In 2014, the Chief Executive of the London Borough of Waltham Forest said something as strange as it was surprising for a man in his position: “there is no actual place called Waltham Forest”.
He was, of course, talking figuratively. He was explaining how, for many residents, the borough existed mostly in the abstract. They identified with their immediate neighbourhood and felt a sense of belonging to the historic towns in the borough like Walthamstow and Leyton. But Waltham Forest was, as he put, not an “actual place”.