Birthplace of David Livingstone – the famous explorer, and has one of the largest populations for a village in Europe. Sounding picturesque? Read on.
ASDA is the biggest shop there… and it has a café, If you went there on any weekday, you’d be greeted by the same single mothers brigade that meet in said café to discuss whatever it is they’re discussing. Gets them out of the house I suppose.
Up the other side from ASDA, in High Blantyre, is the once sought after housing nicknamed locally as “Jerusalem” due to the white box-like houses with flat roofs (council realised flat roofed wasn’t the greatest idea at some point and put pointy roofs on. Something to do with rain, no doubt). Anyway, the hallmarks of the druggie now reach far and wide in what was once a nice area to live.
Springwells, which as been re-developed once had road signs ‘redone’, by a can of spray paint, saying “Beirut”. I doubt its re-development has changed much. You can take the ned out of Springwells, but probably best not.
Social life in Blantyre Central…. well there is a few pubs, quite a few pubs in fact. But.. if you’re not local, then be prepared to fight. In fact, even if you are local, if you’re going into a pub that you don’t usually go into.. then be prepared to fight as well because somebody might recognise you as the ******* that stole their wee brother’s pencil off them in 1st year at school, or something similar.
All in all, it’s a ****-hole, and in hindsight, I think it must’ve been as big a ****-hole in Livingstone’s days as it is now, seeing as he f*cked off to another continent to get out of the place.
Conclusion: Avoid. But if you have to drive through, keep as close to the maximum speed limit as possible and just focus on getting out the other side.
