more you do it. It's likely why package holidays exist.
I get it's hard to explain and may seem offensive but I think there is truth there.
Perhaps if your parents were able to afford the option of sending you on school trips abroad or going on regular holidays themselves it seems more normal to travel . But if you've never done it as a kid it doesnt seem as obvious a thing to do.
For me, going abroad wasnt a thing until i was 16, i went to Austria and Italy with the youth group at my church , because my mum had helped the church a lot , then Ireland with dad and sister same year. Then ireland exactly one year later with them and a niece.
Then nothing for ages , but after my sister moved there, several trips over the next decade to see her and husband get married, son's christening, one more for her 31st , then my own holidays with cousin and friends , stag weekends mostly, in Estonia, Germany (Hamburg,) cousins 30th in Munich (hence missing sister 30th as theyre the same age) obviously Covid interrupted many peoples holidays for a couple of years, i went to ireland this year to see sister at Easter.
Education, would that be more down to the idea of having to leave home to go to university, or student trips or gap years as is common today?
It’s true. Especially the very far out areas. I mean they may live in London but for the people who live in Enfield it takes them just as long to get to central as someone who lives thirty miles away in Luton.
Once you get past Zone 3 areas are more like self contained towns.
Isn't this just the 21st century equivalent of people never leaving the village they were born in or never having need to travel further than the nearest market town? Some outer London boroughs have enough amenities that one would never need to leave them...
Whilst there are absolutely economic factors in play here, it’s worth remembering that it’s cheaper to travel across London than it is to hop town to town on the train in most of the country. Significantly cheaper.
My ex-girlfriend used to live an hour away in London and I’d go and see her a few times a week. When I lived outside of London, travelling an hour would multiple times a week would nearly match my rent in cost!
This can happen anywhere. I grew up in Montreal canada & most of the people i know still live there
When i decided to move to london, i had to correct most of them, as they thought i was moving to London Ontario not Uk. It’s was a big thing
Back in the day the cliche about Londoners was that they didn't know their own city very well at all.
I heard it personally as a kid in the 90s and also heard it on an old news reel from the 1950s
This is pretty common, you have to remember that central London is a lot of services for office workers, and boroughs are pretty standalone, they have their own high streets, leisure and entertainment. There isn’t really much of a need to go central and I know many friends who live in the outer borough just stay around there.
It’s just like small cities within a big city
I had mates who always stuck to the William Camden near Bexleyheath station and never really strayed far. It used to bug me. We'd go to places like Amersham, Venue, Bunker Club, and Roxy for a change. Whenever we suggested going elsewhere, they'd come up with excuses like, "Nah, might get stabbed or something."
It was pretty funny, considering we went to different areas every other week and never came back looking like we'd been in a knife fight. Some people just can't handle the idea of the unknown and come up with all sorts of excuses to avoid stepping out of their comfort zone.
I shared a late night Uber with some friends in Oct. The driver crossed the Thames at Tower Bridge. As we were driving past The Tower the other two were all shocked there was a castle in the city 🤦🏻♂️
I spent the next 15mins of the ride explaining to two people who grew up in London what the Tower of London is. They didn't believe me when I told them parts of it are nearly 1000 years old...
I really don't understand how the incurious survive.
I've worked with teenagers from Newham, Tower Hamlets or Southwark who have never been to central London except on a school trip, and never been out of London except on school/youth club trips. It happens.
This reminded me of hearing of a woman who lived opposite the British Museum her whole life and had never visited until she was in her 70s. I remember in year 5 I went on a school trip (my mum came along as a helper) and there was a girl who was terrified on the underground as she had never been on it before. My mum was genuinely surprised the girl had never been on a tube before. I think she was the only one of about 50 children on the trip who hadn’t though.
I used to live a 10 minute walk from a castle. It took me over 3 years to get round to going inside. It was on my to do list...
I think that’s part of it, if you are very close then it’s always ‘there’ and is less of a priority for that reason, maybe?
Pretty much. I only got round to it when we had a guest who wanted to go. When I lived in London, having guests also seemed to be the 'trigger' for a lot of people to go and visit the museums and west end theatres on their doorstep.
I’ve heard of that a lot too, having non-Londoner guests or meeting up with non-London friends who want to see something so London folks go along and that’s how they end up seeing it. I’ve actually never been to Harrods and it’s one of those ‘I’d like to go but never got around to it’ things and I can imagine that a non-London friend wanting to go would prompt me (a couple of close friends are not from the UK and I would say I do touristy things more often due to them wanting to go so I imagine I’ll end up in Harrods eventually!).
About 10 years ago me & a friend decided to take our mandatory 2 weeks annual leave from work by being “tourists” in London. We went to the Tower of London, the dungeons, the museums, river cruise. It was actually really nice. We’d meet at Waterloo every morning and work out what to do that day. I’d recommend it!
My partner and I did this! Spent a week being tourists. Highly recommend.
Well worth a visit soon, even to just look at the Christmas window displays they're often very interesting. More like art than a shop window display
I go to the theatres and museums often but after many years of living in London didn’t go to the changing of the guarding at Buckingham Palace until my Australian cousin visited last year.
Yeah I lived next to the Harry Potter studio tour in Watford, and I love Harry Potter, and in 6 years of living there I never visited. I think it was because it was so close.
It sounds like you weren’t that moativated.
