The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
This sceptred isle
As Neil Oliver prepares to share his love of the British Isles with Scottish audiences, he tells Caroline Lindsay about some of the places where the spirit of the past seems to linger
When the Romans splashed ashore on the south coast of a long island 2,000 years ago and asked the natives what their land was called, they were told “Prytain”. The invaders called their new province Britannia, and the people living here Britons – and the rest is, quite literally, history.
In his latest book, archaeologist and historian Neil Oliver tells the story of the British Isles in 100 places and he is also currently on tour, bringing what he calls his “love story” to life for audiences across the UK.
“The book almost suggested itself because I realised that out of the thousands of places I’ve filmed, a few stood out like memorable characters and stayed with me because they seemed to say something to me,” says Neil, who will be appearing at Stirling’s Albert Halls on November 17. “The book focuses on 100 places, spanning all time, from the first inhabitants, to the very recent modern era.
“It’s a personal sketch rather than a full-blown painting – I’ve chosen what I consider to be the most characteristic features of the face I have grown up to know and love,” he continues. “What they have to say seems to me to be fundamental to an understanding of the long, slow shaping of the British Isles we live in today.”
Describing his stage show as “quite a gallop through history”, he adds: “Hopefully, the audience will see it almost like a celebration of remembering a person’s life. I look at the good and the bad, the triumphs and the mistakes in the same way a biography considers how a person got to be the way they are.”
The two-hour show includes an animated map and slides of many of the places in the book, gradually building a picture layer by layer.
“But above and beyond that, it’s a love letter to the British Isles because I love it here,” he says. “It may be a work in progress and not perfect, but I’ve travelled all over the world and Britain is where I want to be and why I’m passionate about history.”
Following a “relatively ordinary working class childhood” in Renfrewshire, Neil studied archaeology at the University of Glasgow and freelanced as an archaeologist before training as a journalist. He made his TV debut with BBC Two’s Two Men In A Trench with his close friend Tony Pollard visiting historic British battlefields and since then he’s been a regular on our screens.
Even as a child he was fascinated by history. “Some people think it’s dusty and dry, but early on I connected to it,” Neil reflects.
“My dad used to take me to Culloden and because I knew we were related to Clan Cameron on my mother’s side, I could sense that connection across the centuries.
“I knew both my grandfathers had survived the First World War despite being badly injured and I used to obsess
I realised that out of the thousands of places I’ve filmed, a few stood out like memorable characters and stayed with me because they seemed to say something to me