Terry Deary

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Terry was born in Sunderland, England, in 1946 . As a boy, he worked for many years in his father's butcher shop, which perhaps proved helpful when he came to write about the blood and guts of history! He did not enjoy school where he was bullied and abused.

Terry began his career as a professional actor in 1972 when he joined Theatre Powys in Mid-Wales. While acting with Theatre Powys he began writing scripts for some of the shows. One of the most successful was a children's show called "The Custard Kid”, which Terry later turned into a children's novel. He has also worked as a theatre-director, museum manager, drama teacher, television presenter. He first acted on television in 1973 and in 2010 he made his debut in movies with a small part in a British film "Risen".

In 35 years as an author, Terry has written fiction and non-fiction books, as well as TV, theatre, radio, audio and new media scripts. In 2009, Horrible Histories was made into a major television series, going on to win several Children's BAFTA awards, and in 2011 won a British Comedy Award for best sketch show - the first children's show ever to win a Comedy Award.

Terry has been married to Jenny since 1975 and they have one daughter, Sara. Among other pursuits, Terry’s spare time includes supporting the charities of which he is patron, and running in road races. He now lives in County Durham, in the North-east of England.

Author's Comment: My publishers phoned me up and said, ‘Would you like to write a history joke book?’ I said, ‘I don’t know anything about history.’ They said, ‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll give you the facts, all you have to do is write the jokes to go with them.’“So I started off, but I soon found the facts much more interesting than I’d expected. By the end instead of having a joke book with facts, we had a fact book with jokes. I seemed to have invented a new genre.

Nationality: British