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later awarded an OBE for her work.
After a decade in Amsterdam, she secured a position at Ysbyty Gwynedd as the hospital’s first consultant for emergency medicine.
Ben, by now Dr Alofs, moved with her, getting a job at GP practice in Star, Gaerwen, where he would remain for 20 years.
Now retired, he still answers out-of-hours calls.
Dr Cutting, now 69, is also still at the NHS coalface, working oneday-a-week in A&E.
Staff there say she is universally admired, not just for what she did in the past but for what she continues doing today.
That sense of camaraderie was much in evidence during the pandemic.
Teams at the hospital were already close but the crisis bonds still further.
“It’s been a very hard-working environment, particularly for the nurses who must wear heavy respirators each day,” said Dr Cutting. “But Ysbyty Gwynedd has always been a hospital where everyone cares for each other.
“One good aspect of the pandemic has been the way it’s brought staff even closer together.” When Dr Cutter told the world, “We will remain with them – to live or die with them”, she meant it.
To this day she remains in contact with staff from the camp, where conditions are improved but still austere.
“I still think about them every day,” said Dr Cutter, whose famous tightened the quote found its way onto the cover of her account of the crisis, Children of the Siege.
Now a grandmother, her caring duties have been extended in lockdown, as daughter Emma Alofs has followed her mother’s footsteps into medicine, working as a children’s clinical psychologist.
It means granddaughters Ellie and Izzy get plenty of pony rides at the family home out towards Bethesda.
As Dr Cutting works through the twilight of her medical career, she serves as a role model for younger doctors, especially women.
Looking back, the former Comprehensive schoolgirl marvels that it was ever possible.
“When I applied to medical school, the prospectus had higher qualification requirements for women than for men,” she said.
“At the start of my career there were far more male doctors, now it’s the reverse, with female doctors outnumbering men.
“It really is a fantastic and rewarding career for women. I can honestly say I have never been discriminated against as a woman.
“I feel I’ve been lucky to have had such as great career.”