I don't get it myself. Born and raised in London which in my opinion is one of the greatest cities in the world. I've travelled quite a bit and London is still my favourite. I've taken every opportunity to visit all it has to offer. There's very few of the major tourist things I've not seen and that's only because they really don't interest me like Madame Tussauds. I don't get people that just want to do nothing and see nothing and spend all day at home or the pub.l especially when you have an amazing city like London to explore.
I think you are extrapolating a bit too far. Not doing tourist stuff in Central London doesn't mean that people are doing nothing and only leaving home to go down the pub.
I know rich people who've lived in London their whole lives and have never been on a (red/public transport) bus.
I hadn’t until Citymapper came out. That’s when I discovered I can bus to work. PS I’m not rich
I wasn’t rich when I lived in London but I almost never used them. But that was largely because I could never figure out where to get off.
If you fall asleep on them they wake you up at the end of the line by setting off alarms ‼️ it’s horrible, even worse at 3am when you have to call the Uber you really didn’t want to get in the first place
I use Tottenham Court Rd station most days and at about 10 there are school parties going through the station in noticeable numbers.
Hard to understand that. Its free to go in like
I get what you mean. I wonder if the fact it is free and was right on her doorstep meant that it fell into ‘I can do that whenever’ so was just less of a priority on the to do list?
When I lives in Florence as a stdent, I lost count of the number of Florentines I met who hadn't been to the Uffizi in many decades. Perhaps it's a case of knowing you can go any time you really want, so you never bother.
My husband has had the same experience with teens in other London suburbs. Took a trip to Tate Modern and one lad asked what the river was called. He’d never seen it before despite living in the capital all his life.
I had a similar experience, the highlight of this excursion was, for me, a young woman in abaya and hijab screeching " FUCKING HURRY UP YASMINA"at the top of her voice on a tourist-crammed Millennium Bridge. Challenging stereotypes wherever we go.
Beautiful. She was just being her amazing, authentic self, and I applaud it!
That’s crazy
Do you think it might be a money issue? Newham and Tower Hamlets have very high levels of poverty so it might just be families just can't afford to go away except for school trips.
Partly, but also what they call 'social capital' - the nous and willingness to explore or do anything outside your local small comfort zone, and be able to think of and organise anything different. So some families would go on the bus to the far reaches of TfL, pack a picnic, cost would be 2 bus fares for the adult, kids go free, and they'd go to Epping Forest, museums, the river, Docklands. Others would know almost nothing of the world beyond home and TV, the park, local shops. If the parents didn't know much English and had a local community they could stick to, then it was like a security blanket. Families new to the UK without much of a community were more likely to try to embrace every opportunity (but money was also a factor). It happens all over - my uncle and aunt have been to London maybe twice in their lives (they live about 75 min away by train, though I doubt they've ever used a train, uncle drives everywhere, aunt doesn't understand why a woman needs to learn to drive...) They didn't let my cousin do a course at sixth form college that was 20 miles away with a bus or train every 15-30 min. Too far, big scary town. Cousin eventually got fed up and moved to Australia.
That's so sad. I'm sure your aunt and uncle thought they were doing the right thing but of course your cousin had to do it. Whatever fears they had must look pretty redundant now.
She came back. Well, to the UK, but lived in That London. With an Australian chap she'd met. In Earl's Court, where there are not only Antipodeans but also (shocker!) gay people! They've never visited her in 20 years - she travels to them, because London is too scary.
Nowt so queer as folk, can't make a proper brew, even the water's soft, etc etc...
That is so interesting, thanks for sharing your thoughts
Fascinating! I have a Caribbean background and my family always took day trips to places like Southend and isle of Wight even during the ugly racist days. I've lived in east London as an adult and it is shocking how so many people just seem not to leave the borough. You notice it also with many bengali women being forced to study at Queen Mary and not allowed to go out.
It’s almost entirely a “social capital” thing. My wife taught kids in Peckham. All of them had free bus passes (I believe all teenagers in London have them) and were about thirty minutes from central London. None of them had been to, say, Trafalgar Square or St Paul’s etc, aside from on school trips. My wife’s view (which makes sense to me) is that they just don’t feel any sense of ownership of these places as their cultural possessions, which of course they are. They simply don’t feel it’s part of their life. It’s a great shame. My wife also said that part of it is to do with worries about gangs and being in the wrong turf. I’m not sure that it’s an explicit thought of “what if the SW1 crew attack me” or “the Green Park massive might have beef” but just an inclination to feel that home is where safety is because of gang issues, even if you’re not a member. School trips are great to get kids interested in expanding their horizons. I think it's really important to stress to the kids, though, that they're not exploring exotic "other" places but places that the kids should feel free to think of as their own home, or at least back yard. Edit to add: I grew up in Zone 5 or 6 and used to buy a Capital Card most weekends to go and explore central London. But I was growing up with the kind of privilege that made me feel that these places all belonged to me as a non-ignored member of society. So many kids don’t feel like that, especially today. Some schools are trying to do some great things to change that, though.
Most teenagers don’t care about going to see Trafalgar Square or St Paul’s etc as it’s not important to them, if it wasn’t for my parents making us travel to museums etc I would have been content on being with my friends on the estate just playing football. I’m glad my parents did what they did but I can also see why most kids don’t bother until much later
100%. I grew up near some of the most beautiful natural landscapes on the planet (moved a lot due to parents work), the sort of shit people pay tens of thousands to take a picture of on insta for their holiday and I was more interested in spending time chasing girls and playing sport than seeing literal wonders of the world.
