So where is London? And what is a Cockney?

So where is and isn’t London?

If I’m going to write about the place, I should really consider where London, that sprawling mass of humanity, begins and ends. Areas in the suburbs which, several hundreds of years ago would have been towns and villages in their own right, have since been swallowed up by the ever expanding, dominant creature that is our capital city.

Someone from Stoke Newington which, for those who don’t know is a little bit North and a little bit East of Central London, once suggested to me that where I live, near Twickenham, Hounslow, Kingston, a lot South and a lot West of Central London, isn’t proper London. My own status as a proper Londoner can’t be questioned if you go by birthplace, Hammersmith, since that’s considerably more central, all be it a bit to the West.

Some would argue that you’re only in London if you have a postcode such as SW, EC, SE or NW, that would mean heading out of Waterloo you’ve left the Capital once you’ve waved to the
Wombles from the train at Wimbledon station. Wimbledon could also be argued as a cut off point as it’s the end of a tube line, but so to is Watford, and that for many isn’t only not London, but the gateway to the North.

Others consider London to be anywhere within the
M25, but that would include places like Windsor, and there’s surely too much green stuff on the way there for it to be part of the same city. That said, no matter where you live, you have a landmark which equals home and for me, like millions of others, entering the circle within that particular motorway is the same as crossing the river Tyne for a
Geordie.

The area of Greater London was created in 1965 and includes 32 boroughs. It covers an area of 609 square miles, stretching from Havering in the East to Hillingdon in the West, and from Bromley in the South to Enfield in the North. For the purpose of this book, if you can get there with an Oyster Card, and you’re life is managed, for better or for worse depending on you’re viewpoint, by
Boris Johnson, and you have the power to vote him out if you don’t like what he does, then that makes you a Londoner.

So having defined, even if only in my own head, the places which I can call London, who can and can’t claim to be a Cockney?

Were I to want to refer to myself as a Cockney, if we’re being traditional about these things I can’t, since to be a fully paid up member of the ‘apples and pairs’, ‘cor blimey guvner’ brigade I would need to have been born within the sound of Bo Bells (towards the East, although not technically the East End if you’re still wanting reference points). I did have the tube going past the window of the room where I entered the world, and I suppose being born within the sound of the London Underground could be a modern-day method of claiming your Londoner status, but the entry criteria to the Cockney club is slightly more specific. My great grandma was a born and bred Cockney, but that’s one generation too many for me to be able to play for a Cockney football team, were we to be using the qualification method often favoured by the Republic of Ireland, and crap journeyman Aussies wishing to play international rugby:

“And what a proud day this is for Bruce McSurfboard, as he realizes the dream of being able to line up for his beloved Scotland in front of a packed house here at Murryfield…I do wish he’d take his gloves off though, minus 5? That’s positively tropical for March!”

Unlike say, somewhere like Newcastle where being from that city, you’re naturally a Geordie (assuming that is you were born north of the River Tyne), being from London and being a Cockney don’t automatically go hand in hand, despite the impression given by accents.

The earliest historical reference to the word “cockney” or forms from where it evolved from I could find was when London was referred to by the Normans as the "Land of Sugar Cake”, the translation being, pais de cocaigne. This meant an imaginary land of idleness and luxury, and the word "Cocaigne" referred to all of London and its suburbs, all be it the suburbs was a far smaller area in William the Conqueror’s day. It’s evolution into Middle English took it to Cocknay and Cockney.

According to
Cockney.co.uk, a true Londoner is a Cockney, with the word, or 'cock's egg’ used as “a 14th Century term applied contemptuously by rural people to native Londoners who lived rather by their wits than their muscle”.

The first specific locational reference within the London area comes during the 1600s, when the term was used to describe those born within earshot of the Bow Bells by Samuel Rowlands in his satire ‘The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head-Vaine’ (as an aside, there’s a great title for a prog rock album if ever I heard one).

