Reginald Turnill
| Reginald Turnill | |
|---|---|
| Born |
12 May 1915 Dover, Kent |
| Died | 12 February 2013 (aged 97) near Ashford, Kent |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Aviation and space correspondent for the BBC |
| Notable credit(s) | BBC TV News, BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4 |
| Spouse(s) | Margaret Hennings |
| Children | 2 sons |
Reginald George Turnill (12 May 1915 – 12 February 2013) was the BBC's aviation (and space) correspondent for twenty years during the beginnings of manned space exploration and the early jet age in aviation, including the breakthrough in supersonic passenger flight represented by Concorde. He covered NASA's space missions and all the Apollo program moon missions for the BBC. Turnill's connection with the BBC, as a freelance, continued for some years after his official retirement.
Reginald Turnill began his career at the age of 15 as a reporter's telephonist at the Press Association, the British news agency, becoming a reporter by 1935. After war service as a machine gunner in the Middlesex Regiment, and as a warrant officer reporting courts martial for the Judge Advocate General’s department in Naples, he returned to the Press Association in 1946, where he remained until his recruitment by the BBC in 1956 as assistant industrial correspondent.
In 1958 he became the Corporation's Air and Space Correspondent, with a brief to include defence as well. He was not a War correspondent; he concentrated on technology. He became friendly with Wernher von Braun, who was only three years older, although his approach was initially frosty and reticent. He covered all the manned spaceflights as well as the introduction of passenger jets from the Comet IV to Concorde.
On 2 March 1969 he was the BBC's reporter on Concorde's maiden flight at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport.
In April 1970, he was the first journalist to report on the Apollo 13 catastrophe via the BBC World Service when based at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center on 13 April 1970.
After retiring from the BBC staff on his 60th birthday he continued working as a freelance broadcaster, writing many books and continuing as Newsround's Space Editor until the mid-1980s. In 1990 he presented Return Ticket, a five-part Radio 4 series about the Apollo 13 mission.
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