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.
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BBC News
By Chris Robinson
image captionThe 12,000-tonne load will leave the Port of Tyne for Belgium on a vessel named Longwave
What is thought to be the last shipment of coal from the North East of England has left the River Tyne. Extracted in County Durham, the 12,000-tonne load, bound for Belgium, raises questions for those who once worked deep down the pits, and for the next generation looking to a cleaner future.
The fact that coal was still being exported from the Tyne came as something of a surprise to former colliery mechanic Billy Middleton.
Now aged 79, he started work when he was 15 at County Durham s Wheatley Hill Colliery, before moving on to Thornley and then nearby Easington.