Sandy Gall, Intrepid Foreign Correspondent and News‑at‑Ten Icon, Dies Aged 97

Sandy Gall, the revered foreign correspondent and long-standing co‑presenter of ITN’s News at Ten, died at his Kent home on Sunday aged 97, his family confirmed. Gall leaves behind a journalism legacy spanning more than half a century. His relative Dr. Julian Smyth said, “His was a great life, generously and courageously lived.”, as mentioned in a social media post by Gall’s daughter Carlotta Gall, also a journalist.

Born Alexander Gall in Penang in now Malaysia on October 1, 1927, the Scot began his career at the Aberdeen Press and Journal (1952), before joining Reuters in 1953. He reported from some of the most dangerous conflict zones of his era, including the Mau Mau uprising, Suez Crisis, Vietnam, and the tumultuous Middle East. In 1960, while covering the Congo Crisis, he narrowly escaped execution – held at gunpoint until rescued by UN forces .

Joining ITN in 1963, Gall became an authoritative presence on News at Ten from 1970–1991. Yet he never abandoned frontline reporting, covering the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Gulf War, and the Soviet‑Afghan conflict. His deeply personal dispatches from the Afghan countryside illuminated Soviet atrocities and the resilience of local fighters. In 1983, he founded the Sandy Gall Afghanistan Appeal to aid war victims and landmine survivors.

ITV colleague John Suchet praised Gall as “a true gentleman… his name will always be associated with those big stories the fall of Saigon, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Things move on but when the history books are written, his name will be there.”. His work earned him a CBE in 1987, a CMG in 2011, the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal and Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2011.

Despite surviving violence, imprisonment under Idi Amin, and near execution in Congo, Gall remained modest. “Nothing is worth getting killed for, but it’s good television, alas,” he once said. Married to Eleanor Smyth from 1958 until her death in 2018, he is survived by four children, including journalist Carlotta Gall. He continued to write and comment until his final years. Britain has lost a courageous reporter whose voice shaped global understanding for generations.