EIGHTY years ago on Monday, HMS Hood was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck with the loss of 1,415 men – the biggest single death toll in the history of the Royal Navy. Four of the lost men feature on a happy times photo, taken of them standing at the taffrail of the Hood in their tropical white shorts. It was sent back to their hometown of Darlington to their mate in the railway workshops who had been left behind by a quirk of fate. “They had all served their time at North Road, but when they tried to join the Royal Navy my father, Reg, was kept back because he was a coppersmith, and was sent to work on warships in Wallsend,” says Alan Bean.