Forget Marmite and whether milk goes in a cuppa ‘tay’ before or after the teabag comes out, there’s no almighty row quite like that of where exactly is the Black Country?
As someone rearing from the heart of the holy land, in Tipton, there was never any doubt my home turf was at its epicentre. Orange chips, proper cobs, the cut and The Black Country Living Museum on the doorstep.
Dudley, Cradley Heath, Wednesbury and Stourbridge qualify without much contention, but when you approach the far reaches of Oldbury, West Bromwich, Halesowen, Walsall, Bilston and, dare I say it, Wolverhampton, they may not be deemed so bostin.
I can already hear the gaffaws of ‘y’am saft’ by some, and yes, they may not relate to the historic roots of the Black Country, but this region has expanded and evolved into something far better and bigger than since its Victorian origins.
In fact, the Black Country is the ultimate story of reinvention and reappropriation to reclaim its identity into something far more positive.
It was back in the 1840s amid the industrial revolution that the name was coined. Blessed with Europe’s thickest coal seam, intensive mining along with furnaces burning day and night for the mass production of iron, glass, bricks and steel turned the skies above the canal network dark ‘black’ with soot.
For that, out of towners dubbed it ‘The Black Country’ and the somewhat negative term stuck, making the area forever synonymous with pollution and grime of heavy industry.
It’s hard to imagine now how the landscape was over-run with iron works and huge brick cones for making glass, especially as only one remains – the wonderful Red House Glass Cone museum in Stourbridge. Coal mining too has left its legacy of subsidence if you ever went to the dearly departed Crooked House pub at Gornal or Tilted Barrel in Tipton.
So, you could define the Black Country in those terms, on the long-gone former sites of industry, some of it even now protected as a UNESCO Global Geopark.
Or, you could celebrate how the Black Country boundary has shifted to encompass so much more than a dirty sky.
Today, the Black Country is still just as industrious but in other trades and stretching out further than its origins, across Sandwell and up to the border with Birmingham and Worcestershire.
It’s a distinctive culture and way of life that marks it out as very different from our Brummie neighbours. And that’s the wider area that we at Bibble are getting under the skin of in our regular features.
It’s all about the no-nonsense genuine attitude, the unique creativity, the hearty accent and inimitable food and drink.
You only have to look at our faggots, pork scratchings and pineapple creams at Bilston Market or sip on a pint from Wolverhampton’s Banks’ or award-winning Black Country Ales to know we mean business.
Then there’s our talent that goes beyond the old confines. Frank Skinner epitomise the area’s silliness and sharp wit as much as Lenny Henry and heralds from Oldbury and West Bromwich.
And we shouldn’t dream of discounting singing talent of Beverley Knight from Wolverhampton or Walsall’s Goldie, Judas Priest, Noddy Holder and Brit Award winner Jorja Smith, who all proudly count themselves as Black Country.
The chains on the Black Country flag have always shown the strength of this area’s character and bonds that tie its people together and the more of us doing that, the better.