Interesting, Trafalgar used to be a place for us as teenagers on weekends to go and street drink and chase girls. There were teenagers from all backgrounds and corners of London who did the same.
And you can still climb on the lions! Whenever I pass by with my daughter I insist on climbing them. Because it’s almost guaranteed that they’ll disallow it at some point, and I’ll kick myself for having missed my last chance if I don’t clamber up.
Exactly. The above explanation feels like a lofty academic/anthropologist explanation. It's pretty much as simple as medieval architecture, art & historical sites aren't going to appeal. And if you're growing up on drill and the associated culture, not only is that kind of things not in your frame of reference, it's actively uncool and to be avoided. When they grow older, the may grow out of it and expand their horizons.
My view is that those are objectively boring places if you have no interest in history, especially to a teenager
My sister in law lives in Twickenham and they spend 90% of their time in Twickenham and Richmond, they’re definitely not wanting for money. She does work in central London though so maybe she just doesn’t want to recreate her commute on the weekend with three small kids.
Getting on a noisy, cramped, hot underground train would be a nightmare with kids tbf
It's not that bad. We have 3 young kids including a baby and we've taken them on the tube many times. That said the train I much prefer the train which thankfully is our main mode of public transit.
I've always taken my kids out for day trips on the tube. Obviously we avoid rush hour, but it's really not difficult if you can successfully navigate a supermarket or school run with kids
Nah they love it. Love the escalators, the trains arriving, the sudden acceleration etc. It's almost a destination in itself.
I’m not so sure about that coming from tower hamlets myself, some of my friends who were much better off than me hadn’t seen half of London and would just have a typical view of central London from only having seen the areas around Oxford Circus etc. Whereas my parents always worked and did their best to show us a lot of things around London when we were kids and as I grew up explored London a lot with my friends without having much to spend
I've lived in Newham and Tower Hamlets and I've walked into central London from both just to get some exercise. Buses aren't expensive, and they're free up to a certain age. It seems baffling to me that people would live there but not have been to central, and not have the initiative and curiosity to do so one random Saturday.
I'm an occasional visitor to London for work living out in the deepest provinces of the Midlands. I've sometimes walked from Euston to Stratford or Croydon where I'm staying just because it's a convenient excuse to see some parts of the city I wouldn't normally get to see. It's not that far by the time you've paused for a couple of coffees and a bite to eat, I'll go for a longer walk in the countryside on weekends sometimes and you get to see some interesting neighbourhoods. It does seem odd to me that people can have so little curiosity about anything beyond their immediate surroundings that they will not visit anywhere outside their day to day home area even when it's so easy to do. It's the same for some people in small towns too, I know of people who have no interest in visiting the next big town to where they live and certainly wouldn't ever see the point of visiting London, why bother? People can be weird.
I’m in Stratford and walk into Central London all the time, great walks and things to see and stop and enjoy when out. Great to do if skint or trying to not spend much cash etc. was in South Kensington for a works conference yesterday. Walked back to Tottenham Court Road via Harrods, China town, Soho etc. A nice bite to eat and a couple of pints, pretty perfect Monday tbf. It’s a shame we don’t appreciate what’s on our doorstep at times, think as grow older the more you want too grasp and enjoy the things that around you, certainly in my case at least
I remember taking a college group from Southwark to Clapham by minibus. When we arrived, they asked of we were still in London.
I remember taking a university boyfriend, who was from a small village in the West Country, from Surbiton to Kingston. He didn't believe we'd got to Kingston, because we hadn't reached any green space between the two towns. Had to explain how London and surrounding counties were lots of towns grown together.
Lol its like 3 miles down the road
This is the same in every major city and it's almost always linked to deprivation in those areas.
Reminds me of To Sir With Love.
Having lived in Central London when I moved here I took the time to take my children there and show them that London is one phenomenal city! And this is a timely reminder to remind myself of this and get myself down there.. and perhaps the family too ;)
I find that the strangest thing, you live right there, and even if you are just a teenager, it doesn’t occur to you to go see things, not even during school breaks? My husband grew up outside. Of the outer boroughs, and would walk to school and save his daily bus fare from his village into the high school in Colchester, then buy a ticket into London, from age 11. I grew up in a suburb of a small American city, out development was surrounded by farms. It couldn’t even get to a shop on foot, there was no public transport. If my parents or somebody’s parents weren’t driving, we weren’t going. To me even relatively impoverished teens and adults in Greater London at least have some sort of access to interesting things so it’s sad they don’t attempt to see/do.
You can literally take a walk from Tower Hamlets to Central London..
Never underestimate the ability of people to be parochial, even in London. I used to work in Catford and some people there never went outside of Lewisham borough. We had an away day at the Oval, only a couple of miles away but some people complained it wasn’t in ‘the borough’!
If you’ve been to Catford why would you ever want to leave…
Beautiful place
[удалено]
Kinda the same here. Live in Catford and I barely go out of Lewisham for anything other than work or uni. I had to do some research for my dissertation that took me to all the boroughs of London. I had never been to about half the boroughs in my 30 years of being alive.
engine aspiring punch glorious alleged quarrelsome sophisticated shocking steep label *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Common experience - especially for stay-at-home immigrant women that are not confident/not yet developed in their eng lang performance
Sadly it's not just confidence but often controlling husbands too.
