Donald Campbell.Indd

2,3,5,6,7 -CAMPBELL 9/11/06 2:30 pm Page 2 Whose name was WRIT IN WATER THIRTY years ago on January 4, 1967, Donald Campbell died on Lake Coniston attempting to become the first man to break the 300mph water speed record. In this special Cumbria he water's not so good...I can't see Campbell. He became a successful business- much...I'm going...I'm on my man, first as an insurance broker at Lloyds, and back...I've gone.'' The last words later as a company director. It was his steady Life feature, writer ever heard spoken by Donald acquisition of wealth that allowed him to Campbell still haunt those who wit- indulge his passion for speed and the re-writing Alan Air examines Tnessed his traumatic death on Lake Coniston on of record books - an obsession that would even- 4 January 1967. The famous black and white tually kill him. Campbell married three times, Campbell's amazing footage of his jet-powered Bluebird lifting from travelled the world extensively, enjoyed gam- the water, before viciously somersaulting and bling, dabbled in the occult and his enigmatic career and talks breaking in two, is still horrifyingly hypnotic. I personality either repelled or attracted others. remember, as a small child, watching the film on The Times' obituary of Campbell said he was a the television news, and then crying myself to "showman with the inherent flair that would exclusively to his only sleep, shocked by the potency of the imagery. probably have carried him to the heights of the That Campbell's body was never recovered from theatrical world.'' daughter, Gina, about the gloomy depths of Coniston adds to the terri- "My father had enormous charisma and ble nature of his passing - a legendary man that depending on his mood could turn a funeral into her tumultuous history is sure to record as one of England's last a party. He could also turn a party into a funer- great heroes. al," confirms his only daughter, Gina, herself a Campbell's life was as dramatic as his death at record-breaking speedboat driver. relationship with one of the age of 46. "Unfortunately, I have inherited the same trait.'' A complex character, descended from the As we chat about her relationship with her Britain's last great Campbell clan of Argyll, he left home at the age father, she sounds world-weary and resigned, in of 18 to escape the strict regime imposed by his marked contrast to her mood when I last heroes. own record-breaking father, Sir Malcolm encountered her a year ago. Then, visiting 2 2,3,5,6,7 -CAMPBELL 9/11/06 2:32 pm Page 3 The eerie �1967 footage of Bluebird in its death leap holds the same macabre fascination for people as the jumpy film of the Hindenburg airship crashing to the ground... � campbell anniversary Ullswater to commemorate the 40th anniversary her first five years of life. given full custody. But shortly afterwards she of her father's forgotten record, breaking the "I DON'T WANT to upset my mother, put her fell in love with a man whose career with the 200mph barrier on water, she was upbeat and through anything,'' she insists. Foreign Office took him abroad. As Gina cheerful, eager to deliver the crisp one-liners So let the facts speak for themselves. When recalled in the autobiographical, Bluebirds - the that were clearly rehearsed for the benefit of the Gina was just a few months old, her father and story of the Campbell Dynasty: 'I just did not fit media. However, she is frank about her own mother, Daphne, divorced. Donald did not in'. She was placed in a residential school-home rollercoaster ride through life and doesn't shirk want the responsibility of child-rearing because for infants called High Tree near Gatwick difficult questions, apart from those relating to of his helter-skelter lifestyle and Daphne was Airport and became a 365 days a year boarder. � 3 2,3,5,6,7 -CAMPBELL 9/11/06 2:33 pm Page 4 Whose name was WRIT IN WATER ...Continued � "It was as good a place to live as I had ever instructions that his famous Bluebird boat must clarity that they are today. The media wasn't known,'' she wrote. When she was five years old be sold, Donald, free of the paternal shadow, used for every sort of event like it is now. To a visitor came to High Trees and announced was determined to go against his wishes. Within capture something like that on film was one hell that she was taking Gina home. It was her seven months he had scrimped together every of a coup for the cameraman. And because they father's second wife, Dorothy. "Her whole penny he had and bought Bluebird from the were looking for my father's body for weeks and appearance had a tenderness about it, her face executors. However, with little experience of weeks it continued to be very traumatic.''' was warm and smiling, and most of all, her voice handling a boat at speed it took him six years to conveyed love in its velvet tones,'' wrote Gina, add his name to the record books. There were UNTIL THE ONSET of winter in 1966, Gina who now enjoys an extremely affectionate many failures including a disastrous accident on was living and working in the Lake District, friendship with her step-mother, describing it as Coniston in 1951 when the original Bluebird near to where her father would pay the ultimate the closest relationship she's ever known. sank. But his new jet-propelled Bluebird guar- price for his sport. Having left home after her Dorothy later admitted that when she collected anteed his reputation when, in July 1955, he quarrel with Tonia, Gina travelled to Cumbria Gina from the home she looked like Orphan broke the 200mph water barrier on Ullswater. to work for hotelier Norman Buckley, a friend Annie, everything she owned fitted into two By the time of his death, 12 years later, of her father who often timed his record-break- paper bags and her only clothes were a pair of Campbell had notched up seven world water ing attempts on the Cumbrian lakes. He owned brown Wellington boots. speed records and one land record, and in 1964 Low Wood at Windermere and it was here that Gina was re-united with her father, who, by he became the only man ever to have broken Gina met her first love, a "gorgeous, fair-haired, this time was living in an Elizabethan farm the land and water speed record in one calendar blue-eyed German called Helmut'', who was labourer's cottage at Leigh, near Reigate in year. He was awarded the CBE in 1957. head waiter at the hotel. At the end of the sea- Surrey. Her childhood memories of the great But it is the manner of his death, as much as son they both went to Switzerland to work. But Donald Campbell are far from flattering and his phenomenal speed achievements, that has Gina had two last meetings with her father that she believes that part of the reason for his etched the memory of Donald Campbell in our summer. Tonia accompanied him on the first authoritarianism is that her father had desper- collective consciousness, especially for those of visit and she joined them for dinner at a local ately wanted a son to continue the patriarchal us living in Cumbria, the scene of so many glori- hotel. racing dynasty. ous feats. The eerie 1967 footage of Bluebird in Later, he visited Gina in October, "not with "I used to fall over backwards trying to please its death leap holds the same macabre fascina- Tonia but with another lady friend of his, and him but I always failed. He would have pre- tion for people as the jumpy film of the that was the last time I ever saw him alive.'' ferred a boy to carry on the family name but he Hindenburg airship crashing to the ground in a Campbell's last contact with Gina in never did get a son,'' she says. "I remember him ball of flames 30 years earlier. Switzerland was via a Christmas telegram ask- as very strict, frightening, a stickler for disci- Gina, who was working in Arosa, ing her to join him skiing in the Alps early in the campbell anniversary pline. I always had the impression that I was a Switzerland, in January 1967, recalls her own New Year. This request convinced Gina that bit of a pain in the neck to him. I suppose to her father was not acting out a deathwish on him I didn't seem like his own child because Coniston on 4 January 1967 as some he never saw me in those early years. He was observers have claimed; their skiing holi- not a modern-day father. He believed chil- days were always their happiest times dren should be seen and not heard, out of together. sight and out of mind. He was brought up in When a telephone call came through that a very Victorian way and he felt I should fateful morning from her real mother, Gina, have the same upbringing. So I did not have who was aware of her father's record-break- the easiest or most normal childhood by any ing attempts in the Lake District, went rigid. stretch of the imagination.'' "I knew it was bad news.

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