Stage designer and painter, born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was educated in England and attended St John’s Wood School of Art, Royal Academy Schools and Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting. After painting for a year in Europe and North Africa, during World War II Cruddas was in the Women’s Land Army, strenuous work which made her ill, and during convalescence she began stage design. This led to Robert Helpmann asking her to create the costumes for his production of The White Devil, by John Webster. Cruddas became a noted stage designer, working for Covent Garden, The Old Vic, the York Mystery Plays and the Edinburgh Festival, producing both costume and set designs. She retired to Great Bardfield, Essex, in the late 1950s to concentrate on watercolour painting and showed locally, with Augustin Gallery and with Leigh Underhill Gallery.