HISTORIAN Michael Wood should know Colchester pretty well - it being Britain’s oldest recorded town and all that.

But actually the London-based broadcaster is more familiar with the area because this is where his sister and late parents made their home for the last 40 or so years.

“In the last few years, when my mother was ill,” he begins, “I knew that train ride from Liverpool Street to Colchester very well indeed.

“My sister has been there since the Seventies and my parents moved to Mersea 20 odd years ago.

“I do of course also know Colchester because of its history. One of the very first films I ever did was about Boudica and so obviously we had to come to the town for that. The last time we filmed here was back in 2012 for the Story of England programme, which followed up the original we did in the village of Kibworth.

“It was for the Jubilee and as such we were asked to do Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as well as England but we came to Colchester to talk about John Ball and his involvement with the Peasants’ Revolt.”

Now he’s returning again, this time to the Colchester Arts Centre, where his sister, Elaine Barker, runs the town’s popular folk club.

An Evening with Michael Wood is billed as a Colchester Arts Centre Fundraiser and will see the popular historian and broadcaster talk about his long career travelling all over the world where he has delighted in telling people’s stories from the past.

For more than 35 years Michael has brought history alive for TV viewers. He is the author of several best-selling books including four UK Number One bestsellers, and well over a hundred highly praised documentary films, among them In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great and The Story of India.

His Story of England which told the tale of one village, Kibworth in Leicestershire, through British history, was hailed as ‘the most innovative history series ever on TV’ by The Independent while last year’s Story of China on BBC 2 was praised by the state news agency in China no less for its ability to ‘transcend the barriers of ethnicity and belief and brought something inexplicably powerful and touching to the TV audience’.

Born and brought up in Manchester, after graduating from Oriel College, Oxford, Michael started his career working as a journalist.

“Actually my very first job outside of the ivory towers of Oxford,” he says, “was working in the local McVities biscuit factory during the holiday. I’ll never eat a Jaffa Cake again!

“But then my first proper job after that was on ITV working in their national and local news departments. I did six/seven years in all and learnt a lot about finding and telling stories.

“I’ve always said history is just journalism of the past where you still have to use your investigator’s nose and assess the judgement of your sources.

“And it’s all story driven. I certainly had a baptism of fire in terms of the real world, especially as someone who came from a fairly sheltered background, but it was fantastic training for what I went on to do. Journalism teaches you history is a living thing, it’s governed by what people do and how that affects the world.”

Since the first In Search of...series, Michael’s desire to tell stories has taken him all over the world from the Great Wall of China to the forests of South America, and he’s still going strong, despite the plethora of history programmes on our television screens at the moment.

“I don’t think the desire has grown,” he suggests, “I just think there are more channels. I started pre-digital and pre-internet and I don’t believe the audience hasn’t changed at all or the interest in history. Everybody likes history, especially when it’s an engaging, powerful story.”

Like his groundbreaking Conquistadors series, in which Michael traced the path of the Spanish invasion of Central and South America through such soldiers as Hernan Cortes, Francisco Pizzaro, Francisco Orellana, and Cabeza de Vaca.

Michael adds: “In my programmes I’ve always tried to give a sense of the living culture of the place whether that’s talking to crafts people, farmers or tribal leaders. I like that connection from past to present.

“In Conquistadors there were still people there who spoke the original language of the Aztecs. Right along the Andes you could literally reach out and touch centuries old traditions and that was fascinating to me.

“There are a few series that have given me a lot of pleasure. The story of one village was rather wonderful because it involved the whole community but I’m also very proud of Conquistadors. Of everything I’ve done it’s gone to more countries than any else. 140 in all and I do believe that’s because it just has the best stories in it.

“As part of my Evening show, I’m going to screen a couple of clips of the films I did in Peru as well as the first series I ever did.

“I spoke to the Arts Centre about what would be fun to do and they suggested this, so they’ll be a few clips, some fantastic images that I’ve got from the 35 years or so I’ve been doing this and a few stories of course.”

Michael Wood is at the Colchester Arts Centre on January 18. Doors open at 7.30pm, with tickets, priced £16, available from the box office on 01206 500900.