Justin Pollard was born in Bushey in Hertfordshire in 1968. He was educated at St. Albans School and Downing College, Cambridge where was president of the Poohsticks Society. He also graduated with honours in Archaeology and Anthropology.

After college he worked for a year as an archaeologist at the Museum of London on the excavation of Thomas Becket’s old monastery of Merton Priory.

Leaving the Museum of London, Justin moved into documentary production initially as a researcher, and then a writer and producer. His television credits range from Channel Four’s Time Team, to Bob Geldof’s  “Geldof in Africa’ and cover subjects as diverse as cannibalism amongst the Kondh in India and the career of Vlad the Impaler.

He has a long association with Indian director Shekhar Kapur and was historical consultant on his features ‘Elizabeth’, ‘The Four Feathers’ and ‘Elizabeth: The Golden Age’. He has also worked closely in developing other history-based features for directors including Gillies MacKinnon, Sam Mendes, Jan De Bont and Neil Jordan. He has advised on Joe Wright’s ‘Atonement’ and Mark Herman’s ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’,  Alejandro Amenabar’s ‘Agora’, George Lucas’ ‘Red Tails’, Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and Rob Marshall’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean IV’. Most recently he has advised on Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables and the Tiger Aspect series ‘Peaky Blinders’. He was also consultant on all four series of the BBC/ Showtime historical series ‘The Tudors’ the Starz series ‘Camelot’ and MGM/ History Channel’s forthcoming ‘The Vikings’.

Outside of film and TV work Justin writes books. To date he has published ten books - a social history of Britain, a biography of Alfred the Great, a history of ancient Alexandria, a history of archaeology, a gazetteer of the Wonders of the World, ‘The Interesting Bits - the History you Might Have Missed’ and ‘Charge! The Interesting Bits of Military History’. He was also a contributor to the QI Book of General Ignorance, The QI Annual and writes articles for such illustrious periodicals as History Today, BBC History Magazine, E&T and The Idler.  He was also a contributor to the NSPCC book ‘Big Questions From Little People . . . Answered By Some Very Big People.’ His latest book ‘Buses, Bankers and the Beer of Revenge will be published in October 2012.

He lives in Dorset with his wife Stephanie, their daughters Constance and Felicity and a small reindeer called Nijinsky. He used to collect English country furniture until he ran out of money. He has now turned his attention to battling weeds in a very overgrown garden. He spends most of his spare time asleep