SWOTY star Sally’s had a
Our 2017 winner has some words of wisdom as hunt is under way for her successor
JUST back from a trip to Iceland, where she was a guest speaker at a conference on respite care, Sally Magnusson is in awe at the reach of SWOTY.
“The organisers of the event in Reykjavik were proclaiming my glittering Scotswoman of the Year status from the rooftops,” marvels the woman who took our 2017 title back in February.
“I realised then, more keenly than ever, that SWOTY has been a marvellous way of giving credibility not just to us, but to all the Cinderella corners of social and dementia action that Playlist for Life comes into contact with and that can benefit so much from a bit of special lustre.”
Playlist for Life is the charity Sally set up following the death of her mother, Mamie, who had dementia.
The nationally-acclaimed organisation helps families reconnect through music, and in a short space of time, has had a huge impact on the way people with the disease are treated.
After Mamie died, Sally discovered an American charity, which was already delivering personal music on iPods to people in care homes with positive results. With no similar work being developed in the UK, Sally decided to do it herself, and set up Playlist for Life in 2013.
The charity aims to make it possible for every person with dementia – whether in their own home or in a care setting – to have access to a playlist of personally meaningful music from their past life, delivered via an iPod.
Since 2013, Playlist for Life has trained thousands of health and care staff, and more and more GPs are starting to prescribe playlists instead of drugs.
As well as the free app, the charity is organising a UK network of Help Points and a Commission on Music and Dementia launched in the House of Lords recommended to the NHS and government that everyone with dementia should be able to access Playlist for Life by 2020.
The charity helped the BBC establish its Music Memories website, and just last week, the UK Government’s health secretary Matt Hancock gave Playlist for Life his backing at a speech to the Kings Fund (one of the biggest medical think tanks in the world).
For Sally, winning SWOTY felt overwhelming at the time.
“I had no idea, it was such a shock,” she laughs. “I had no speech prepared, I was bowled over.”
She adds, echoing the sentiments of almost every woman who wins the title: “It’s really heavy, the trophy, isn’t it?”
The challenge, she explains, has been trying to make the most of “the
‘‘ I was delighted, of course, and very moved
wonderful opportunities of being SWOTY, while also promoting one novel, writing the next, working at the BBC and engaging with the week by week ups and downs of chairing an expanding and fast-moving charity.”
She adds: “When I received the SWOTY award on the night it was a genuine surprise. I was delighted, of course, and very moved.
“But I also saw at once that such a prestigious award was exactly what Playlist for Life needed at that point, as we tried to establish ourselves on a bigger stage, trying to ensure that Playlist for Life could become the catalyst for the use of music to benefit people living with dementia beyond Glasgow and beyond Scotland.”
She pauses. “So it has proved. It has been an extraordinary year for the charity.” Sally adds: “The award was a vote of confidence in the charity, in what it had set out to do and the impact it was making.
“In a way, founding a charity is the easy bit – sustaining it and adapting it to the different challenges and opportunities that come along later are harder.
“This magnificent award has reminded us all that actually, we’re doing OK.”
As the search continues for Sally’s successor, the awardwinning author and journalist has a few words of advice to whoever ends up on the shortlist.
“Prepare a speech. It really could be you,” she laughs. “And to my successor – enjoy a wonderful opportunity and choose a robust mantelpiece.”