Sally Magnusson

Sally Anne Stone (née Magnusson; 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 Roots on BBC Radio 4 and was one of the main presenters of the long-running religious television programme Songs of Praise. Early life Magnusson was born in 1955 in the city of Glasgow. She is the eldest daughter of Magnus Magnusson, an Icelandic-born broadcaster and writer, and Mamie Baird, a newspaper journalist from Rutherglen. Her maternal uncle, Archie Baird, was a Scottish footballer, who played for Aberdeen and St Johnstone. Magnusson's paternal grandfather, Sigursteinn Magnusson, opened an office to handle fish exports to Europe in Edinburgh. 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. In May 1973, Magnusson's brother, Siggy, died aged 12 three days after being hit by a lorry. Education Magnusson was educated at Laurel Bank School for Girls, a former independent school which later merged with another independent school, The Park School, to form Laurel Park School, 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.