Background
Hood was born in Edzell, Angus, Scotland. His father was an infant school headmaster, firstly in Edzell and then in Montrose.
Hood was born in Edzell, Angus, Scotland. His father was an infant school headmaster, firstly in Edzell and then in Montrose.
After school his son attended the University of Edinburgh between 1934 and 1938.
During the Second World War Hood served in the British Army as an Intelligence Officer. He spent a year in Italy as a prisoner of war before joining the partisans. His memoir of this period, Pebbles from my Skull was published in 1963, a revised version appeared in 1985.
lieutenant is an unromantic account of the partisans in Italy and their relationship to the official allied forces.
From 1961 until 1963 Hood was the Controller of the British Broadcasting Corporation Television Service. He became the overall Controller of British Broadcasting Corporation Television in 1963 with the preparations for the launch of the minority channel BBC2, with his former assistant Donald Baverstock working under him to Control BBC1 and Michael Peacock doing the same for the new channel.
This arrangement was short-lived, he resigned from the British Broadcasting Corporation in the summer of 1964, though his period at Rediffusion London as Controller was short. During the 1970s he was Professor of Film and Television at the Royal College of Art, School of Film and Television.
In 1988 he hosted an edition of After Dark called "What Do Women Want" and featuring among others James Dearden, Mary Whitehouse, Joan Wyndham, Naim Attallah and Shere Hite.
He was active in the ACTT union and was a member of the Workers Revolutionary Party between 1973 and 1978.