Background
Gracie"s father was a Scottish oil executive. Gracie was born while he was on assignment in Bahrain.
Gracie"s father was a Scottish oil executive. Gracie was born while he was on assignment in Bahrain.
She was educated in Aberdeenshire and Glasgow. She studied at University of Edinburgh, before leaving to run her own restaurant for a year. She then graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
She completed a Bachelor in Chinese in 1996 followed by an Master of Arts in Design for Interactive Media from Middlesex University.
In 1985 she went to China to teach English and Economics at Yantai and Chongqing Universities. On her return to Britain a year later she managed a small film company. British Broadcasting Corporation career
Gracie joined the British Broadcasting Corporation World Service in 1987 as a trainee producer, soon becoming a correspondent as well as on assignment, including African, Chinese and Asia-Pacific regions.
She became a correspondent for British Broadcasting Corporation World Service and then for domestic radio and television in Beijing in 1991.
Gracie moved back to the United Kingdom in 1999 as a presenter on British Broadcasting Corporation News and on World Service. Foreign six years from January 2008, she was the main morning presenter for the British Broadcasting Corporation News Channel on Tuesdays - Fridays alongside Simon McCoy.
She is also a presenter for the British Broadcasting Corporation World Service programme The Interview. Highlights of her career include covering the death of Deng Xiaoping and the handover of Hong Kong in 1997.
More recently, Gracie took part in the British Broadcasting Corporation"s coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, as a co-commentator during the opening and closing ceremonies.
Gracie also appeared in the This World programme. She presented a programme entitled "The Fastest Changing Place on Earth". This followed three villages in China over six years as they became subject to an urbanisation scheme by the Chinese government.
The programme was broadcast on 5 March 2012.
In an earlier series of features for British Broadcasting Corporation World News (television) and British Broadcasting Corporation World Service (radio), she had tracked the process of power changes, migration, changing work/educational options and land redevelopment in a single southeastern Chinese village: this series of reports from White Horse village (the place name appearing in the titles of the various parts of the project) aired between ca 2006 and 2008. A follow up came in 2015.
In December 2013, she was appointed British Broadcasting Corporation News"s first editor for China, to be based in Beijing. She presented her last British Broadcasting Corporation News Channel bulletin on Friday 3 January 2014.