Sandy Gall: Journalist who took on war zones around the world

Independent

06-07-2025

The craggy looks of Sandy Gall, who has died aged 97, were familiar to television viewers as both a foreign correspondent in the world's war zones and a newscaster – one of the 'faces' of ITV's News at Ten – who brought calm authority to the stories he presented.
His twice-broken nose was the result of a minicab crash, but it gave the 6ft 1in, lean journalist an appearance of having taken part in some of the battles he reported.
Gall joined ITN, the commercial channel's news provider, in 1963 after 10 years at the news agency Reuters, where he had covered events during a turbulent period in history, from the Mau Mau rebellion and the Suez crisis to post-revolution Hungary and the Congo wars.
For television, he reported from Vietnam in 1965, when the United States sent in the Marines. He returned to the country several times – covering the Tet Offensive in 1968 – and courageously decided to stay on in Saigon in 1975 to witness the North Vietnamese Army's liberation and the aftermath.
Three years earlier, Gall had been imprisoned in Uganda after being sent to cover the dictator Idi Amin's expulsion from the country of all Asians holding British passports.
He was thrown into hut C19, the execution cell at the military police barracks in Makindye. There were bullet holes in the walls, with blood splattered on the ceiling, and Gall thought he heard the sound of a man being beaten to death with a shovel.
'I felt sick with fear and suddenly cold,' he recalled. 'I began to pray.' Fortunately, after a short time, he was moved to the 'VIP cell' and, three days later, deported.
Gall had a longer association with Afghanistan, which began with his reporting from the rebel mujahideen side three years after the Soviet invasion for his ITV documentary Afghanistan: Behind Russian Lines (1982).
He subsequently made Allah Against the Gunships (1984), when his team received protection from Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul-Haq's Special Forces, and Agony of a Nation (1986).
In Don't Worry About the Money Now, Gall's first book of memoirs, published in 1983, he wrote: 'A journalist, as an observer, has to be an outsider looking in and, once he loses that sort of independence, once he becomes, even slightly, part of the Establishment, he is in danger of losing his credibility.'
That principle appeared to be compromised when, a year later, he was invited to lunch with the head of MI6 and shared his first-hand knowledge of Afghanistan. Gall aired his view that the mujahideen had no weapon with which to counter the Soviets' Mi-24 helicopter gunships. Shortly afterward, the Americans asked the British to supply the rebels with a ground-to-air missile, which marked a turning point in the war.
In 1989, the Soviet Union withdrew its final forces from Afghanistan, an event covered by Gall for ITN.
Another legacy of his reporting from the country was Sandy Gall's Afghanistan Appeal, the charity he set up in 1983 to provide artificial limbs, other aids and physiotherapy to those suffering disabilities as a result of the war.
He continued to visit Afghanistan throughout its subsequent turbulent history and made the documentaries Veil of Fear (1996, for World in Action), Sandy's War: Face of the Taliban (2001, for Tonight) and Afghanistan: War without End (2004).
He also authored several books: Behind Russian Lines: An Afghan Journal (1983), Afghanistan: Agony of a Nation (1988), War Against the Taliban: Why It All Went Wrong in Afghanistan (2013) and Afghan Napoleon: The Life of Ahmad Shah Massoud (2021).
Henderson Alexander Gall was born in Penang, Malaysia, in 1927 to Jean (née Begg) and Henderson Gall, a Scottish rubber planter.
He was educated at Glenalmond College in Perthshire and served in the RAF from 1945 to 1948). He graduated from Aberdeen University in 1952 with an MA in French and German, and began his career at the Aberdeen Press and Journal.
The following year, he joined Reuters and, after several months in its London office, served as a correspondent in Cold War Berlin, Nairobi, Suez, Bonn, Budapest and Johannesburg.
While based in South Africa, he covered the Congo. In 1960, he was the first to report the rape of Belgian women, including nuns, by Congolese who saw no immediate change in the weeks after receiving independence from Belgium.
Gall admitted to being nervous in front of the camera on joining ITN in 1963, but he was soon bringing his experience – and impressive contacts book – to reporting from trouble spots, including the Congo again, Borneo, the Six-Day War and Biafra.
He became a newscaster in 1968 and first presented News at Ten two years later, although he continued to report from around the world. He also made documentaries for ITV, including Lord of the Lions (1989), about conservationist George Adamson.
Gall retired from ITN as a newscaster in January 1990 but continued as a reporter to cover the first Gulf War (1990-91) and the fall of the Soviet-backed Najibullah regime in Afghanistan (1992), then made occasional television documentaries.
In 2003, he became world affairs editor of the London news station LBC, joining its breakfast show to comment on global issues.
His second volume of memoirs, News from the Front: A Television Reporter's Life, was published in 1994. As a novelist, he wrote the thrillers Gold Scoop (1977), Chasing the Dragon (1981) and Salang (1990).
Gall was appointed CBE in 1988 and, for services to the people of Afghanistan, Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 2011. He won the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal in 1987 for his Afghanistan reports and was rector of the University of Aberdeen from 1978 to 1981.
In 1958, Gall married Eleanor Smyth; she died in 2018. He is survived by his son, Alexander, and three daughters, Fiona, Carlotta and Michaela.
Sandy Gall, journalist, born 1 October 1927, died 29 June 2025