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 . In this special 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 -CAMPBELL9/11/062:32pmPage3 difficultquestions, apart from those relating to rollercoasterride through life and own doesn't hershirk about frank is she However, media. that were clearly rehearsed for one-liners the crisp benefit the deliver of to the eagercheerful, andupbeatwas shewater, barrieron200mph the breaking record, forgotten father's her of Ullswater to commemorate the 40th anniversary of his helter-skelter lifestyle and Daphne was Daphne and lifestylehelter-skelter his of not wantthe responsibility did of child-rearing Donald because divorced. Daphne, mother, Ginawas just afew months old, her father and through anything,'' she insists. WANTDON'T"I her first five years of life. So let the facts speak for themselves.factsspeakforthelet WhenSo to upset my mother, put hermother,putmy upset to o ifns ald ih re er Gatwick near Airport Tree and became Higha 365 days a called year boarder. infants for in'. She was placed in a residential school-home storytheCampbellof Dynasty: Gina As abroad. recalledin the autobiographical, him took Office Foreign the with career whose man a with love in fell she afterwards shortly But custody. full given � ground... crashing to the airship the Hindenburg jumpy film of people as the fascination for macabre holds the same death leap Bluebird in its 1967 footage of The eerie 'I just'Ididnotfit Bluebirds-the � 3 � campbell anniversary 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 , 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. No-one would have Consequently, Gina made a conscious rung me socially at that time. I blubbed my decision not to have children of her own. eyes out for an hour,'' she says. Gina flew "When I looked at myself there didn't seem back to England the next day in a state of to be much wrong with me but I seemed to shocked disbelief. "It took an awfully long have caused so much unhappiness that God time for it to sink in that my father was dead. forbid I'd do that to my own child,'' she Sometimes I don't think it has sunk in - the explains. fact there was no body, no funeral, no grave. The marriage to Dorothy collapsed after Sometimes I have eerie thoughts, fantasies, just five years. Campbell enjoyed a series of that he escaped, swam to the shore and dis- girlfriends before marrying glamorous appeared sticking two fingers up to the cabaret artist Tonia Berne. Gina says her world.'' relationship with Tonia was often strained. While Gina's escape fantasies about her A furious row with Tonia in the June of 1966 father are normal human reactions against meant that Gina, aged 17, was not on speak- sudden and unexpected loss, it is much more ing terms with her when her father died. difficult to explain away the persistent sto- "During our argument I slapped her ries that Campbell had a premonition of his around the face. I remember her running own death during a card game, the night upstairs screaming at my father that it was before his ill-fated run on Coniston. In the either her or me. By the time he'd gathered book Donald Campbell CBE by Arthur his thoughts and come downstairs I'd ABOVE: Donald Campbell and his daughter Gina. Knowles, it is claimed that he drew the already started packing my bag,'' she says. doom-laden Ace of Spades and the Queen ''morbid fascination'' with the photographs in of Spades - the same cards that Mary Queen of CAMPBELL'S TEMPESTUOUS private life newspapers at Geneva Airport the day after the Scots is said to have drawn the night before she throughout the 1950s and 1960s reflected the tragedy. Many bore the simple headline: was beheaded. highs and lows of his racing career as he Campbell est Mort. "I have the most awful premonition that I'm attempted to shatter world land and water "I couldn't take my eyes off them and I felt going to get the chop this time,'' Campbell speed records. As a young man, he first tasted detached, as though it was happening to some- allegedly told a reporter. the exhilaration of speed when he bought a sec- one else,'' she remembers. Of the film itself, Gina confirms that her father was definitely ond-hand Rex motor cycle for £15 and a love of Gina believes its power to shock is all the superstitious, used the Ouija board and Tarot aeroplanes and cars quickly followed. When his greater for being in black and white. "In those cards and was very interested in spiritual mat- father, Sir Malcolm, died in 1949 leaving days accidents weren't caught on film with the ters. It is alleged that he even contacted a clair- �

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Whose name was WRIT IN WATER ...Continued � voyant to get in touch with his own father. ed his first run clocking up a staggering 297 "I didn't feel cheated by his death at all,'' says While Gina is superstitious, refusing to wear the mph. Villa wrote: "I was still waiting for him to Gina. "It may sound strange but it was almost a 'green' colours of her golf club, she has ''never come to me over the radio to ask whether his relief. Although I missed him enormously I did- felt there is something up there.'' But she relates wake had died down when, to my bewilder- n't have to match up to what he expected any- two curious tales, the first concerning her step- ment, I heard him say, 'Stand by. I'm making my more.'' mother, Dorothy, who now lives in New return run.' He had been barely four minutes on But her grief was real enough and for Zealand. "She is the most down-to-earth person the turn-around. I could do nothing now except months she would fly off the handle or burst I know, but one night when driving home from stare towards the southern end of the lake.'' into tears at the slightest provocation. She the theatre in pouring rain, her car went into a Villa watched in disbelief as Bluebird's bows stole off onto the slopes and pistes - pursuing violent spin. She looked at the wheel and could lifted out of the water, soared up into the air the pastime that always brought her close to see my father's hands on top of her own hands. and violently somersaulted over the surface. her father. Later, in her adult life, Gina man- He righted the car out of the spin and his aged a farm with stables, was a successful hands disappeared. She wouldn't have had showjumper, launched life-saving water the ability or knowledge herself to pull the safety schemes in New Zealand (where car round on a wet road,'' says Gina. her