My mother Rachel ran this shop until she died in 1959 and then my life changed completely.Does anyone remember my family, my brothers are David and George.That evening, several of the plotters were injured by an accidental explosion which occurred while they were drying powder in front of an open fire.Between this evening and morning of the following day, several members of the group fled, while others still tried to rally support from the surrounding area.As a whole, Wolverhampton and Walsall not in the Black Country as its historic ties are to Staffordshire, although some of the towns between the two are Black Country.Similarily Stourbridge is historically linked to Worcestershire as are parts of Halesowen.Or telling someone from Northern Ireland that they are from Ireland!Dont get me wrong - to outsiders it doesnt really seem to matter that much.
Today the Black Country is described, by the government, as most of the four Metropolitan District Council areas of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.On the evening of November 7, 1605, a group of the fleeing plotters arrived at Holbeche House near Dudley.Holbeche was owned by the Littleton family who had been involved in many of the Catholic uprisings, and it was to be the last stand of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators.To traditionalists the Black Country is the area where the coal seam comes to the surface - so West Bromwich, Oldbury, Blackheath, Cradley Heath, Old Hill, Bilston, Dudley, Tipton, Wednesfield and parts of Halesowen, Wednesbury and Walsall but not Wolverhampton, Stourbridge and Smethwick or what used to be known as Warley.The region was described as 'Black by day and red by night' by Elihu Burritt, the American Consul to Birmingham in 1862.