I'm not totally sure what you don't get, so if this doesn't expalin what you want then ask again, true c*ckneys are people 'born within the sound of Bow bells', Bow is a place in east London (the east end) & the bells are those of the church.So really c*ckeny's are east enders, that's why the fans of the football club West Ham would see themeselves as the true c*ckney's.The term gets abused though because to northerners all Londoners(or even those living around London) are c*ckneys.
Persoanlly I'm from east London but in the suburbs furthur out from the east end so I'm a pseudo c*ckney.
I thought exactly the same thing when I was over there, I asked a lot of people (mainly in Sydney) if they could pick someone from Melbourne or Queensland or whatever due to their accent & no
one said that they really could, although maybe people from more rural areas or whatever spoke a bit differently.
It could be as you said that it's the time thing & over a longer period the differences will become more noticable but then you look at America & Europeans haven't been there too much longer than Oz & the differences in accent are much greater.Maybe it's because in the US the immigrants came from so many other parts of Europe rather than just the British Isles & this led to a greater range of accents, I suppose the different accents in Britain come to some degree from all the different invaders from eruope & where they settled ie Vikings in the north east.
It's still developing now, in London kids from some of the ethnically diverse inner city areas are speaking a strange c*ckney/patois mix.This comes from the way the black kids with West Indian roots speak & I suppose a sense that they're more cool or hip or whatever so the white kids start trying to speak like them & you end up with this strange hybrid accent, that IMO sounds bloody stupid & can be hard to understand.It's not just a small minority either, it's loads & loads of kids that speak like it so I suppose it shows how quickly these things can be created.(if you want an example try to catch an interview with the Fulham midfielder Sean Davis).
