Chasing The Phantom

Lieutenant Nowell Oxland, killed at Gallipoli in 1915 aged just 24, wrote poems and stories deeply rooted in place. He is unknown bar for one poem Farewell, published anonymously in The Times nine days after his death. A native of Cumberland,he wrote it on the way to war, his heart longing for home:

‘There’s a pool for which I’m grieving,

Near the water-ouzel’s home….

And the curlews faintly crying,

‘Mid the wastes of Cumberland.’

Chasing the Phantom shares Oxland’s unpublished poems and stories, which range from the darkly gothic and supernatural to the comic, and features two biographical essays by the authors – following Oxland’s early life in Alston Moor, to Durham school years and University at Oxford; how he excelled on the rugby field, enlisted in the Border Regiment and finally died on the Gallipoli battlefield.