BOOKS
Sally Magnusson is the eldest daughter of the Icelandic journalist and broadcaster Magnus Magnusson and the Scottish newspaper journalist Mamie Baird. She grew up in and around Glasgow in houses that were always filled with stories: 
the journalistic variety in which both parents were continually engaged; those hilariously told by her mother about her early life in working class Rutherglen; and those told by Magnus straight from the medieval Icelandic sagas which he spent much of her childhood translating from Old Norse into English.
Later she ended up as a newspaper reporter and then a broadcast journalist herself, delighting in fashioning other people’s experiences (and sometimes her own) into articles, programmes, books and interviews.
Although brought up in Scotland, she has always felt profoundly connected to her other homeland, the small but fiercely proud northern nation of Iceland, in which her grandparents started their family before moving in 1930 to Edinburgh, where her grandfather Sigursteinn Magnusson opened an office to handle fish exports to Europe. Her first adult novel, The Sealwoman’s Gift (2018), is set in Iceland in the seventeenth century. In her memoir Dreaming of Iceland: The Lure of a Family Legend she traces – by way of several generations of her own family – the country’s development from an impoverished, isolated colony of Denmark to the self-assured independent nation it is now.
She returns to her Icelandic heritage in her fourth novel, The Shapeshifter’s Daughter, which explores the Norse influence on Orkney, by way of reimagining the Norse myth of Hel of the underworld. It’s published by John Murray Press in November 2025.
Her second novel, The Ninth Child ( 2020), is set in nineteenth century Scotland, weaving together folklore and Victorian social history in the Trossachs, during the building of the great Loch Katrine waterworks.
Her third novel, Music in the Dark (May 2023), is set in a kitchen bed in the town of Rutherglen, near Glasgow (where Sally was brought up until the age of 12), thirty years after the last great confrontation of the Highland Clearances between the people and the authorities (in Strathcarron, Ross-shire) left many women with their heads bashed in. It explores love, trauma and what it means to take care of another person’s soul. Much of the book was inspired by the experiences of her maternal great-grandmother, whose family was cleared from their township on the Isle of Mull in the nineteenth century and forced to start again in the slums of Glasgow.
Other books include The Flying Scotsman (1981), Clemo (1986), Family Life (1999), Dreaming of Iceland (2004), Glorious Things (2004), Life of Pee (2010), three books in the Horace the Haggis series for children (2012, 2013 and 2014) and Where Memories Go (2014). 
She received the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award for Writing in 2014 and was shortlisted for the Saltire Literary Book of the Year Award for Where Memories Go, published in Iceland as Handan Minninga.
After living in the south-east of England for many years, she returned to Scotland in the mid-90s and now lives in the countryside north of Glasgow with her husband Norman and whichever of their children currently requires a roof.
BROADCASTING
After studying English Literature and Language at the University of Edinburgh, she joined The Scotsman newspaper in 1979 as a graduate trainee reporter. She then joined the Glasgow-based Sunday Standard as a news/feature writer.
A spell as a reporter on BBC Scotland’s weekly TV show Current Account was followed by an invitation to London to join the presenting team of Sixty Minutes, the new BBC1 daily news magazine that replaced Nationwide. 
Following the demise of Sixty Minutes, she presented London Plus for a year and then joined the famous Breakfast Time red sofa in 1985. She anchored Breakfast for ten years in its various incarnations, hair growing ever bigger, while slipping away frequently to have babies. 
In 1998 she began presenting BBC Scotland’s flagship news programme Reporting Scotland from Glasgow, where she maintains a calm demeanour at all times.
For a long time she travelled the country and beyond for BBC’s Songs of Praise,
including presenting a controversial edition from the heart of the Calais “jungle” camp in 2016. She has presented many current affairs documentaries for the BBC over the years, one of which was a major Panorama investigation into c-difficile in hospitals. 
For a period she presented the Friday edition of BBC2’s Daily Politics and has anchored a range of BBC1 daytime programmes, including the hard-hitting series Britain’s Secret Shame (which was credited with raising awareness of abuse of the elderly in Britain’s care homes and won a Royal Television Society award for Best Daytime Series in 2004), along with the follow-up series Britain’s Streets, and the first two series of Missing. She also presented A Family of My Own, a popular series on adoption and fostering.
In 1996 she won a Scottish Bafta as part of the team covering the Dunblane tragedy and in 1998 a Royal Television Society award for her exclusive television interview with Earl Spencer, Diana: My Sister the Princess. Scotland’s Brand New Bank, a documentary for BBC Scotland, was nominated for a Scottish BAFTA in 2009. In 2007 the Institute of Contemporary Scotland awarded her a place in the Scottish Academy of Merit for services to the media.
As a reporter she has covered umpteen elections, the funeral of Princess Diana and the opening of the Scottish Parliament. After the death of Queen Elizabeth II in Balmoral in 2022, she led the BBC’s live commentary of her lying at rest in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. In July 2022 she commentated on the ceremony at which the Honours of Scotland were presented to King Charles III, in a broadcast which won an RTS Scotland award for the year’s best live event.
Her 2024 BBC documentary Sally Magnusson: Alzheimer’s, a Cure and Me (available on BBC iPlayer) investigated hopeful developments in the scientific understanding of dementia.
She is also a popular conference host, chairing on a wide variety of subjects from medical forums like the Union World Conference on Lung Health to a range of economic, leadership and scientific gatherings.
RADIO
For many years she presented the popular genealogy programme Tracing Your Roots on Radio 4, and on Radio Scotland hosted Sally on Sunday and then, with others, Sunday Morning, along with a number of interview series, including Dad Made Me Laugh with the adult children of comedians. She has also done stints presenting Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 and Night Waves on Radio 3.
PLAYLIST FOR LIFE
After observing the effect of music on her mother’s dementia, Sally founded Playlist for Life in 2013. She chaired the charity until 2020, afterwhich she became honorary president and continues to serve on the board. (www.playlistforlife.org.uk).
The charity encourages 
access to personally meaningful music for every person with dementia. It works with families in communities and residential homes all over the UK. It was named overall winner of the GSK Impact Awards in 2020 and Scottish Charity of the Year in 2024.
In 2023 Sally received an MBE for her work with people with dementia and their carers.
She is an honorary graduate of Edinburgh University, Glasgow Caledonian University, Stirling University and the Open University, and is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS). She was voted the Evening Times Scotswoman of the Year 2018. In 2024 she became a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Sally Magnusson 