Sally Anne StoneMBEFRSE (néeMagnusson; born 1955), known professionally as Sally Magnusson, is a Scottish broadcast journalist, television presenter and writer, who currently presents the Thursday and Friday night edition of BBC Scotland's Reporting Scotland. She also presents Tracing Your RootsonBBC Radio 4 and was one of the main presenters of the long-running religious television programme Songs of Praise.
She spent her early years in Garrowhill in Glasgow, before moving to Rutherglen, where she grew up with her younger siblings Margaret, Anna, Siggy and Jon. The family later moved to the rural area of Balmore, just north of Glasgow.[6][7] In May 1973, Magnusson's brother, Siggy, died aged 12 three days after being hit by a lorry.[8]
Magnusson was educated at Laurel Bank School for Girls,[9] a former independent school which later merged with another independent school, The Park School, to form Laurel Park School,[10] itself to merge in 2001 into Hutchesons' Grammar School, in the city of Glasgow. She studied English Language and Literature at the University of Edinburgh. She graduated in 1978 with a First Class Honours degree.[11]
Magnusson started her career in journalism at The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh in 1979 and then the Sunday Standard in Glasgow as a news/feature writer. In 1982, she became Scottish Feature Writer of the Year. She later joined BBC Scotland to present the weekly TV show Current Account. Magnusson moved to London to present Sixty Minutes, the BBC's successor to Nationwide, for network television. Following the show's demise, she presented London Plus for a year.[12]
In 1996, she won a Scottish Bafta for her commentary on the BBC's Dunblane: A Community Remembers, and in 1998 was awarded a Royal Television Society award for her exclusive television interview with Earl Spencer, Diana: My Sister the Princess. Magnusson narrated the Q.E.D. documentary Saving Trudy in 1999.[13]
In 1997, Magnusson returned to Glasgow and became a main presenter for BBC Scotland's news programme Reporting Scotland. She shared the role with Jackie Bird and now Laura Miller and presents the programme's Thursday and Friday edition.[15]
Magnusson is the author of Life of Pee: The Story of How Urine Got Everywhere.[16] She has also written books about the Scottish runner Eric Liddell, who refused to run on the Sabbath day due to his Christian beliefs, and about the Cornish Christian poet Jack Clemo and his marriage to Ruth Peaty.
Magnusson wrote the children's book Horace and the Haggis Hunter, which was illustrated by her husband, Norman Stone.
The Seal Woman's Gift, Magnusson's first novel for adults, was published in February 2018.
The Ninth Child, her second novel, published in 2020, is set in 19th-century Scotland, weaving folklore and Victorian social history.[17]
^"Sally Magnusson". HarperCollins Publishers UK. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
^ ab"Sally Magnusson". BBC. Archived from the original on 4 May 2009. Retrieved 5 December 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^McEwing, Scott (22 February 2016). "Saving Trudy" – via Vimeo.