Tributes paid as journalist and TV presenter Sandy Gall dies aged 97

By Robert White, PA

Journalist Sandy Gall has been praised as a “giant and a gentleman” after his death at the age of 97.

His journalism career spanned more than 50 years and he was a renowned foreign correspondent for ITN and the face of ITV’s News At Ten from 1963 until 1992.

His family revealed that he died at his home in Kent on Sunday, and said: “His was a great life, generously and courageously lived.”

 

Gall covered major events such as the assassination of US president John F Kennedy, the civil rights movement and the Lockerbie disaster, after entering journalism as a reporter for the Aberdeen Press and Journal in 1952.

Tom Bradby, lead anchor of News At Ten, said: “He had, as a foreign correspondent, been there and done everything.

“As a trainee walking through the doors of ITN 35 years ago, I was one of many young would-be reporters he inspired.

“His old-world charm and on-screen presence endeared him to so many viewers and so many of us.

“He was a giant and a gentleman of our business. Everyone loved Sandy.”

Sir Trevor McDonald, former News At Ten presenter, said: “I think Sandy Gall was one of the most brilliant journalists out there.

“And, around his work, ITN was able to build an enormous reputation.

“He travelled the world, he covered wars, he covered political upheavals, and what he said, people believed.

“He gave ITN and News At Ten its credibility. When Sandy Gall said something, everyone believed it.”

During his time as a foreign correspondent, Gall covered the arrival of the US into the Vietnam War in 1965, and the end of the conflict when the North Vietnamese army entered Saigon in 1975.

Despite becoming a news presenter in 1970, he continued to report first-hand, spending weeks travelling on horseback to follow the Mujahideen in their guerilla war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

After his retirement in 1992, he founded and became chairman of Sandy Gall’s Afghanistan Appeal, a charity for disabled Afghans that helped war-related casualties, as well as children in refugee camps, for nearly 40 years.

He was made a CBE in 1987 and Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2011.

Tom Tugendhat MP said: “Quite simply, a hero.

“Sandy Gall told the stories we needed to hear and kept up with those whose lives he had brought to our notice.

“My condolences go to Carlotta Gall and the whole family. He was a legend to many, and a father to a lucky few.”