stepmother lives), took out New Zealand citizenship and opened a suc- THE SECOND STORY reflects Gina's cessful restaurant called the Bluebird in own negative feelings about Coniston. Lymington, Hampshire. She still manages Twenty years after his death, she flew back that business at weekends but now lives in from New Zealand to co-operate with Leeds during the week where she enjoys a Melvyn Bragg in a re-make of a documen- "pretty perfect" relationship with a suc- tary that Border TV had first produced cessful businessman who produces own called The Price of a Record. After initial- brand cakes for the large supermarkets. ly turning down directorial appeals to go Gina has always worked and never out on the lake in a boat - "it would be like believed the world owed her a living just walking on my father's grave'' - Gina even- because she came from a famous family. tually agreed to the request. As she made "People used to think we were a wealthy her way out onto the water, the pleasant family - we weren't. My father left me autumnal weather was suddenly swept £500 with which I bought a car and I aside by a howling wind and torrents of icy inherited a trust from my grandfather. But rain. Filming was impossible and the boat my first husband got half of that when we returned to shore and was dragged back ABOVE: Gina Campbell. divorced. I've never been able to hold on onto its trailer while the film crew waited for to funds at all. But I am fiercely independent the tempest to subsidise. Photograph: Jonathan P. Becker and will not live off charity. What I earn is for "The storm did pass so again we got the boat Campbell must have died instantly when me and if I can't afford something then I do out but it blew up once more,'' recalls Gina. "It Bluebird snapped its back on impact with the without,'' she insists. happened three times and by this time I was water. An ejection seat was never fitted because Gina admits to being her father's daughter in feeling really horrible and my stomach was Bluebird was too narrow and it is doubtful many ways, sharing his fiercely competitive churning. It affected the director too and he whether one could have saved Campbell given nature and overwhelming desire to succeed - in said, 'To hell with it', and we went up to the Sun the suddenness and severity of the accident. her private and professional life. Like her Hotel at Coniston to do the interview. The sun While his helmet, his teddy bear mascot, Mr father, and his father before him, Gina has started pouring through the windows, it was so Whoppit, his life jacket, boots, shattered seat been married three times, held world speed bright that we had to shut the curtains. It was as cushion, even his gloves and socks all bobbed to records and always lived in the media spotlight. if someone was saying, 'Go away - this is my the surface as rescuers scoured the lake, "As I've grown older I've realised just what a patch, you ought not to be here.' '' Coniston never relinquished the body of the great man my father was,'' she says. "He was Gina shies away from specifically referring to man hailed a hero as news of his death filtered very brave, knew exactly what risks he was tak- her father's spirit or soul but there is no doubt- through to the outside world. ing and was one of our last true British heroes.'' ing her sincerity when she says wistfully: "I Within 24 hours he was posthumously award- The 30th anniversary of her father's death is always have strange experiences at Coniston - it ed the Queen's Commendation for Gallantry likely to prompt much media attention but makes me feel sick. I don't know... there is for courageously attacking the 300mph record. Gina never commemorates 4 January. "I always something there.'' And while his daughter emphatically denies send flowers to his memorial at Coniston on 23 Certainly, the lake, known as 'Ruskin's that Campbell - suffering from emotional and March. That was his birthday. I prefer to favourite,' had always posed problems for financial difficulties at the time of his death - remember the day he was born, not the day that Campbell and his enthusiastic team of support- chose to deliberately end his own life in such he died.'' ers. In his book, The Record Breakers, spectacular fashion, Villa ponders whether frus- At Campbell's memorial service, it was said Campbell's long-serving mechanic, Leo Villa, tration, exhaustion or worry prompted of him: "Britain and the world have such need of confirmed that it had historically given them Campbell to make his second run without giv- the indomitable spirit, the sheer dedication, the ''headaches'' and he details how the weather was ing the lake surface time to settle down. While unconquerable determination he had. Another particularly unforgiving at Coniston in the nine experts wrangled over the exact reason for the writer observed that Tennyson might have writ- weeks that Campbell practised there prior to crash - now almost universally acknowledged to ten of Donald as he wrote of another: the doomed 4 January attempt. A sharp be caused by Bluebird hitting its own wake - 'Such was he: his work is done exchange between the two men, over the wis- author Arthur Knowles mused: "To the laymen But while the race of Mankind endure, dom of practice runs without manned rescue who had witnessed the whole thing, the answer Let his great example stand launches, on 27 December, prompted seemed simple. Bluebird, they felt, had reached Colossal, seen of every land, Campbell to prophetically retort: "So what? It's such a speed that air - rather than water for And keep the soldier firm, doubtful if the rescue boats could get to me in which she had been designed - became her nat- The statesman pure; time if anything did happen.'' ural element.'' Till in all lands and through all human story On the fateful morning, Villa observed that CAMPBELL'S DEATH triggered off a complex The Path of duty be the way of glory.' the early morning air was still and the water range of emotions in his teenage daughter who The suggestion that Keats' epitaph would appeared flat calm - essential to the success of rushed back to Switzerland after her father's also have suited Donald Campbell seems per- Bluebird cruising safely through the 300mph memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields in fect: 'Here lies one whose name was writ in barrier. At just after 8.40am Campbell complet- London on 23 February 1967. water.' �

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