Donny MacLeod
British television presenter (1932-1984)

Donald B. MacLeod (1 July 1932 – 6 September 1984), popularly known as Donny MacLeod and Donny Bee, was a Scottish TV presenter . MacLeod is best known for appearing on the BBC 1 afternoon show Pebble Mill at One.
Early life and career
MacLeod was born in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis. After National Service in the Royal Navy, he studied in Glasgow and then at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen, before returning to teach art at the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway.
He stood for election to the UK Parliament at the 1959 United Kingdom general election for his home constituency of The Western Isles as a Liberal Party candidate, in a campaign described as "one of the most charismatic in Island memory". The local Conservative Party did not contest the election and were happy to recommend him to their supporters. However, he was defeated by the Labour candidate.
At the 1964 United Kingdom general election he again contested The Western Isles for the Liberal Party, but this time, the Conservatives decided to run their own candidate. He finished second, again behind the Labour candidate.
After occasional print journalism pieces MacLeod joined Grampian Television in Aberdeen as a reporter, before moving to the BBC and in 1970 joining the presenting team of its early evening magazine programme Nationwide, where features he fronted included a dieting item, Slim '72.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5296740. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1984, 1959 and 1964.
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This entry incorporates text from “Donny MacLeod” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.