Mandeville resident and Manchester High School student, Julia Simpson, smiles broadly as she talks about her hometown.

The town has a hospital, bustling commercial activity, a police and a fire station and a myriad of educational facilities.

The town of Mandeville is already, without dispute, a tremendously prominent Jamaican town; still, 18-year-old Julia Simpson is not at all satisfied.

Julia, who was born and bred in Mandeville, has a dream that out of all the towns across Jamaica, Mandeville would become the nation's next city!

On the lawns of Manchester High School, where she is currently a student, Julia shared with The Gleaner her dream.

"Because everybody migrates to Mandeville, it kinda becomes crowded and so I'd like to see it expand and become the next city," she said.

Julia, in her description of her town, noted that Mandeville was already set apart because of the services it offered. According to her, these services are needed by a number of communities outside of Mandeville.

"It's a very clean place, it's like the centre of surrounding parishes, like Clarendon, Trelawny and St Elizabeth, so you have many persons from those parishes who come into Mandeville to do their daily business," said Julia.

heading in the direction

Already, the town has a hospital, bustling commercial activity, a police and a fire station and a myriad of educational facilities. As it expands, therefore, it may, in fact, be heading in the direction Julia dreams.

The priority of Alexander Thomas is a bit different. Thomas, a man who claims that his family has 150 years of history in Mandeville and that he has been a resident since 1979, dreams that one day the town will be known for being clean again.

"Mandeville is a fairly old town, and one that has a reputation of being very clean. It's not as clean as it has formerly been," Alexander explained.

"It needs a lot of cleaning up now. The streets are not as they should be … . I would like to see the town of Mandeville more properly cleaned," Alexander shared.

"It is a place with a good reputation, particularly on the international scene, and I think that good reputation should be continued and upheld," he said.


Damion Robinson has become Mandeville's unofficial 'Starrie'.

Firefighters have this tradition of always calling each other by their last names. In Mandeville, it's no different as a Gleaner team found out when they met: (Top row, from left) M. Lalor, J. Archibald, J. Davis-Buckle, G. Wright, N. Hill, M. Gayle, H. Hines, and (bottom row, from left): S. Smith, R. Walters, H. Hamilton and S. Valentine. First-name basis or not, these guys save lives.

Donna Mitchell sits in for her cousin in the Mandeville Market. - Photos by Andrew Wildes

Everton Alexander has become hugely popular for selling mangoes in Mandeville and has become known as the 'original mango man'.