Sally Magnusson on the Reformation trail

Broadcaster Sally Magnusson concludes the Sally on Sunday series with a programme marking the 450th anniversary of the Reformation.

They don't often let me out of the Sally on Sunday studio, but on Monday I made it to Edinburgh to record a special edition for the 450th anniversary of the Reformation. I spent the morning trooping happily up and down the Royal Mile with a variety of guests. At each location we tried to untangle the truth from the myths. Stimulating stuff.

We started - of course - at John Knox House. Did Scotland's firebrand reformer ever live here? Er, nobody's sure, said Donald Smith, who runs the Scottish Storytelling Centre there. But he gave a spirited defence of the man as a much more rounded and complex character than the stereotype.



In fact, according to Harry Reid, another of my guests, Knox was a ladies' man, with a sense of humour and a penchant for wine: he ordered gallons of it to be distributed at his deathbed. Harry, author of the immensely readable "Reformation: The Dangerous Birth of the Modern World", is a former journalistic colleague of mine. Away from the microphone we reminisced about life at the long defunct Sunday Standard newspaper, which started life 30 years ago next year. These anniversaries are catching.

We moved up the hill to St Giles Cathedral at a spanking pace, casting longing glances at coffee shops along the way. Beside the famous statue of John Knox, former arts chief Richard Holloway lamented the destruction of religious art that accompanied the reforming zeal of the Protestants. Gangly Richard said the statue was much too tall - Knox had been quite a small man.

Historian Michael Lynch, another of my coterie, said they had used green and white paint to deface the walls of Catholic churches. Now, I reckon this is a Sally on Sunday scoop. Has anyone ever told Rangers that green and white, not blue, were the symbolic colours of Protestant dissent?

We ended up at the Scottish parliament, where we heard a spine-tingling rendition of Robert Burns' "A Man's a Man for a' That" from actor John Shedden. Burns, it turns out, was a product of the Reformation. As we all are, of course - but in much more complex ways than I realised. It's all quite fascinating.

Back for a new series of Sally on Sunday in time for the Pope's visit in September.

Enjoy the rest of your summer.