Sandy Gall, a legendary presenter on News at Ten, has died at the age of 97.
The veteran broadcaster died at his home in Kent on Sunday, his family has confirmed.
Their tribute read: ‘His was a great life, generously and courageously lived.’
Gall was arguably one of the most familiar faces on British TV with a career spanning five decades.
He started out in 1952 at the Aberdeen Press and Journal before a ten-year stint at Reuters.
In 1963, he joined Independent News Television (ITN), where he remained until his retirement from journalism in 1992.
Gall – whose real name was Henderson Alexander Gall – started strong at ITN, as one of his first assignments saw him head to Dallas, Texas, just hours after the assassination of President Kennedy.
From there, he fronted coverage on some of history’s biggest events. His work as a foreign reporter and troubleshooter took him to Afghanistan, Africa, China, the Far East, the Middle East, and Vietnam.
In 1965, he presented coverage on the American civil rights movement and interviewed world-famous activist Martin Luther King Jr.
Then, in 1970, Gall started hosting ITV’s News at Ten, which, at the time, was the most-watched news programme in the UK.
His final presenting appearance came in January 1991, but he returned as a special reporter for 12 months before retiring properly.
Following retirement, Gall worked as a freelancer for television and written journalism from 1993 onwards.
Projects during this time included his 1995 ITV documentary Network First: The Man Who Saved the Animals and presenting BBC Radio 4’s travel programme Breakaway, plus BBC Radio 2’s The Empty Quarter.
Overall, Gall’s career saw him lead reports on some of the most defining stories of the 20th century, such as Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding and the 1980 United States presidential election.
In the early 2000s, he also worked with Channel 5 on reports from Afghanistan.
Away from screens, Gall founded and became the chairman of Sandy Gall’s Afghanistan Appeal, a charity for disabled Afghans.
The organisation was founded alongside his wife in 1986, and it ran for 22 years.
In 2020, a statement on its website confirmed ‘with sadness’ that the charity would be closing down, partly due to a lack of long-term funding, but also because Gall felt the charity had ‘achieved many of its original objectives’.
Throughout its time, the organisation assisted thousands of Afghans with disabilities. This included training Afghan professionals to provide artificial limbs and other mobility aids for more than 25,000 people, plus physiotherapy treatment for over 60,000 patients.
In his personal life, Gall, who was awarded a CBE in 1987, married Eleanor Smyth in 1958. She died in 2018.
He is survived by a son, Alexander, and three daughters named Carlotta, Fiona, and Michaela.
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