A Geordie sketchbook featuring time travel, reincarnation and the entire history of Newcastle-upon-Tyne from Roman to present day.
There is a mythology inherent in regions with a strong cultural identity, none more so than North East England, where the fabulous exists alongside the mundane and both are treated with a dispassion born of having seen it all before. The world was invented here, and it started with the first bridge, Pons Aelius, over the Tyne.
Joseph Wilson Swan, copious notetaker and inventor of the light-bulb, is one time traveller. Another is the feminist broadcaster and writer Nancy Spain. Then there is Swene, reborn down the ages and largely oblivious of his own peculiarity - for future Swene is a temporal sojourner, too.
Merging historical facts with picturesque invention and involving notable names, perilous deeds and fantastical undertakings, Ocellus is a unique mix of all things weird and wordy, boasting both supernatural elements and everyday irritations, all served up on a plate of local manners with a good dollop of humour, metaphysics and poetry.