Sir Alex Ferguson’s dementia playlist: ‘Music is one of the best things that can help’
Last month, a special edition of Big Issue gave a platform to people with dementia to talk about life beyond diagnosis. The power of music to connect with people and memories featured prominently. Now Manchester United legend Sir Alex Ferguson joins the chorus and shares his own playlist
by: Paul English
9 Oct 2026
Sir Alex Ferguson signs on for Playlist for Life. Image: Jamie Simpson / Playlist for Life
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Football legend Sir Alex Ferguson has backed a Scottish music and dementia charity by making a six-figure donation to support their mission to bring music into mainstream treatment for the disease.
The former Manchester United boss has given a £100,000 boost to Playlist for Life, the charity founded by broadcaster Sally Magnusson to help people living with dementia and their loved ones access memories.
Ferguson has personal experience of the illness – his brother is living with it – and he hailed the transformative effect of introducing Playlist for Life’s model for music therapy. He said: “We all know someone whose life has been touched by dementia. I have seen the impact it can have in my own family and I know the challenges it can bring.
“But I also know that music is one of the best things available that can help.
“[Playlist for Life] is transforming the lives of people affected by dementia across the UK using personally meaningful music. The songs that matter to us make up the soundtrack of our lives and, for people living with dementia, that soundtrack can bring back treasured memories, reduce symptoms and help people reconnect. It’s a simple thing to do, but for someone affected by dementia, it can make a world of difference.”
Ferguson, who hails from Govan in Glasgow, made the donation via The Elizabeth Hardie Ferguson Charitable Trust Fund, which was founded in memory of his mother. Magnusson said that Sir Alex’s donation is a high point for the charity she founded 13 years ago, after caring for her mother Mamie during her final years living with dementia.
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Magnusson said: “It’s a marvellously generous gesture from Sir Alex, who has taken what we do on as something he believes in personally, not just as something that is being asked of him. He embraces the idea of music being of benefit to people with dementia. It’s now understood that music can help from the very beginning and he gets that because he has personal experience of dementia with his brother.”
An NHS Fife team trained by Playlist for Life found that 80% of participants required less medication to manage stress and distress after using personal playlists. An eight-week trial of 28 dementia patients on NHS Fife A&E wards showed 96% of patients displaying stress and agitation became markedly less stressed during clinical procedures after using personal music systems.
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Magnusson hopes medical practice around treatment of dementia continues towards wider inclusion of music as a therapy. She said: “At one care home the GP practice saw the immense benefit within the home and began prescribing music before they prescribed a sedative. They would say ‘give them their music’ and that reduced the prescription of sedatives drugs hugely. If that could be replicated everywhere, my goodness, what a difference.”
“It reminds me of the lap of honour at Old Trafford when Manchester United won the Premier League for the first time in 1993.”
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Moon River, Henry Mancini
“This is the song that when I’m with my longest and dearest friends from Govan, I always sing. Only they would have the patience to listen to me!”
It’s All in the Game, Nat King Cole
“This song has a particularly strong memory for me. When I was 17 and playing for Queen’s Park, they used to have an annual snooker competition, which I won. But when I went to receive the prize at the Christmas dance, they wouldn’t give me it unless I sang. And this was the song I sang.”
My Own True Love (Tara’s Theme),
The Ventures “The theme song from one of the greatest movies of all time, Gone With the Wind. Cathy [his late wife] and I visited Atlanta years ago when I was studying the American Civil War and visited the house of Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind, which is part of the museum tours.”
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Dirty Old Town, The Pogues
“Written by a Salford-born man, Ewan MacColl, whose daughter Kirsty duetted with Shane MacGowan on The Pogues’ famous Christmas song Fairytale of New York.”
Danny Boy, Jim McCann
“Danny Boy is one of the most sung songs in the world. There is a host of famous singers who have sung it and of course there are many different perspectives on the meaning of the song. One quite sad version is of a father taking his son to catch a train as he was heading off for war and his father was so worried for him that he forgot to give him a hug. The son never returned.”
