John Simkin is the creator of the Spartacus history website and was one of the founders of the Tressell publishing co-operative, an independent publisher of print and computer-based materials in the 1990s. John Simkin trained to teach history at Sussex University in 1975, as a mature student aged 30, and taught in schools in Brighton and East Grinstead. He also helped form a co-operative, Tressell Publications, in 1979, which published booklets of source-materials and simulated history 'games' for computers based on research into real historical situations, such as 'Attack on the Somme'. In 1987, he formed Spartacus as a publishing enterprise and went on to create his website to support school history in the mid-1990s. He discusses his own educational background and his commitment to producing history resources which engage children in studying actual historical events and controversies, via the use of authentic sources. Interviewed by Nicola Sheldon.