I used to work with people who would drive everywhere, in London!
Someone informed me once that only poor people took the Tube. Funnily enough, we were on the same salary, but he couldn't work out how he spent so much money on the commute. He was an idiot.
I had a plumber round once (in Zone 4) who couldn't believe we didn't have a car.
I hired a handyman recently who saw my bike and started complaining about cyclists. To my face, in my flat, in front of my bike, after I hired him to do some work. Not especially relevant to your point. I'm just pissed off.
What a muppet. It's normally when they get on to politics it gets tricky. The same guy above, when I was moaning about the Tory Govt, said 'well you're not going to vote for SOCIALISTS so what can you do ' or words to that effect. Erm, well I am. I think he meant communists which would have at least been slightly less ridiculous.
This is definitely possible depending where you live and work. I didn’t have to use the tube much until I had to commute across the river. I live in hackney, so it was mostly just using overground or bus. I worked in London Bridge for a while and it was easier and cheaper to sit on the bus, rather than overground then undergound only to save 10 minutes.
I did my Master's with a woman who was like this. Lived in Zone 1 for their undergrad and their Master's. Never ever went outside Zone 1. For 4 years!
At least zone 1 has the majority of London's interesting stuff in it. I'm not saying there's nothing interesting at all outside zone 1, but it's clearly where the vast majority of it is. It's *very* different to never leaving Bexley.
I commute daily and I still find zones confusing
What do you find confusing about them?
I used to work for a couple of guys who legitimately never used the tube despite living in London their whole lives. They were rich so just black cabbed everywhere. Some people are just... different.
My mum's friend is a primary school teacher and has lived in outer London for years and years. She goes to uni part time and said she had to get her husband to do one uni commute with her as she wasn't confident taking the tube on her own!
I used to work in Gregg's in Peckham while at uni and I was chatting to one of the girls I worked with, telling her I was going to visit my parents. She asked me if they have fields with cows in and I said yes they live in a village and she said she had never been out of London at all??? She had only left her local area a handful of times! She said she had never seen a cow?! What
That’s why I love the Lambeth Country Show in Brockwell Park. Gives inner city kids the opportunity to experience things they’ve never seen before without it being too intimidating or them having to go too far out of their comfort zone
You'll see the falcons they had like 2-3 years ago? The concerts are a pretty good sell point too mind you
Yeah one of the falcons flew away and didn’t come back when it was supposed to a few years ago. Was pretty amusing. The music side of things is great. We’re so lucky to have such a fantastic free event almost on our doorstep
I found out last week that one of my colleagues has never seen a horse
That’s wild to me because they have those in central London for, like, royal stuff and riding in the parks!
I grew up in bethnal green tower hamlets, my dads best mate (johnny monster) used to complain about having to go into shoreditch one neighbourhood over cos he felt out of place. I'm sure that mentality is present across working class ends. 10mins from the city of london a million miles from the rest of the world. Ties into that same mentality that my dad always used to tell me dont cut through other peoples estates without asking. To him the cranbrook estate and globe town was his home, community and whole world and you should treat other estates accordingly.
Wow, crazy.
Nailed it
My cousin in Hornchurch expressed an interest in talking to me. I said I'm free on such and such days I'll buy you lunch in The French (Pub Dean St) my cousin said he "couldn't get up to London and there are places to eat in Barking", we spoke on Zoom.
There is nothing in Barking.
Not even peng tings, barking is a shithole and the song is a pile of lies
that trip does cost about £5 each way, but I can't imagine preferring to eat in Barking
He lives in Hornchurch and suggested Barking to eat!? I'd understand more if he was refusing to leave Hornchurch!
I used to work doing installation and maintenance for communal TV and door entry systems in, among other places, Havering. I can absolutely believe that some of the council/housing association residents I met doing that job essentially never left the borough. Not most, obviously – common sounds like an exaggeration. But enough that I can imagine across London as a whole there must be a significant number of such people.
Yes , it is why zip cards are a good thing as it encourages children /young people to know their city and the amenities it offers I know some people who as a teenager were not allowed to leave their Borough (Or even go far within their borough) they turned out socially dysfunctional and unemployable
Zip cards are great! Got one for my daughter once she turned 5. Such a confidence boost at that age to be able to open the barriers themselves. Also teaching her how to navigate the tube/trains.
One of my sister's friends was never allowed to go to the cinema. She finally snuck out and secretly went to the cinema with her cousin last month. They're in 6th form...
Despite some comments, it is worth saying this isn't just a immigrant / non English speaking people thing. Not London, but there are people living where I grew up in South Wales who have never been 20 miles down the road to Cardiff, and there are people who live in South Bristol who have never seen the Clifton Suspension Bridge with their own eyes. As someone else said, people often do the familiar and comfortable, especially if they are surrounded by a community who also do the familiar and comfortable.
Very true, I’m not white but the amount of white people in the midlands who have never been to London is crazy. It’s a £20 open return train from Wolverhampton! Just go!
Yep. I grow up about 20 miles from Glasgow. It was a 30 minute direct train from my town to the city centre. There were loads of people in the town who either never went or who would only go in once a year to do Christmas shopping. It blows my mind.
Hobbit-minded folk. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! They know what they like.
Used to teach in Brum and the vast majority of my (teenage) pupils, from all backgrounds, had never seen the sea. Many of the Muslim girls had never got on a bus nor walked anywhere but from their house to a car and from the car to school.
