Terry Jones has been praised as “a natural story-teller, inventive and mesmerising”. He takes traditional elements and fashions them into something completely different and utterly compelling. An acclaimed film director, he brings an epic, moviescope vision to his published work.
THE BASICS
Born: Colwyn Bay, North Wales, February 1st 1942
Jobs: Actor, Film Director, Writer, Medieval Historian
Lives: London
First Book for young people: Fairy Tales, 1981
THE TV
Terry Jones attended the Royal Grammar School in Guildford and St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. In 1965, he began work in the BBC’s Light Entertainment Script Department. Together, he and Michael Palin wrote material for Ken Dodd, Lance Percival, Billy Cotton, Kathy Kirby, Roy Hudd, Marty Feldman, The Frost Report, The Two Ronnies and many more.
In 1969, Terry Jones joined up with Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Terry Gilliam to create the cult TV show Monty Python.
Ripping Yarns, created with Michael Palin, was another successful TV series in 1977-78. Other TV work includes serial documentaries like The Rupert Bear Story, So This is Progress?, The Crusades, Ancient Inventions and Gladiators.
THE FILMS
Monty Python spawned a succession of hit movies including And Now For Something Completely Different (1970), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979). Terry directed the last Python film Monty Python’s Meaning of Life in 1983.
Terry also directed Personal Services (1985) and Erik the Viking (1989).
THE BOOKS
Terry’s first book was Chaucer’s Knight. He has lectured on Chaucer in various universities and other venues. In 1981, Terry’s first book for children, Fairy Tales, was published. “I’d always loved the idea of fairy tales and I thought it would be nice to write totally new ones,” he says. Almost without realising it, he had embarked on a new career as an acclaimed children’s book author. His subsequent books, including The Saga of Erik the Viking, Nicobobinus and Fantastic Stories, further established his reputation as a natural and mesmerising storyteller. He has often collaborated with the artist Michael Foreman on the books and continues to do so in The Knight and the Squire and his newest book The Lady and the Squire (October 2000).
WHAT HE SAYS...
"I’d always loved the idea of fairy tales and I thought it would be nice to write totally new ones – ones that haven’t been told before but sound as if they’re old fairy tales… I just took (my daughter) Sally as my audience and quite shamelessly put into the stories everything I knew she liked – witches and monsters and stuff.”
“I don’t think I’m writing children’s books when I write children’s books – as far as I’m concerned I’m just writing books I like, or the kind of thing I would like to read… I don’t like planning the books out at all. I just like sitting down and wondering what’s going to happen today.”
“If something’s worth doing, whether it’s humour or telling stories, it helps if it’s saying something about the world. I love the idea that a story can be really simple, and yet embody some fundamental truth. The Emperor’s New Clothes, for example, is a brilliant story about politics and propaganda, but it’s a very simple story, and children know what’s going on.”
“I didn’t do any research (for Erik the Viking). I amassed a great pile of books about the Vikings which I then didn’t read.”
“I was Rupert Bear’s number one fan. I just loved him. I didn’t really read anything else until I became a young grammar school boy and discovered things like science fiction.”
“I use a pen and ordinary exercise books. I write on the right hand page, then I do corrections and add bits on the left hand side later.”
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT TERRY JONES...
“He is a natural story-teller, inventive and mesmerising.”
Good Housekeeping
“Jones takes traditional elements – talking creatures, minstrels and jesters, ogres and devils and two-tailed cats – and makes them his own in these varied and inventive stories in which language is stretched and manipulated with great virtuosity.”
Sunday Times on Fantastic Stories
“Terry Jones keeps up an unflagging pace of invention in his Fantastic Stories.”
The Bookseller
"The dialogue is witty, the characters robust and the action headlong. This is a terrific adventure."
The Guardian on The Knight and the Squire
“Just the right blend of humour and adventure.”
Sunday Telegraph on The Knight and the Squire
“Terry Jones has written a story which combines adventure, magic, mystery and humour brilliantly.” Parents on Nicobobinus
AWARDS
Federation of Children’s Book Groups Children’s Book Award for Erik the Viking
