Hereford, a city of two halves

Living in Hereford
  • Pretty cathedral ✔
  • Attractive riverside walks ✔
  • An array of interesting independent shops ✔

Buuuuut . . . .

  • Obese natives ✔
  • run down council estates ✔
  • rife unemployment ✔

Hereford is a city of contradictions. A fine historic cathedral, beautiful Georgian townhouses and an excellent new shopping centre, yet despite all this, it is still one of the most shabby, awful filled towns you will ever encounter.

The locals walk around with an undeniable air of self-righteousness, as if they know something about the meaning of life that everyone else doesn’t. The demographics consist of a strange mixture of snobbish grey haired retirees and hideous *****.

How grim is your Postcode?

A real motley crew of degenerates, Hereford’s ne-er-do-wells are truly some of the worst that our fine country has yet produced. A mixture of farmers-spawn, paedophiles and boy racers, all of whom can be spotted in the 7 mile long queue at the job centre, usually discussing tractors.

This is real farmer’s country, the kind of place where the men still have mutton chops and the ladies (if you can call them that) stay at home and tend to their 5 children.

The high levels of unemployment in the city stem from the fact that nobody in it wants to move with the times, and therefore new businesses are rarely established (save for the new shopping centre). The locals are insistent on remaining stuck in the past.

There are some opportunities for employment however, the vast array of charity shops present the local youth with excellent career prospects, as long as not getting paid for standing among piles of second hand **** is your goal in life.

Hereford is also one of those towns with its own unique smell. Chicken faeces mixed with chemical fertilizer, McDonalds and piss-soaked alleyways offer an intoxicating perfume for the weekend tourist to enjoy. In fact, so strong is the stench of animal **** from the surrounding farmland, I have developed a theory that it has now infected the brains of the local populace, slowly turning them into the monstrous creatures that they have become.

The boy racer scene is alive and well in and around Hell-ford, and barely a week goes by without a vehicle pile up by Asda (or ‘Asdas’ as our ********* cousins across the border insist on calling it). In fact, the wrecked remains of the ****’s vehicles are now so numerous that the council is planning to use them to build more social housing for the rapidly encroaching Eastern European population.

The Romanians come in surprising numbers to this sleepy English Farming town. They probably share some deep affinity for it as it reminds them of their hometowns in Transylvania. The estates in Hereford are also populated by our Slavic brethren from Poland. I assume they feel right at home in the Aushwitz-like comforts of Newton Farm’s many council flats.

Before I bring my love letter about this charming town to an end, I must spare a final paragraph for one of Hereford High Street’s defining features:

CEX.

Now we all know that a CEX in any town is a haven for the downtrodden. A sanctuary where people descend every weekend to trade scratched DVDs for other scratched DVDs. The Hereford branch of this sorry excuse for a shop is particularly offensive to the senses. Upon entering, one is assaulted by a barrage of body odour, halitosis and farts.

If you are travelling along the A49 northbound, you will not be able to miss Hereford. Not because of anything enticing or attractive about the place, but because it’s the only city in England without a bypass, therefore you are forced to drive through it.