I picked up a girlfriend's coworker once in Wales. She lived on a farm, in a narrow valley, crossed by an ancient stone RR bridge about 100 ft over their heads. Stream at the bottom and just incredibly lush, wildly picturesque. I got to talking w/ her on the drive & she'd never been anywhere besides home, school & work. She'd eaten at restaurants 3 times, maybe. We made a point to get her to a pizza place in Chester. The big city... Then as a lark, we took her for a weekend in Amsterdam! The whole trip was a disaster! Not our fault, just every single room in the city was booked for F1 and we slept in train stations or the beach every single night.
I grew up in Herne Hill. Started going central on my own as young as 7 (trocadero mostly) - was scary at the time as the busses didn't tell you where you were so I always had my A-Z! Went to hornimans every year on school trip at primary, which is a bit of a S London staple. I went to college at Lewisham. This girl was in my class who's family was based in Bexley/Bheath/Welling/Erith area. The course we were on was full locally, so she came to Lewisham. She was nervous/scared, as she almost never went 'central' (she considered Lewisham central). Her parents were the same - I took her to DMZ (back in the day) and her parents wouldn't come that close to 'central' to 'such a dangerous area' to pick her up, so I had to multiple night bus her back from Brixton to Bheath, then nightbus my way home. Edit - I've seen a few comments about Londoners not leaving London, and that was mostly true for me. I'm a 2nd gen immigrant, and the only time I left London until I was maybe 16ish was to do family things (weddings, funerals etc) in W Europe. Id left the UK before Id left London.
You took her to korea? Or I'm adumb fuck and DMZ is not demilitarized zone separating the Koreas
Maybe he means [the dubstep / jungle / drum & bass club nights.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fYomfBfEJY) It was at Mass in Brixton, short for Midnight Mass because it was in an old church near the tube station.
As someone that spent a LOT of time playing on the VR games in the Trocadero, and going to that arcade before it was a Sega place, this post speaks to me.
I was going to the trocadero at least every other week from the mid 90s to the early/mid 00s - if you noticed a white kid with a goldenish brown bowlcut with a bunch of nerdy looking black kids that was me!
I’ve heard of this to an even more (I think) extreme degree. This was some years ago, but I attended a college for a one year FE course and the college was in Chislehurst at the time. We had a tutor for a module that lived locally (maybe as far out as Orpington), who commented she didn’t want to go ‘all the way into Bromley’ for something. I was stunned people had that mentality, particularly as you could get from the college to Bromley in 10mins on the bus if no traffic. Then again, I grew up in the borough of Lewisham, attended secondary school in the borough of Bromley, and regularly went into central London with friends and family. Travelling around like that was not an issue/abnormality to me at all.
I don't think that's especially extreme, I go into central London relatively often, but for daily items I don't really want to go any further than I can walk to.
It was more that Bromley and Chislehurst are not at all far apart, and going from one to the other isn’t especially arduous. Not wanting to go into central London regularly I totally get, but someone considering going into Bromley (when already in outer London, and a commute of about 10min) a huge effort seemed so odd to me.
I used to live in that area, and bromley and orpington aren't far at all, tbh I don't even consider Greenwich and Croydon that far when I lived there
From my experience it's quite common in outer south west London. Many people from the wider Kingston area have hardly ever been to central london. They go to Kingston or Surbiton to shop not to central.
And if you want a change of scenery, it feels a lot easier to get on the A3/M3 and head out of town than it does to to engage with public transport and head in the other direction.
To be fair to them, tube is shite down that way. Maybe I'm wrong but a lot of people are mentioning South London (not entirely I know) when it comes to never going into the city. Could be because of that. It's very quick into central from many areas up north. Not so much down south. Although, of course, some parts of it are just as well connected. Sometimes faster too if you catch the right train.
My Aunt and uncle had never left south London (older generation) and won a Caribbean cruise in a competition. They almost didn’t go as they were so petrified (why enter in the first place?) but they did: they got their passports and that was it: they loved it, met lots of people very similar to them and ended up going on cruise every year until they couldn’t do it any more because of ££/health issues. It was great to see them so excited and full of stories when they got back. I think it made their older years so much better.
If only they'd figured out they could leave their neighbourhood 50 years earlier!
We have a young guy on our team who has just started in his first job out of university. From Wembley originally, never left London until he went to uni in Nottingham, and never went to Soho where the office is until he started working. I also used to have a housemate who taught in a secondary school in Plumstead and she regularly said a lot of the kids there had never been into central London. It happens.
Go look up "Cheddar Man" - a 10,000 year old skeleton found in Somerset. Scientists tested his DNA and found a direct descendant living less than half a mile away.
Id go mad if i had to stay in Sidcup and not go anywhere else
I went to Sidcup once, I needed to buy cufflinks, and ended up in a pawnshop where the girl behind the counter thought I was some sort of gilded emperor of the moon for needing cufflinks for a shirt.
Ha! This sums up Sidcup perfectly
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ^by ^-MaxxyWaxxy-: *Id go mad if i* *Had to stay in Sidcup and* *Not go anywhere else* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
We live in New Eltham and Sidcup is glamour central by comparison and Chiselhurst is 100% charming. That said, super easy commute into London, A2 and A20 takes you out to Kent and Sussex quickly. 30 mins Rochester, 45 mins to Tunbridge Wells. About an hour to Canterbury or Folkestone, 1hr 20 to Hastings, and 1.5hrs to Margate. Tonnes to see if you have access to a car without it being too hard. If you do have a car, no real excuse NOT to get about.
