Franklyn was born into a gritty north of England town. His expected path through life would have him live out his years in the manner of that town's baseline existence. But it wasn't to be.
Perhaps he was pre-selected to break rank so that bigger dreams could be fulfilled. Whatever the prime force may have been, he was to know a different life.
Perhaps, too, the corridors of our own reality are flimsier than we believe! On the other side of the wall may lie another path. As Franklyn himself discovers, a perceived reality can be as real as reality itself.