During October 1977, a small Blantyre boy narrowly escaped injury when a 2 cwt. dentist’s light fell on to the chair on which he was sitting! The youngster missed being hit by the lamp only because of his size, but the chair was badly damaged. The incident happened in the new Blantyre Health Centre. Afterwards […]
I was very honoured to receive a nice gift in the post in December 2021 from Blantyre Project reader, George Park. Wrapped very careful in cotton wool, was this small, delicate miner’s lamp. George had already corresponded with me, so I knew it was coming by post and thanks to our conversations knew the story […]
Mary Roberts certainly had a hard life. She had been married previously to John Gold, but left a widow when John died in the Blantyre Pit Disaster in 1877. The terrible thing about this tragedy is she not only lost her husband, but she had also lost 3 brother in laws AND 4 of her […]
Roy O Neil contacted me recently with a snippet of interesting info. Roy is the son of John O Neil, who owned the former 1970’s garage on Glasgow Road. This relates to a lamppost next to the Africa Pavilions at David Livingstone Centre, which I recently said belonged to the LMS Railway and was once […]
It may be because my day job is construction related, but i’ve always been interested in Blantyre’s infrastructure. The development of street water systems, sewage disposal, installation of gas and power. These were truly revolutionary things to happen in any town and Blantyre was no different, upgrading to latest technology and improving public amenities. Lighting […]