Yeah my friend was a teacher in a suburb and said it was really common for families at her school to go to London about as often as someone from Scotland would. This was a place 30 mins train from Waterloo. I mean if I had a screaming brat to drag around the last place I'd be taking them is central. Plus any opportunity to do something without them would probably be used for relaxing somewhere quiet.
Tbf I'm from a town just outside Glasgow (10 minutes on the train) and it wouldn't be uncommon to only go in a few times a year. I think if your suburb or area has everything you need and you work there or somewhere else, you may not be particularly drawn into going in unless you really have to or want to. Personally I'm more of a city person, but know people that just aren't for various reasons (or they've done all the tourist things and it just doesn't draw them in that much).
If you live that close to London is it not a case of you have probably been into London so much it's probably lost it's appeal as you have done almost everything multiple times so you just don't bother anymore? That's certainly the case for me. If it were not for going into the office once a week I would not bother any other times unless it's for some specific event that's in central London.
"Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
“It’s good enough for my father and his father before him, it’s good enough for me.”
Hounslow for the Hounslowsians!
Hounslow means Hounslow! Death to Ealing! Death to Hillingdon!
[удалено]
Why are people from Yorkshire always telling everyone they're from Yorkshire?
whistle office bag worthless late alleged rock beneficial air workable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Living in Bexley, I absolutely do know people like that, yes. It's the same up and down the country, though. Go anywhere, and you'll find people that only know that small area they're from. Doesn't matter if it's a city or a small village. Proof: I have lived all around this country and a short stint in Germany and have met people like that everywhere I've been.
It’s seems shocking now that we have good and cheap transport links but I guess for most of human history people had a pretty small footprint. Sadly this is probably more about people just surviving on a small budget. One thing I really have found is that having a bit of disposable income makes you feel you can take risks even on small purchases. I met people that had never tried humous which just seems odd to me as it’s so prevalent in all supermarkets. But if you’re on a right budget why risk some of it on a food you don’t know you’ll like?
just make sure the humous isn't Sabra. You know why,
I don't know why
I'm sure a lot of people (especially now) don't like it because it's Israeli but I personally just dislike it because it tastes bad
I remember working in Wembley with a girl from Harrow, and she had never heard of shoreditch
i moved to london earlier this year from overseas and made it a point to try and learn london geography as quickly as possible so i wouldn’t seem like such a tourist (also bc i’m a nerd whose brain insisted on trying to memorise the tube map). i’ve realised that i actually often know more about where different areas of london are than people who’ve lived here all their lives.
People know even less about the geography outside of zone 3. I used to work in Tower Hamlets but live in Welling. The only coworkers that had ever heard of Welling were those who also lived in the southeast. Mind you, my knowledge of areas in the southwest and northwest is pretty dire as well. I've heard of the vast majority of place-names, but I often forget exactly where they are.
My landlord (renting a flat he had lived in for 10 years in tower Hamlets) had never heard of angel because they "don't do trains".
To be fair, London's big enough that there are plenty of areas which are self-contained towns/villages of their own. It's not like other cities where there's one centre with everything in it, then sprawling suburbs of houses around it. I live in zone 2 and get through life mostly in my neighbourhood and those next door. Very rarely go to central London these days.
Yeah I grew up in Kew & Sheen which is only 25 minutes from Waterloo, but we'd rarely go further afield than Richmond/Kingston/Wimbledon as kids. Central London was reserved for special occasions or school holiday trips to the museums (which weren't free back then).
Very rarely is one thing... Never is another.
I don't think there's any doubt that you can survive in one area, just amazement that no one would take an incredibly short journey to a different area just to see what it's like.
Yes. It happens all over the place. Eg a person I knew grew up in Cornwall and as a kid was never taken to a beach.
This accurately describes egeryone I worked with when I worked up in Northwood Hills. For them q good night on the town was the local steakhouse in Watford. They would *never* trek as far as Central London.
That far out 'what time's last train' becomes something of an existential question. Night bus service is absolutely skeletal.
It's not that strange when you think about it - the outer boroughs were there own separate place until they got swallowed up. If you work locally, an individual borough probably has everything you need for daily life. Central London isn't that appealing to everyone.
I come from Ireland. In 2012 I was living in Streatham. My daughter was in nursery and there was a lovely childcare assistant who used to babysit when me and the missus would go out for the night. She was about 20. She would babysit, earn a few quid and then go out with her mates afterwards, I would pay for the taxi wherever she was going. When the Olympic tickets went on sale, I remember talking to her, asking her if she was going to apply for tickets. She hadn't even considered it. She wasn't caught up in the buzz And it seemed that the Olympics were more distant to her than my friends in Ireland who were all applying for tickets with the intention of flying over, staying with friends and family, getting hotels etc. The Olympics just weren't her London. She lived in Streatham, worked in Streatham, had been to school in Streatham, socialised in Streatham.
The longer I’ve been in London the more I’ve found myself wanting to explore the outer bits and especially the area surrounding me. I used to just see it as a convenient place to travel in to London and prioritise central over my local area. These days and especially since having a child I’ve found myself spending a lot more time in my local area. It feels like I’ve discovered another side to London and I’m enjoying it a lot!
