Last month I was at the Ouseburn Trust waiting to go on their Brewery Tour (which was not as blokey as the photo on their website imples) and a time travel kids book in their gift shop, so of course I had to get it. Flipping through the first couple of pages there was a scene of the kids being skeptical about the importance of history, so I figured I knew what to expect, but I’m happy to report it’s much better and deeper than that.

It’s the summer holidays, Archie’s grandfather is unwell, Deela’s father is over-protective and her older sister won’t give her a break, Kyle is watching his future narrow due to the adult realities of class and money, and the trio also has to deal with a gang of bullies living on their street in High Heaton. The story takes place there, in the Ouseburn and Jesmond Dene, with a short excursion into the city centre, a nice kid-centric sort of geography for that age when catching the bus into town feels like an adventure.

The heart of the story is Archie’s connection with his grandfather, who worked the mines as a lad and taught Archie to play the old songs on the fiddle. Things seem to go from bad to worse, culminating with a huge storm hitting the city right after Archie’s grandfather is rushed to hopsital, and that’s when Archie follows a strange little boy called Billy into a tunnel that shouldn’t be a mine, but somehow is.

The story was darker than I expected in a lot of ways, though I suppose there isn’t a way to lighten up something like the Heaton Main Disaster, but it’s also very sweet and warm and Alderman clearly has a lot of love for the local history and music. The kids all speak in the local dialect (with a glossary at the end) and the songs real folk songs.