MONTY Python is always going to be funny. No matter how many years go by, it survives.

But it very nearly didn't. Back in the early 70s when the Pythons had just completed the third series, all the tapes of the show were due to be deleted by the BBC, recalls Terry Jones (pictured).

''The BBC had a policy of wiping things, especially comedy. They would keep things like ballet and opera, which they deemed important'' said the former Python. ''They had already wiped series of Till Death Us Do Part and the first few Not Only But Also, with Pete and Dud.

''But when they said they said they were going to wipe Python we said no way. So we stole the tapes and had them transferred onto Phillips VCR. For about six months the only copy of the first few series were in my cellar.''

But even though the team went to the trouble of stealing from the BBC, even they didn't think it would last.

''We really thought it was going to come and go. We always knew it was going to be the funniest thing on television but we never expected it to endure,'' said Jones.

''I think the great thing about Python is we didn't care what the audience thought. If it made the six of us laugh, that was enough.''

Is there any chance of the Pythons re-forming? ''No, I don't think so,'' he said.

''There was some talk of doing a stage show, but Mike pulled the plug on that one.'I think Eric Idle is planning to make a Broadway musical based on the Holy Grail and maybe doing one about the Life of Brian, but we aren't going to be in it.''

Keeping Jones busy these days are his writing and his forthcoming performance at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature Spring Weekend.

Jones is an authority on 14th Century history and has a book due in the autumn called Who Murdered Chaucer? But it is his children's books that bring him to Cheltenham, in particular Bedtime Stories, a combination of his and Nanette Newman's stories for youngsters.

''It's an unusual collaboration. I only met her for the first time at the publicity party for the book. It's not as if we were sitting down together writing stories'' said Jones.

He started writing children's stories for his daughter back in 1977.

''My daughter was about five years old and I was reading her stories by the Brothers Grimm. I was reading from a 19th Century translation and it was a bit grisly really.

''For example in Snow White the Wicked Queen is made to put on red hot shoes and dance around until she drops down dead. And I'm reading this to my daughter? I don't think so. So I started to write my own.''

His books vary from tales about squashing fairies in books to a series The Lady and the Squire and The Knight and the Squire.

''I try to write something I would enjoy, but they are consciously written for children. I very much enjoy writing the children's books. I'm working on a book about Chaucer at the moment and I'm trying to finish that, but I supposed to getting on with another children's book.''

Terry Jones will appear alongside Nanette Newman at Cheltenham Town Hall on Saturday, April 5 from 11.30am. Tickets: £6, £4 concessions.

Also appearing at the festival over the weekend are novelists including Tom Sharpe, Graham Swift, opinion formers Roy Hattersely, Bernard Ingham and Queen Noor of Jordan, adventurers Chris Bonington and Pete McCarthy, historians David Starkey and Margaret Macmillan. Actors will include Dame Judi Dench, Maureen Lipman, Harriet Walter and Jane Lapotaire.

Details on www.cheltenhamfestivals.co.uk