Vanity Fair UK – September 2019

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thing was on the table, I was having it. Oh yeah! I was fired. Still

am to this day. But it had to be rebuilt to run. We weren’t going

to build a dead thing. That was never an option.”

It took 10 years of devoted coaxing of aluminium, steel and

wire to wrest a new machine from the wreckage of Bluebird. “No

such word as ‘can’t’,” says Smith. His never-say-die attitude was

riveted into his psyche as a boy working at his father’s plant hire

business servicing trucks and diggers. “The mechanics were all

ex-World War Two,” he says. “They’d repaired Lancaster bomb-

ers and Spitfires. They couldn’t very well say, ‘This is broken.

I can’t fix it.’ That wasn’t allowed. It had to go and bomb Germans.”

To fulfil its side of the agreement, the Ruskin Museum bought

land and sought planning permission. Declined by the National

Lottery Heritage Fund, the Museum settled on a “reduced” de-

sign funded by an EU bail-out to compensate Cumbria for the

foot-and-mouth crisis. The new Bluebird wing opened in 2010.

Complications soon arose between Smith and the Museum.

While the original bits of Bluebird belong to the Ruskin, the new

components, the cockpit, the Bristol Siddeley jet engine and other

items, belong to Smith. Herein lies the kernel of the tussle be-

tween the Museum and Smith. Whoever owns Bluebird controls

her; but she is owned partly by the Museum and partly by Smith’s

not-for-profit Bluebird Project Ltd.

I was struck by the parallels between Donald Campbell and

Smith. Ostensibly, they could hardly be more at odds. Campbell’s

family campaigned alongside Bonnie Prince Charlie and fought

at Waterloo; Smith is a third-generation North Shields entrepre-

neur. Campbell was thrice married and finally linked to Lady

(Violet) Aitken, the wife of Lord Beaverbrook; Smith married the

girl next door. Both men, however, are tenacious, disciplined,

unyielding men, who won’t take no for an answer, and both had

Culture Clash

Left: John Ruskin. Right: Donald Campbell.

Below: The Ruskin Museum’s Bluebird Wing

has been open to the public for nearly a

decade without its star exhibit. Bottom:

Campbell’s final moments in Bluebird as she

crashes at 300mph. Opposite page: Gina by

Coniston Water as she visits Pier Cottage

where her father docked Bluebird in the 1960s

Gina’s blessing brought the locals onside. Meanwhile,

to def lect attention, Smith concocted a fully backstopped

legend about “surveying Arctic char”. When a fish expert called

his bluff, Smith switched narrative in favour of “the Coniston lob-

ster”. Smith and his team eventually found the “Coniston lobster”

in October 2000. Seven months later, they discovered Campbell’s

body. “If you murder someone, don’t dispose of the body in fresh

water,’ cautions Smith. “Fresh water preserves bodies. Very well.”

Smith insists he wasn’t intending to lay a finger on Blue-

bird. “It was about doing a technical diving challenge.” Gina

Campbell’s recollection is slightly different: “Bill said, ‘I’m

going to find your father’s boat. Would you like a bit of it?’”

T

hen an accident blew Smith’s cover. One of his diving

team set up his rebreather incorrectly, gassed him-

self, and fell unconscious. His heart stopped twice on

the way to hospital. Word got out. Concerned that trophy hunters

would “rape” Bluebird, Gina asked Smith to raise the wreckage.

“No problem! That’s done, what next?” Smith assumed that

“every museum in Creation would queue up.” None bit.

“She is the most successful contender in history,” said Gina.

“Only crashed once. Bit of a mess. I think we should mend her.”

When the Campbell estate gifted Bluebird’s remains to the

Ruskin Museum, an agreement was struck: Smith would rebuild

and run her; the Museum would house her. To fund his side of the

bargain, Smith raised money from sponsors and his own pockets.

He gathered a team of believers who learnt the skills necessary for

Bluebird’s resurrection. That pioneering spirit, a spirit that mon-

ey cannot buy and that involves pitching up at all hours, flared

brilliantly. “My daughters have never had a dad on Wednesday

and Thursday evenings or on Saturdays,” says Smith. “Once that

52 VANITY FAIR^ EN ROUTE SEPTEMBER^2019

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