Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: Why I love the Black Country

But, surprisingly, the radical left winger's roots can be traced to leafy fringe of the Black Country.

The Labour leader's parents worked in Stafford and he grew up in nearby Newport over the Shropshire border.

It was here that he also developed a 'great affection' for the Black Country and its industries.

He told how growing up in the region shaped him but how even at an early age his views found him at odds with his peers.

In a candid interview with the Express & Star over a cup of tea in Willenhall, he said: "Whilst I probably had political differences with just about everybody at various times I remember it all extremely well and enjoyably.

"I absolutely do have an affection for the Black Country because the amazing history and diversity of it.

"Different industries took place in different places.

"The nail-makers, the lock-makers, the blast furnaces, and later the car industry, the aircraft industry and all that."

And he sees a bright future for the region.

"I think the renaissance of the Black Country in the sense of culture and art that has gone on has been incredible," he said.

"Also the way in which the centre of Birmingham has been transformed is fantastic."

Mr Corbyn recalled being a reporter on the Newport and Market Drayton Advertiser, part of the Express & Star's parent group the Midland News Association.

"I was briefly its chief reporter covering everything from crime, education to religious affairs," he said with a smile.

Although born in Wiltshire, Mr Corbyn moved with his family to Shropshire when he was seven years old.

They lived in the seven-bedroom Yew Tree Manor in Pave Lane and Mr Corbyn attended the fee-paying Castle House School in Newport before attending Adams Grammar School.

He fondly told of his father, David, an engineer for GEC in Stafford, and his mother, Naomi, who taught in Stafford and Wellington.

He also revealed how his father was part of the founding group that set up the Blists Hill Museum at Madeley.

"I grew up in Shropshire and then in life had the amazing experience of leaving Newport at the end of school and was a volunteer in Jamaica and went there for two years and went around Latin America and so on," he said.

"I then came back and my first job was on a farm.

"I have always been formed by this small town which was my entire world until I left it then went all around the world and end up with the job I am doing now.

"What I liked about it was the sense of community that there was there.

"In a sense everyone is looking for a feeling of community and even in densely populated urban areas there is still the search for a village belonging.

"Village belonging can be a physical one, can be community one in terms of linguistic of ethnic community it can be lots of things. Shropshire is a wonderful county.

"It's the largest inland county and has that amazing diversity of landscape from the relative flat part in North Shropshire and then Church Stretton and Ironbridge, the cradle of the Industrial Revolution.

"Indeed my dad was one of the people who founded the Blists Hill Museum because he was very keen on industrial history and he worked at GEC in Stafford.

"And my mum was a teacher firstly in Wellington and then in Stafford so I remember their anger when the Shrewsbury to Stafford railway line closed.

"I have a real love of Shropshire and the Black Country and have many happy memories from growing up here."