He was a Boult conducting scholar at the Royal College of Music from 1938, completing his studies there briefly in 1946-1947 after service in World War II.
He was a composition student of Gordon Jacob and Edmund Rubbra but also studied double bass with his father.
[1] Cruft became chairman of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain 1966, and helped set up the British Music Information Centre at 10 Stratford Place.
[2] Cruft, called a "performers' composer" by Roderick Swanston, was as a young chorister influenced by the revival of Tudor music, and later by the counterpoint of Bach.
[2] Hugo Cole described his music as "diatonic, firmly based in tradition and generally straightforward in idiom".