Neil Oliver
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| Neil Oliver | |
 Neil Oliver in Coast
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| Born | 1967 Ayr, Scotland |
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| Occupation | Archaeologist, Journalist, BT Newsroom, BT Webmaster and Television Presenter |
Neil Oliver (born Ayr, 1967[citation needed]) is a Scottish archaeologist, historian, author and broadcaster, known for his distinctive voice and long black hair. He grew up in Ayr and Dumfries before attending Glasgow University to study archaeology. He is best known as a presenter of the documentary series, Coast.
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[edit] Previous career
Neil qualified as an archaeologist in 1988[citation needed], though he has remarked that this was not the most financially rewarding of careers. In the mid-1990s he became a journalist and worked for The Scotsman, The Herald, The Guardian, The Edinburgh Evening News, The Evening Times, The Sun and The Daily Record. For these publications, he mainly wrote general news articles, but also specialized in archaeological news. It was revealed during the last episode of the third series of Coast that he had previously been a professional lifeguard.
[edit] Television career
Oliver's television debut came in 2002 with BBC Two's Two Men in a Trench, which featured Oliver and close friend, Tony Pollard, visiting historic British battlefields and recreating the battle situation using state of the art archaeological techniques. In addition to the TV series, Oliver co-wrote the two accompanying books.
In 2005, he starred in the Channel 4 documentary, Not Forgotten and wrote a tie-in book. Oliver then became the archaeological and social history expert on Coast, then in the next series he replaced Nicholas Crane as the show's main presenter and remained as such for the third series.
2006 saw Oliver star in two more documentary series, Channel 4's The Face of Britain and BBC Two's Scotland's History: The Top Ten. As well as this, in August 2006 he appeared on the special "Big Royal Dig" edition of Channel 4's Time Team, in which he presented a dig at Holyrood House.
Oliver was a contributor to BBC One's The One Show in the summer of 2007. That year he also appeared as one of the presenters of BBC Two series The History Detectives.
Oliver is to present a new ten-part series, A History of Scotland, to be broadcast starting in November 2008 on BBC Two Scotland and later throughout the UK. Like Coast, the programme is a co-production of the BBC and Open University. [1]
[edit] Publications
- Amazing Tales for Making Men Out of Boys (2008)
- Coast from the Air (2007)
- Not Forgotten (2006)
- Castles and Forts (with Simon Adams and Tony Pollard) (2006)
- Two Men in a Trench II: Uncovering the Secrets of British Battlefields (with Tony Pollard) (2003)
- Two Men in a Trench: Battlefield Archaeology - The Key to Unlocking the Past (with Tony Pollard) (2002)
[edit] Personal life
He lives in Stirling with his wife Trudi and children, Evie and Archie.
[edit] External links
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