Norman Charles Rees, former ITN reporter and newsreader

NORMAN Charles Rees, a former senior ITN reporter and News at Ten newsreader, has died, aged 84.

He lived in Wargrave for more than 50 years and sometimes gave talks about his career at local venues to raise money for good causes.

Norman started his career as a newspaper reporter on the Western Mail in Cardiff before moving into television with Television Wales and the West and then Independent Television News in 1968, where he spent the next 30-plus years working in many of the world’s trouble spots.

“News,” Norman often commented, “is history in the making.” And in reporting the news, television plays an important part.

During his time with ITN, he spent several years in Washington as US correspondent during the presidential terms of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

There are many memorable stories that Norman covered during his career, including the Watergate scandal in 1974, when he got President Richard Nixon to reply to him that he “screwed it up and paid the price”.

He covered the attempted assassination of President Reagan and the assassination of John Lennon in New York in 1980. His reporting of the launch of the first space shuttle Columbia in 1981 was another key historical event.

Norman accompanied several royal tours over the years, including Princess Diana’s tour of the Far East in 1989 to visit a leprosy unit in Indonesia.

He using the opportunity to dispel the myths surrounding this condition, reporting that “she touched the untouchable”.

Norman reported from many warzones, including the Falklands War, where he was based in Buenos Aires throughout the conflict.

He spent much time in the Middle East, some of it in Lebanon reporting on the conflict between Palestinian rival factions and how innocent civilians were “caught in the crossfire of an unnecessary war”.

His reporting won ITN the best actuality coverage award at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards in that year.

Norman was born on March 2, 1939 in Cardiff. It was at the local church youth club that he met and later married Andrea. They had recently celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary.

Norman died peacefully on Wednesday, June 14 at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading following a short illness.

He leaves his wife Andrea and children Andrew, who lives in Twyford, and Nicola, who is settled in Cheshire, as well as his grandchildren, Amelia, William, Katie, Jess and Josh, whom he loved to spend time with.

Norman had several outside interests.

Rekindling his love of music since his early years as the lead singer of a band called The Weavers in the Fifties, singing hits by the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly, Norman became a member of the Reading Male Voice Choir and sang at venues in the UK and across Europe.

Forever the journalist, he went on to become the editor of the choir’s membership magazine.

Norman also enjoyed playing golf at Hennerton Golf Club in
Wargrave.