Sally Jones (journalist)

Sally Jones
Born1955 (age 70–71)
Coventry, Warwickshire, England
EducationKing Edward VI High School for Girls
St Hugh's College, Oxford
OccupationsSportswoman, journalist, television news and sports presenter
Employer(s)Central News
BBC Breakfast News
Westward Television
ChildrenMadeline Grant, Assistant Editor of The Spectator

Sally Jones (born 1955) is a British journalist and television presenter for sports and news. In 1986, she became the BBC's first woman sports presenter on BBC Breakfast News.

She is also a three-time world champion in real tennis, winning the singles title once and the doubles title twice.[1]

Education

Jones was born in 1955 in Coventry, Warwickshire,[2] the daughter of a bank manager in Coleshill.[2] She was educated at King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham,[3][4] and at St Hugh's College, Oxford, where she read English and won five blues and half blues for different sports including tennis, squash, netball, cricket and modern pentathlon.[2]

She won the Sale of the Century quiz when she was aged 18 years and has since appeared on celebrity editions of Fifteen to One and The Krypton Factor. She has appeared five times on Mastermind and reached the semi-finals in 2008.

Sport

Jones was Warwickshire county and British schoolgirls tennis champion (Lawn Tennis Association)[5] and a finalist in the British Under 21 doubles championship (LTA).[6] She played county tennis, squash (Warwickshire, Devon and South Wales squash associations), and netball (Birmingham Schools and Midlands First teams), captaining the Warwickshire senior tennis team for ten years, leading them to the County Championship in July 1997. She won the Sunday Telegraph Travel Writing Prize for an account of a tennis tour of Ireland and two Catherine Pakenham awards for women journalists.[7]

Broadcasting and writing career

During her career, Jones has been a BBC news trainee,[2] a TV reporter at Westward Television, and a TV reporter for HTV (Wales) where she also made several documentaries, and Central TV in Birmingham where she co-presented Central News and reported on the politics show Central Lobby.[8] She has also reported for ITN and Channel 4 News and has written columns for the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror and Today. In 1986, she became the BBC's first woman sports presenter on BBC Breakfast News:[2] she claimed in 2012 that during that job she was sexually assaulted by Jimmy Savile in a lift at the BBC.[3]

She presented for BBC Sport during the 1988 Seoul summer Olympics and for BBC World during the 1992 Barcelona summer Olympics.[9]

Jones has also presented several series of On the Line; the daytime show The Garden Party; real tennis documentaries on Channel 4; coverage of women's British Open golf, international tennis, women's rugby, and NBA basketball on the BBC; Transworld Sport on Channel 4; and international gymnastics on ITV. She presented Woman's Hour from Birmingham (BBC Radio 4) and was a member of the BBC Radio 5 Live Wimbledon tennis commentary team during the 1990s. In 2010, she set up Sally Jones Features Ltd, a media consultancy.

She has also written several books on West English folklore, including Legends of Cornwall (1980), Legends of Devon (1981), Legends of Somerset (1983), and the Ladybird Book of Riding. In 2006, she co-wrote and edited a prize-winning local history book on Georgian Warwickshire.

She also works for several charities including Birmingham Children's Hospital and Twycross Zoo She is a board member of Modern Pentathlon GB and a trustee of the Oxford and Cambridge Rowing Foundation.

Real tennis

In 1986, Jones took up real tennis and won the 1993 World Championship at Bordeaux, as well as two British Open and two US Open championships.[1][2] She won the World Doubles Championship[10] with Alex Garside in 1989 and 1991[5] and was British Open doubles finalist with Jo Iddles in 2008.

Personal life

In 1989, Jones married civil-engineer John Wallace[11] Grant (1940-2026)[12] who was 14 years her senior.[13] He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 2021.[13] They lived at Newbold Pacey, Warwickshire.[14] They had two children:[3] management consultant Roland Grant and journalist Madeline Grant.[15][16]

Her daughter Madeline attended the same school as her mother,[15] and read the same subject as her mother at St Hilda's College, Oxford,[17] and is now Assistant Editor of The Spectator. Madeline is married to the clergyman Fergus Butler-Gallie,[18] and previously dated the actor Laurence Fox.[19][20][21]

Selected works

  • Legends of Cornwall (1980)
  • Legends of Devon (1981)
  • Legends of Somerset (1983)
  • The Ladybird Book of Riding

References

  1. 1 2 Jones, Sally (2 October 2008). "Integrating Real Tennis is unnatural: Former world real tennis champion Sally Jones storms one of the last male bastions". The Daily Telegraph.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Minett, Vic; Blackman, Alec (30 April 2026). "The Coventry woman who was first to present sports news on the BBC". BBC News. Retrieved 7 July 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 Bradley, Steve (29 October 2012). "Jimmy Savile groped me in a BBC lift, says ex-Central News TV presenter". BirminghamLive. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
  4. ↑ Lockley, Mike (13 August 2014). "Former headmistress of King Edward's VI High for Girls dies aged 97". Business Live. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  5. 1 2 "Past Champions". Ladies Real Tennis Association. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  6. ↑ "Clubspark / Warwickshire Tennis / Meet the Warwickshire Tennis Committee". clubspark.lta.org.uk. Archived from the original on 23 January 2025. Retrieved 7 July 2026.
  7. ↑ "Pakenham award entries invited". Press Gazette. 26 February 2003. Archived from the original on 23 January 2025. Retrieved 7 July 2026.
  8. ↑ Cowley, Jason. (19 August 2002) The loss of good sports broadcasters. New Statesman.
  9. ↑ Larkin, Johnnie (11 February 2023). "Sally Jones". Retrieved 7 July 2026.
  10. ↑ "Squash-Tennis: Warwickshire duo win inaugural national championships". CoventryLive. 27 July 2012. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  11. ↑ "Entry for John Wallace Grant". Companies House. 14 January 2026.
  12. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/DcYBJ8SCKD8plvkzreRjeTh-9bLRErCIhhbbaY0/?igsi=MWdvdHhjdWQ3cjJzaQ==
  13. 1 2 "In my 60s, I'm confronting illness and death – but am the happiest I've ever been". The Independent. 25 March 2024.
  14. ↑ "Country Life - British Columbia Libraries - OverDrive". British Columbia Libraries. Retrieved 16 August 2025.
  15. 1 2 "Ex-Birmingham schoolgirl who boasted about her breasts in election flyer fined by Oxford University". Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  16. ↑ "The Rev F.B. Butler-Gallie and Miss M.M.W. Grant The Telegraph Announcements". announcements.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 16 August 2025.
  17. ↑ "Union finds Madeline Grant guilty". The Cherwell. 4 May 2012.
  18. ↑ Times, The (27 June 2025). "Births, marriages and deaths: June 28, 2025". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 16 August 2025.
  19. ↑ "'Laurence Fox's mixed-race girlfriend dumped him after racism rant on Question Time', by Olivia Petter, 27 April 2020". The Independent. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  20. ↑ "'Why 'half-educated' Laurence Fox is back after his Question Time fiasco', 27 April 2020". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  21. ↑ "'The Interview: Laurence Fox talks Billie Piper, divorce and career', 2020". The Times. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
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