Donald Campbell's Bluebird: The battle back to Coniston

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By Simon Armstrong

BBC News

Donald Campbell’s restored Bluebird will finally return to the Lake District on Saturday, nearly 60 years after the crash that claimed the record-breaker’s life. It follows a painful saga that erupted into anger and bitterness.

The phone call, Gina Campbell recollects, came “out of the blue”.

Introducing himself as an amateur diver, Bill Smith outlined his ambition to locate Bluebird’s crumpled wreckage on the dark, unforgiving bed of Coniston Water in England’s North West.

If successful, he continued, would Miss Campbell “like a piece of it”?

“How dare you,” she says she replied. “It belongs to my family. It’s my father’s grave. You can’t go taking pieces off it.”

That conversation in 1996 came almost three decades after the jet-engined craft had somersaulted violently, its pilot paying with his life attempting to push his water-speed world record past 300mph (480km/h).

Having previously accepted the lake would be her dad’s resting place, the phone call set in motion a chain of events that saw Bluebird – and Mr Campbell’s remains – raised from the depths in 2001, followed by an extensive rebuild and a once-unimaginable return to running for the hydroplane.

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But the call’s combative nature foreshadowed a hostility that included legal proceedings as Coniston’s Ruskin Museum – gifted the wreckage by the Campbell Family Heritage Trust in 2006 – sought to enforce the craft’s return from Mr Smith’s North Shields workshop.

Mr Smith, an engineer by trade and enlisted to lead the reconstruction, vowed to “fight to the death”, but last month came news he had relinquished his claim of part-ownership.

The craft in which Donald Campbell set a total of seven water-speed world records will now become the star attraction at the Ruskin, a stone’s throw from where its skipper is buried.

While praising the rebuild by Mr Smith’s team of Bluebird Project (BBP) volunteers as “nothing short of a miracle”, Miss Campbell describes the years-long row as “a tragedy”.

She also outlines a catalogue of “derogatory” remarks about her family and Ruskin figures.

“Bill could’ve ridden into Coniston astride Bluebird like Julius Caesar coming into Rome, but somehow it all fell apart.

“He has held her up for ransom to the [museum] trustees by refusing to give her back. I will never forgive him for that. I’d like to think he realised the right thing to do was hand her over to her legal owners, but it’s more likely he knew he didn’t have a case that would stand up in court.”

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The relationship between Miss Campbell and Mr Smith faltered in 2013, with acrimonious communications about displaying Bluebird the following year – the 50th anniversary of Donald Campbell breaking both the water and land speed records.

“I didn’t really see or speak to Bill much after that until we both appeared on The One Show [television programme] in 2018 when he announced Bluebird was going to run at the Isle of Bute,” Miss Campbell says from her Southport home.

Mr Smith agrees 2013 is “where the trouble started”, but disputes being at fault.

He alleges Miss Campbell and her cousin Donald Wales tried to void the family trust’s deed of gift to the Ruskin and says the museum “broke its promises” over recognising the BBP as part-owners.

Miss Campbell rejects the suggestion and the museum asserts discussions over ownership did not progress past a draft stage.

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Bluebird’s rebirth on Loch Fad in August 2018 saw tensions ease as Miss Campbell backed its restorer’s call for it to be maintained as a working craft.

She describes being surprised in March the following year when she was asked by the museum’s trustees to mediate with Mr Smith, who harboured ambitions to run the hydroplane across the globe.

No breakthrough was forthcoming despite an offer for the BBP to be able to take Bluebird out of the museum for up to 90 days each year.

“They offered him the most amazing deal,” Miss Campbell says. “But he would not negotiate on those terms. I will never understand why he didn’t grasp that opportunity.”

Mr Smith points to a proposed clause which stated BBP access would be “subject to the approval of the steering committee” set to comprise six members; two each representing the museum, the Campbells and the BBP.

That arrangement, he contends, would mean “they easily had power of veto”.

By his own account, Mr Smith had “never been bothered about the Campbell legend”. His fascination had “always been about the engineering, not the man”.

Searching for Bluebird’s wreckage was, he said in 2018, an opportunity to get together with “diving buddies… a bunch of lads having a jolly”.

His initial plan had been to “nick the tail”.

“It’s true… I fully intended to hack it off and add it to my trophies, but I couldn’t find the wreck immediately and in the four years it took I fell in love with [Bluebird] K7.”

Exactly when his position regarding ownership first changed remains unclear despite requests for clarification.

In an online post in November 2007, he said there was “no way I want to own a sponson… nor do I seek to own any part of K7”.

However, in late 2018 he explained the wreckage “was only half the boat”, adding: “We bought all kinds of bits and pieces and our volunteers made those materials into new components.

“That is all our creation and that is all our private tangible property. We own it because we bloody well created it.”

It was a position he reiterated many times, although today he says the plan was “always” to donate that work to the museum with the “quid pro quo we would operate and maintain the boat”.

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Mr Smith had scoffed at the Ruskin’s legal challenge and public fundraising appeal, but when the museum announced Bluebird’s return had been agreed the BBP took to X (formerly Twitter) to say it had “no counter” to “spite, greed and vindictiveness”.

Despite further, similar remarks, Mr Smith is still calling for his team to be awarded a contract to maintain and run it, claiming the museum should view the ownership row as “water under the bridge”.

“If Gina is criticising it’s only a reflection of her ingratitude,” he says. “Call me what you want, it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the Campbell family pulling the strings and behind the scenes it’s ugly.

“K7 will always be our work, no matter who says they own it or spends the next few years feasting from it.”

The museum has yet to comment publicly on Mr Smith’s continuing involvement, but the notion is rejected by Miss Campbell.

“When you have been so rude and plain nasty to people, why would you think they’d want to work with you? You’ve got to be living in cloud cuckoo land.”

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This weekend the craft will make its latest journey – secured on a flat-bed lorry – to become the centrepiece of the Ruskin’s Bluebird wing.

A condition check will determine whether it is possible to fire it up on the lake again, possibly in 2026, and Miss Campbell wonders whether there could be visits to the USA and Australia to mark her father’s record attempts there.

The handover, she believes, heralds a new chapter.

“Several people at Coniston were critical of the decision I’d made [to raise it] because they saw it as their piece of history and worried I was going to take it away from them.

“I vowed to them this boat will come back. It’s the greatest relief I’m going to be able to fulfil that promise with all my heart.

“The people of Coniston will have Bluebird, as they deserve, and my dad’s remains forever and a day.”

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