Is it that children who love history read Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories or are Horrible Histories responsible for children enjoying history? It’s a question that Hilarie Stelfox put to the author of the 50 or so titles that have become a publishing phenomenon

ON THE way to interview author Terry Deary I decide to tell him that my daughter, an avid reader of his Horrible Histories when she was younger, is planning to study history and archaeology at university.

“You’re going to say that I’m to blame, aren’t you?” says Terry, who is busy signing books for young fans at the Children’s Bookshop in Lindley.

I say that there’s no blame involved. In fact, I couldn’t have been happier when she spent her pocket money on Horrible Histories and I’m delighted that she has discovered a passion that will take her into adulthood.

In fact, I want to thank him, and ask if he gets similar feedback from other parents.

“All the time,” says Terry.

“People say that their child never read a book until they read mine.”It’s then that I ask if he thinks Horrible Histories influence children’s lives. He doesn’t need to answer.

As if on cue, a family approaches Terry with a copy of his latest novel, Put Out The Light, to sign.

“My 16-year-old son Daniel wants to be a history teacher because of you,” says mum Angela Bywater. “Horrible Histories were pretty much all he read.”

Terry smiles broadly because he hears such stories at every book store visit.

“I went to do a Horrible History book signing in Oxford and I had these students coming up to me and saying ‘I’m doing history at Oxford because of your books’,” he added.

It’s 18 years since the first Horrible History hit the bookshops. It was called the Terrible Tudors and is still a best seller. In fact, all the books in the series are phenomenally popular.

“They are,” says Sonia Benster, proprietor of the Children’s Bookshop, “a standard part of the core stock for any book shop and I don’t just mean children’s bookshops. Everyone reads them.”

So what is it about the quirky little books, packed with historical (and sometimes hysterical) facts, that appeals so much?Terry, 64, a fellow native Wearsider from Sunderland, believes it’s because they are not only entertaining but also non-fiction.

“Some children, especially boys, are inclined to read non-fiction but schools insist on teaching reading through fiction and then wonder why the children are turned off,” he says.

A former education officer with a theatre company, Terry trained as a teacher but became an actor. He turned novelist after producing scripts for the Theatre Powys company in mid Wales. One show in particular, The Custard Kid, was so successful he made it into a book.

The Horrible Histories publishers were looking for a writer, someone without history training who could tell a tale and make history witty. They supplied the researchers and research, Terry did the writing.

As they say, the rest is history.

Over the past 35 years he has written fiction, non-fiction, for radio, theatre, audiobooks and new media, but still lives in his native North East.

Terry met his wife Jenny while working in Wales but they have settled near Durham. They have one daughter, Sara, a keen horsewoman and talented event rider.

There is so much to say about Terry’s many achievements that he probably needs to make his next book an autobiography, but he’s too busy with other projects.

His new novel, set during the Sheffield blitz of 1940, was launched to coincide with the anniversary of the bombardment. As well as touring to promote the book, he’s about to start filming a documentary on the backdrop to the novel, which will be screened on December 12 – the actual date of the blitz by German bombers.

The story has two threads running side by side. One focuses on two Yorkshire children bent on catching the ‘blackout burglar’, who steals from people’s homes during air raids. The second features children caught up in the nightmare world of the Dachau labour camp in Germany.

Just as in the Horrible Histories, Terry does not flinch from telling children the terrible truths that permeate history.

Put Out the Light is selling well, a fact that pleases the author. “The original publisher said they wanted to change the two stories that run in parallel and I wouldn’t. So I found another publisher who snapped it up,” says Terry.

“This is my 200th book and I was a bit down when the first publisher didn’t like it. Even after all this time you can still find your confidence gets knocked. So I was really pleased when it made it into print as I wrote it,” he added.

The successful Horrible Histories television series (nominated for five children’s television BAFTAs) – the third is to be screened at Easter next year – has been an added bonus, allowingTerry to revive his acting career. He’s had cameo roles as everything from a monk to Father Christmas. But it has also cranked up the pace.

“I don’t have time to write,” he jokes, as he signs yet another book for yet another young fan.

If that was true, I think, there would be a national outcry, from parents, teachers and children.

If only there had been Horrible Histories when I was at school I might have been a good deal more interested in history.

“Yes,” says Terry, “it was dismal, wasn’t it.”

But not any more.