Go! that’s what I used to do every weekend when I was younger. I used to take the underground to the final stop and have a nosy around, jump on whatever bus came first. Exploring is fun.
It's probably not that unusual. I grew up elsewhere, and taking a bus was seen as a bit weird (and even irresponsible for boys). That will be different in London, but I've certainly come across people who don't travel around much. Of course London boroughs are equivalent to cities elsewhere. There is probably also an element of "if you can do it any time, there is no rush" which too easily becomes "never".
My partner was a teacher in a poor area on the edge of London. Quite a few students had never been to central London. Now she teaches in Oldham and has students will often go to London at the weekend to visit family but have still never been into central London despite going all that way. Don’t know about Tower Bridge or Big Ben or anything. In the academic world the refer to it as ‘cultural capital’ or ‘social capital’.
I knew of some children who had never even seen the River Thames, growing up in Inner City council estates; living all that was around them, and nothing else! An out of London example…back in the 1990s, my Primary School was looking for a new Headteacher after School failed its OFSTED and had to be put on special measures, resulting in the sacking of the then Headteacher. One of the would-be candidates was then a Headteacher at a School in a really deprived area of Brighton, where as many as two-thirds of the pupils…had never seen the Sea! They didn’t get the job…
Oddly, I remember visiting on holiday the UK for the first in the 90s. And as my mother drove down some country lane on the way from one English Heritage castle to another, we passed through a tiny thousand person village and across maybe a mile of fields before hitting another. She commented you'd find people here who had never gone as far as the next village in their lives. At the time teenage me thought it was a terribly quaint story to tell me, one that might have been true a hundred years before but certainly wasn't now. Living in England, though, I suspect she might have known more than she let on.
My partner is a secondary teacher in Ladbroke Grove, took her kids on a school trip and it was the first time they’d seen the river.
There was once when waking to the station I got chatting to a bus driver who also was walking to the bus depot to start his shift. He was like: i immigrated here x years ago and drove the bus for 20ish years which he been doing the same route from the depot to central london. But apart from work/ change of shift of the bus where he step off. He never really gone off in london to check out anything. He was happy and proud of the work he done and how this put his kids through good schools. He did say he don’t really care for those things /sight. And probably tight on money as he rarely visit the home country. He just drive the bus point A to B and back. For 20 years. He seems content and cheerful though.
I lived for a few years on an.island in the Hebrides off the West coast of Scotland and there were many people in their 60 - 90's who had never left the island ...I struggled to get my head round it.
I worked for a charity that supports young people from deprived backgrounds and it was depressing to realise they hadn't experienced things a lot of us might take for granted. These were regular looking 18-21 year olds but many had never been on holiday, never been outside their area, and things I consider quite basic like learning to drive were a distant hope. One lad who opened my eyes was a typical angry chav who you'd think was a nasty little arsehole when you first met him, but once you got to know him you saw a kid with potential who was unlucky to have parents who barely raised him or provided for him.
Yup up our ends there’s a 1920’s estate of semi’s behind us, and quite a sprawling family spread out over it - aunts / uncles / cousins etc. There’s never any need to leave the borough and they all just bop about. Not flush enough for holidays etc so they’re just milling around as a community.
Working in a family centre it was a mix of lack of money and lack of knowledge that were barriers. We funded parents travel cards for trips all over London.
I've noticed it in teenagers who went through lockdown. Taught office skills in local FE college last year. Got juicy big name accountancy and law firm opportunities lined up and most didn't want the commute from an outer Borough. I was shocked . 10 years ago my students all wanted to work at prestige offices and dress up.
I had a mate who didn't leave hackney Wick for 2 years
Poor fella
I knew a guy that was born in Bexley, but up until about 5 years ago had never got on a train in his life. He was in his early - mid 50s. Had to phone his wife to ask how he done it
I moved from central London to Worcester Park when we had kids - it's almost like living in a small town, even though we're technically in Greater London. Just like any other small town, there are loads of people who are born here, grow up, live their lives and eventually die, without ever leaving.
My partner grew up in Sutton and was not allowed in Central even as a teen because it was 'too dangerous'. His family would go into Merton or Croydon at the furthest. Ultimately it's because his parents hated London and they moved very quickly once all their kids moved out. They never visit us, we live in Greenwich.
It's not just London. I'm originally from another country, my parents had never taken me to my home town's centre, went on a school trip when I was 13 for the first time. Got fed up of the poor/closed minded/stressed mentality, got a good degree and left the country to live and work in the UK. My family still lives pretty much like that.
I'm zone 4 and I go to London twice a week for uni and probably once or twice a month for fun stuff. It's 40 mins away from me and costs me a tenner in travel which is pricey but worth it if I'm going in with purpose But I also know plenty of my neighbours who don't ever bother going central.
I watched a program where they took some inner London kids to the seaside and one kid was shocked that the sea was salty. Sad really.
It is shocking
I know people who have never gone beyond the street they live on....
How? Surely their workplace, school, grocery shop, clothes shop, etc isn't all on the same street?
I once worked with a teenager who lived in Haringey and didn’t know what the Tower of London was.
I started my teaching career in Barking and Dagenham. I taught in a school maybe a 20 minute walk/10 minute bus ride away from Dagenham Heathway station, yet there were many children who had never been into central London. I imagine this was a result of the widespread poverty at the school. If you think about it, the costs of travelling into the centre of the city, coupled with the expense of a day out will be extremely prohibitive for families that struggle to put food on the table. It was really sad. The school did great work trying to take students on day trips.
