It's 1963, a year that had an impact on the cultural, political and religious beliefs of people locally, nationally and internationally. As the minutes tick into the early hours of a new year, Sebastian Crawley is unaware that his life is about to change forever. Sebastian is a market trader living in a slum clearance area of South Shields, in the north east of England. By his own admission, life is comfortably boring. His responses to a new love and personal tragedy forces him to react against a changing world. His principles and beliefs are compromised by a series of unfolding events which result in an unlikely alliance with the Sand Dancers, a local crime brotherhood. His fight to find out who he really is leads Sebastian to a violent confrontation with a policeman, who happens to be his mother's former partner.