René Cutforth (6 February 1909 − 1 April 1984) was a British journalist, television and radio broadcaster and writer.
Early life Reynolds Cutforth was born at Swadlincote, Derbyshire on 6 February 1909,Entry for Cutforth in IMDb website (2019). https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0193840/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm and spent his childhood in Woodville, Burton on Trent, Staffordshire.Profile of Cutforth on the 'Woodville Heritage Trail', South Derbyshire District Council website (2019). https://www.southderbyshire.gov.uk/our-services/things-to-do-and-places-to-visit/arts-and-culture/heritage-trails/woodville-and-hartshorne-heritage-trail He received his formal education at Denstone College, which he entered in September 1922. His first job was a clerk with the Midland Bank.Greenwood, E. T., ed. (1932) The Denstone Register, p.315 In the Second World War he fought as a commissioned officer with the British Army in Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Western Desert Campaign, where he was taken prisoner in 1941, spending the remainder of the war in prisoner of war camps in Italy and Germany.'My Father's Son' by Dawyck Haig (Pub. Leo Cooper, 2000).Cutforth Later than we Thought, David & Charles, 1976 (dust jacket notes)
Broadcasting career He joined the British Broadcasting Corporation on return to England in 1946, and became a well known broadcaster and travelled the world as a BBC correspondent. He reported on the Korean War. During his television broadcast career he wrote and produced several documentary series, including, Bird's Eye View (a televisual study of the British Isles from the air) (1969–1971) and The British Empire - Echoes of Britannia's Rule (1972).Entry for Cutforth in IMDb website (2019). https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0193840/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
Reviewing one of Cutforth's television programmes entitled The Forties Revisited, the critic Clive James wrote in The Observer: "Cutforth is that rare thing, a front man with background. Fitzrovia and Soho weigh heavily on his eyelids. His voice sounds like tea-chests full of books being shifted about".Clive James, review reprinted in his collection, The Crystal Bucket
Death He died in his 76th year at Great Maplestead, in the county of Essex on 1 April 1984.Entry for Cutforth in IMDb website (2019). https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0193840/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
Bibliography Korean Reporter (1952). Reporting (1955). Guns Across the Imjin (1958). Order to View (1968) (autobiography). Later than we Thought - A Portrait of the Thirties (1976).
References