“Where in Scotland are you from then?” When Australians ask about my accent, when we’ve clarified I’m not Irish (😆) I say “a town called Wishaw, a half hour drive from Glasgow.”
Wishaw – home of miners, steelworkers and trade unionists (back in the day) a commuter belt near the M74 to Glasgow, new houses now popping up everywhere.
Ex-mining villages, bings and farmland surround it and (yes) a maximum security prison (HMP Shotts) and Hartwood, a long-closed psychiatric hospital (twin clock towered, gothic building now used in horror movie film sets!)
Getting the general vibe?
Being Wishaw born and bred shaped who I am today, no getting away from that (well I did, to the other side of the world!😬)
Along with many I left permanently, a long time ago. Away we all went, looking for bigger, looking for better, looking for more.
People who actually know Wishaw (or Motherwell or coatbridge) laugh. “Wishy! Got yer stab vest?”
I laugh, but feel defensive too. My 60yr old take, rose-tinted glasses on, don’t actively live there anymore … not fair! Not accurate!
I’ve just spent two weeks with my Ma & Pa, walked for miles around old haunts (never felt safer) in the bitterly cold May sunshine under blue sky and blossoming trees. January in the pissing rain, guess I wouldn’t be so upbeat.
Wishaw is not crime-riddled, down-at-heel, impoverished, not at all. True the town centre might give that impression or driving through neighbouring Motherwell with its council schemes and tower blocks of disrepair.
There’s beauty to be found in Wishaw (there is!) shouting in my head at my husband, an Englishman transplanted here when he was 12 yrs from the bucolic (fav word of the moment😆) English countryside, who actively detests the place, who couldn’t wait to leave.
Clydeside is bucolic, 15 mins down the road! Lanark, Peebles, Biggar, Tinto Hill, 30 mins drive away, bucolic as they come!
Wishaw’s beauty is in my parent’s street, their local streets and surrounds, their flower-filled garden, their neat-as-a-pin home, the original old buildings and churches, (so many churches, similar amount of pubs!) the surrounding woodlands, the Scottish birdsong, the May blossoming trees, the walled bowling green, and even the modern multi-storey medical centre building.
Wishy people are nice, the service is great, the supermarkets clean, orderly, well stocked, the library amazing!
But close to the nice bits are the nasty. Round corners, just over there, rubbish-strewn gardens, graffiti, boarded up shops, peeling paint, broken windows in a now bereft town centre (once full of thriving family-owned businesses.) On the periphery, the odd alcoholic ‘Jakey’ staggering about, shouty drunk young women, mental health casualties.
Ravenscraig’s closure (Asia, Thatcher, shipbuilding gone, crumbling infrastructure) one of the largest steel works in Western Europe was devastating for the area, the effects still felt to this day.
The Wishaw I remember from my youth (1965 baby, left in 1983) had a bustling town centre full of small family-owned businesses.
Butchers, fishmonger, many bakers (before Greggs!) King’s the sweetie shop, Lannigans the newsagent, a large toy shop, a school uniform shop, Higgins the family jeweller, (still there!) Bells the Florist (also!)
Loads of pubs, a few fish & chip shops, one Chinese takeaway, the Chinky (common parlance of the time 🤦🏼♀️. Newsagent run by a Pakistani family was the Paki’s 😩) a furniture shop, ‘Bairds’ the multi-level department store, the legendary Round Sounds music shop for all yer vinyl record needs.
Independant boutiques
A massive library
A health centre
An indoor swimming pool!
A barber (one)
Mr Archibald the dentist, (torturer of kids)
the towns ‘Wishaw Press’ newspaper offices, a cinema, the Odeon where teenage me queued to watch ‘Grease’ and ‘Quadrophenia.’
A post office
The train station
Churches(so many))
Now, 2026, like all small UK towns built around steel making and mining there’s chronic unemployment down family lines, Op Shops, Pound shops, tattoo shops, vape shops, chemists, nail shops, barbers galore (and Gregg’s!)
Anyway why write all this?
After staying in Haworth in Yorkshire (home of the Brontë sisters) walking through the gorgeous flower-filled park, seeing a plaque explaining was originally for the leisure of the local weaving mill workers made me think of Wishaw’s Belhaven park, still naturally beautiful, still lovely to walk round, similar size, lush green grass, ancient trees, circumference wall but also broken beer bottles, broken playground equipment, a filled-in fountain pond surrounded by red and white tape, graffiti, litter. Perfect unguarded place for kids with nothing to do, nowhere to go, to get pissed, cause a bit a damage, no one gives a shit, no one knows where they are, “ F*#k yous!”
And Wishaw is not Howarth! Not a tourist destination, no Charlotte, Emily or Anne Bronte, it’s only claim to fame is world champion snooker player John Higgins, “the Wishaw Wizard.” 😆
With a main town centre in disrepair, there’s probably no council money (or inclination) to make the park properly beautiful again. Shame.
The light and shade of regular life, the high’s and lows, ups and downs still happen but there’s a cushioning when you live in a beautiful place (which I do) in a warm climate (also) no criminal element (hardly) or in-your-face poverty.
Wishaw can’t be classed as a beautiful town, it’s often cold and windy (don’t know about the criminal element these days) but it’s definitely not a BAD place. I was given all I needed there. Love, safety, security, freedom and support to branch out. It all began in Wishaw. See you next time! ❤️🏴