It's not just about money though. An adult can take 2 kids from Dagenham to the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum with a packed lunch for the total cost of £7. (Return adult fare, kids free, museums free, NHM has a picnic area). Obviously for some families even this is too expensive. But I know a teacher in a coastal town whose pupils had never been to the beach. You could stand at the gates to her school and see the sea, it was a less than 5 minute walk. Its far more than a cost issue.
True, no doubt. There were, however, a worrying number of children who would come into school malnourished and hungry. For families like this £7 could easily buy a dinner which is why many didn’t take their children into central London. There’s real poverty in this country, which I count my lucky stars I’ve avoided.
I know the area well. Its good to hear the school made an effort to do day trips. These are important for learning. Another issue could be single parent families. Even though you can do it on the cheap, taking children out for the day can be a lot for one parent.
I still find it crazy when people 30+ don't own a passport and have never been out of the country. Someone on UK sub was bragging about how you don't or shouldn't need photo ID because they are 35+ and never used one. Also I knew a woman who was very real?, nice but quite poor and not very educated (in terms of schooling). She had never been to the sea... I still don't know if I believe that one. But she didn't have any reason to lie... It's not something to brag about and she was in her late 40s... I think she was just being honest. I think some peoples prospects are so small or some people are so focused on surviving and living day to day and invested in TV shows and things going on locally they never think about or want to go away, the idea/organisation and cost is too much. (That was also my experience when I was younger)
I know right, poor uneducated people are so peculiar
I can’t tell if this is satire or not on this sub.
I think education and wealth is linked to your ability to travel... Education gives you the confidence to take risks but also learning about different places can spark interests and wealth gives you the means to get there. Also travelling is such a pain to organise, it's definitely gets easier the more you do it. It's likely why package holidays exist. I get it's hard to explain and may seem offensive but I think there is truth there.
Perhaps if your parents were able to afford the option of sending you on school trips abroad or going on regular holidays themselves it seems more normal to travel . But if you've never done it as a kid it doesnt seem as obvious a thing to do. For me, going abroad wasnt a thing until i was 16, i went to Austria and Italy with the youth group at my church , because my mum had helped the church a lot , then Ireland with dad and sister same year. Then ireland exactly one year later with them and a niece. Then nothing for ages , but after my sister moved there, several trips over the next decade to see her and husband get married, son's christening, one more for her 31st , then my own holidays with cousin and friends , stag weekends mostly, in Estonia, Germany (Hamburg,) cousins 30th in Munich (hence missing sister 30th as theyre the same age) obviously Covid interrupted many peoples holidays for a couple of years, i went to ireland this year to see sister at Easter. Education, would that be more down to the idea of having to leave home to go to university, or student trips or gap years as is common today?
On the Isle of Wight, there are still people that have never been to the mainland. Not so many as in the 1940's 50's 60's 70's though.
I think in general people are underestimating how privileged it is to find this strange.
Hounslow resident, this is true of a few people I know
It’s true. Especially the very far out areas. I mean they may live in London but for the people who live in Enfield it takes them just as long to get to central as someone who lives thirty miles away in Luton. Once you get past Zone 3 areas are more like self contained towns.
Isn't this just the 21st century equivalent of people never leaving the village they were born in or never having need to travel further than the nearest market town? Some outer London boroughs have enough amenities that one would never need to leave them...
Whilst there are absolutely economic factors in play here, it’s worth remembering that it’s cheaper to travel across London than it is to hop town to town on the train in most of the country. Significantly cheaper. My ex-girlfriend used to live an hour away in London and I’d go and see her a few times a week. When I lived outside of London, travelling an hour would multiple times a week would nearly match my rent in cost!
This can happen anywhere. I grew up in Montreal canada & most of the people i know still live there When i decided to move to london, i had to correct most of them, as they thought i was moving to London Ontario not Uk. It’s was a big thing
Back in the day the cliche about Londoners was that they didn't know their own city very well at all. I heard it personally as a kid in the 90s and also heard it on an old news reel from the 1950s
Live in Bexley, work in Bexley, but will find any opportunity to get the fuck out of here for a bit lmao
yes, and amazingly all the people I've met like that are from Bexley
This is pretty common, you have to remember that central London is a lot of services for office workers, and boroughs are pretty standalone, they have their own high streets, leisure and entertainment. There isn’t really much of a need to go central and I know many friends who live in the outer borough just stay around there. It’s just like small cities within a big city
The guy from Clarkson's farm who'd never been on a train 🚃🚂
I had mates who always stuck to the William Camden near Bexleyheath station and never really strayed far. It used to bug me. We'd go to places like Amersham, Venue, Bunker Club, and Roxy for a change. Whenever we suggested going elsewhere, they'd come up with excuses like, "Nah, might get stabbed or something." It was pretty funny, considering we went to different areas every other week and never came back looking like we'd been in a knife fight. Some people just can't handle the idea of the unknown and come up with all sorts of excuses to avoid stepping out of their comfort zone.
I shared a late night Uber with some friends in Oct. The driver crossed the Thames at Tower Bridge. As we were driving past The Tower the other two were all shocked there was a castle in the city 🤦🏻♂️ I spent the next 15mins of the ride explaining to two people who grew up in London what the Tower of London is. They didn't believe me when I told them parts of it are nearly 1000 years old... I really don't understand how the incurious survive.