BLOOD, guts, gore and a lot of good fun proved the perfect combination for writer Terry Deary over the last 25 years.

The University of Sunderland honorary graduate today looks back on his North-East roots and reveals the secret to a successful career after picking up his pen a quarter of a century ago to produce Terrible Tudors and Awesome Egyptians - the first of what would become his famous Horrible Histories series.

Alongside illustrator Martin Brown, the pair offered children – and adults – something unique. History told, not through “dreary dates and boring lectures”, but through silly jokes, blood-stained battles and a lot of gore.

Terry said: “I published my first children’s book 40 years ago and I remember the publisher saying that writing is like a sausage machine – you have to keep putting it in one end to get the product out of the other.

“I spent my youth in my dad’s Sunderland butcher shop making sausages, so that is an image that has stuck with me.

“Three hundred books later I’m still turning the handle to churn them out.

“The secret of longevity in this industry – since aspiring authors ask – is to create a series of books - a string of sausages.

“And I found that series in Horrible Histories. Twenty-five years after producing the first Horrible Histories book I’ve produced over 100 of those titles, selling well over 30 million copies in 40 languages. That’s an awful lot of sausage.”

Terry and Martin’s work has gone on to become a multi-million pound industry, spawning TV programmes and stage shows.

The work of the Sunderland-born wordsmith, who got three A-levels at school, has proven to be the gateway into history and reading for young people across the world. Thanks to Terry and Martin, millions of children every week engage with the past through the books and the CBBC TV series.

The series has been widely praised for teaching children how people lived – and how they died – in the past. It also educated on what work they did, what they ate – including a ‘historical Masterchef’.

Mikeala Morgans, senior lecturer in Primary Education at Sunderland University, said: “The Horrible Histories books and TV series have helped children develop a passion for history for quarter of a century.

“Terry Deary’s humourous approach to what can sometimes be a dry subject enthuses and engages children of all ages and enables them to see the ‘fun’ side of history whilst still learning about important events, periods and people from the past.

“Having Horrible Histories books in the classroom helped my children access a fuller range of history than that accessible through the current primary curriculum and also supported their enthusiasm for and research of the areas we taught.”

Terry, 72, who now lives in County Durham, is also an actor and singer. In 40 years as an author his writing has included fiction and popular non-fiction for children and adults.

He was awarded a degree as Doctor of Education from the University of Sunderland in 2000.