Wolverhampton medic pens Egypt-inspired debut novel

Phil Tittensor, who works for The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, penned 'Nubian Quest' after being inspired by his travels to the African nation.

The father-of-two, who is now in the midst of writing a sequel, decided to craft the sci-fi novel after struggles with his mental health.

Mr Tittensor, who lives in Staffordshire, said: "There's a little bit of everything. I lot of it has come from backpacking trips that I have done around Egypt.

"It came to me as I was just overlooking the Nile and beyond. There were things that just came to me and I was scribbling them down on the back of a napkin.

"There's been fantastic feedback from the people that I know that have read it and people that I don't know.

"I have family members that haven't picked up a book for years and it's got them back into reading."

Nubian Quest follows fictional Staffordshire diver John Baverbrook who goes on a hunt for an ancient artefact, not seen for 3,000 years.

The 420-page book is the first of Mr Tittensor's Nigran Chronicles, which he began writing just two years ago.

It comes after a counsellor recommended he unleash his creative side following bouts of mental health difficulties from 2012.

Mr Tittensor, who is consultant nurse for the epilepsies based at New Cross Hospital, said: "There's a lot of me in there. I went through a bit of a bad patch and got challenged by a counsellor to do something creative.

"There were trials and tribulations along the way, my mind has got in the way a few times. It's nice to exercise our brains in a totally different way.

"When the proof copy come through my door, it was like all my Christmases came at once. It looked great.

"It has been a really great sense of achievement in a totally different way to the day job.

"The book writing was a way of unwinding. I took some nice paper and an old fountain pen and just let my ideas flow."