Early uses of the word tended to be derogatory (depending on where you are in the UK that’s still very much the case). To quote another literary source, in ‘The Reeve's Tale’ by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_ChaucerGeoffrey Chaucer (written in 1386), the word cokenay is used to describe “a child tenderly brought up, an effeminate fellow". If you’re feeling especially bold you could liven up your visit to London by taking in a Milwall home match, and see how the locals feel about the origin of the word “cockney”. You might also like to know that the term could be used for a young male prostitute; although the location of the nearest A and E department might be more useful.

The Bow Bells is a little misleading, since we’re not talking about the area of Bow, but the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow church in Cheapside in the City of London, not actually in the East End which is the popularly described Cockney heartland. Areas of London where the bells could be heard included Clerkenwell, Finsbury, Shoreditch, Stepney, Bethnal Green, Limehouse, Mile End, Wapping, Whitechapel, Bermondsey and Rotherhithe.

It goes without saying that this is no longer the case given the general noise of London, plus, the bells were silenced during World War 2 and, due to bomb damage, weren’t restarted until 1961. The immediate area surrounding the church is now no longer residential, so the chances of someone being born there, unless one of those occasional “Birth On Bus” headlines which the tabloids love, entering the world to the soundtrack of that particular place of worship is rather unlikely.

Migration has also seen the “cockney” heartland spread, with areas to the South East such as Barking & Dagenham now considered as places where the dialect is spoken. Naturally employment shifts has also resulted in expansion, as Chatham Dockyard grew during the 18th century, large numbers of workers were relocated from the dockland areas of London to Kent, bringing with them the "Cockney" accent and vocabulary. It wasn’t long before this distinguished Chatham from neighbouring areas such as Rochester, which had the traditional Kentish accent. That said, if you go by my where London begins and ends theory of Oyster cards and Greater London Authority management, Chatham isn’t London, it’s also outside the M25.

As the English have moved out of the inner city East End areas, ethnic minorities have taken their place, meaning were you to walk down Whitechapel Road, accents as far ranging as West Indian, Eastern European, African and Asian would be heard more often than that of traditional London or Cockney. In fact, among younger Londoners, those for whom London is their place of birth, but are first generation descendants from other nationalities, the language spoken is described as
Multi Cultural London English.

Exactly when the “Cockney” accent became dominant in London is hard to pin down. According to
Professor David Crystal, who delivered a talk titled ‘Sounds of the Streets and Stage in Shakespearean London’ at the 2009 Story of London Festival, people didn’t speak with much of an accent in the early 1600s, although there was some regional variation as a result of post Black Death immigration.

Following this up I contacted him to find out his thoughts on if Cockney speak was showing its face at the same time as the word was being used to describe the people:

“I'm sure there were local accents evolving in London, and there probably was a Cockney accent of some sort, even though the first recorded reference to 'Cockney language' is much much later - the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) has a quotation from 1776. If there was a social group, then there would have been an associated accent. There was no Received Pronunciation at that time though.”

I couldn’t write about the Cockney world without mentioning the most famous feature, the rhyming slang, Pie and mash and
Chas and Dave will have to wait for another day. Some rhymes are so common, they’ve become a part of everyday speak far away from the East End, one of the most common being ‘barny’ – argument, which originates from barn owl, meaning row.

Not only does that demonstrate the power of the slang’s ability to worm it’s way into the British consciousness, but also the randomness of it, especially considering that owl and row don’t exactly rhyme. I wonder also, how many people who use the word Pony to describe something being rubbish, realize they’re using the rhyming slang for crap which is pony and trap.

Other examples are as famous, but through their comedy value: apples and pairs – stairs, brown bread – dead, plates of meat – feet. Then there’s the ones which use famous names such as Pete Tong – wrong, Britney Spears – beers, Hank Marvin - starving and Alan Whickers – knickers.

I’ll conclude some of these sections with a few oddities from the Cockney repertoire, but for now, since it’s getting late, I really should loaf off to me John Fred.