Reg Turnill was born on 12 May 1915 in Dover, Kent, England, UK. He was married to Margaret Hennings. He died on 12 February 2013 in Ashford, Kent, England, UK.
In 1958, he became the BBC's air and space correspondent. He was sent to Moscow to cover the first manned space launch, and regularly reported from Cape Canaveral and Houston on the Apollo moon missions. He interviewed all of the Apollo astronauts, and was friends with Wernher von Braun, the architect of Nasa's moon program.