Meal a naidheachd

Ken MacQuarrie has anointed his number 2 at BBC Scotland to take on his mantle as Director.

Celebrating her 56th birthday this month, Donalda MacKinnon grew up on the Isle of Harris. She left at 17 to complete a degree in Celtic Studies at Edinburgh University, got a teaching qualification at Jordanhill, and headed to Canada (There's loads of Gaelic-speaking MacKinnons in Nova Scotia). But a previous audition tape for the BBC's Gaelic services came good, and she returned as a tv researcher in 1987.

Moving around tv and radio, in 1997 she became Head of Gaelic, and added Head of Children’s Programmes to her portfolio in 2002. In 2005, she became Joint Head of Programmes for BBC Scotland with Maggie Cunningham. When Maggie left in 2009 (and ended up at as chair of MG Alba) Donalda took over the role full-time.

Husband Seumas MacInnes, from Barra, is chef-proprietor of Gandolfi empire in Glasgow's Merchant City, and author of The Stornoway Black Pudding Bible. At least some of their children have been educated at the Glasgow Gaelic School.



Ken MacQuarrie was mentored in his early BBC career by film-maker Finlay J MacDonald; Donalda helped bring MacDonald's Crowdie and Cream, a tale of Harris life in the 1930s, to tv screens in 2002.