Vanity Fair UK – September 2019

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The dispute revolves around who controls Bluebird. When the

Campbell estate gifted the wreckage of Bluebird to the Ruskin

Museum in December 2006, her restoration was only made possi-

ble by the replacement of certain old parts for new—her jet engine,

for example, which belongs to Smith. The title to the restored boat

is therefore split. The ensuing power struggle between the two

sides, while entertaining, has meanwhile eclipsed the bicentena-

ry of the birth of John Ruskin whose name the Museum bears and

who lived on Lake Coniston. A great polymath and Renaissance

man of the Victorian era whose ideas about the relationship be-

tween society, art and nature anticipated, among other things,

the present environmental movement, Ruskin would doubtless

have wished that Bluebird had never existed, never mind been

fished out of Lake Coniston.

The trustees of the Ruskin Museum argue that Bluebird should

remain in its care so that visitors can pay homage to the Blue-

bird-Campbell-Coniston legend. Whereas Smith argues: No way!

Bluebird is being fully restored to be a “living” machine that must

have regular outings.

At present, the Museum is short of one Bluebird which is being

held 100 miles away in Smith’s lock-up garage in North Shields.

The Museum’s increasingly exasperated trustees were particu-

larly unamused when, in August last year, Smith took Bluebird

on a shakedown run on Loch Fad on the Isle of Bute: if she were

fit enough for trials in Scotland, surely she should be fit enough

to take her place in the Museum?

An uncomfortable atmosphere has descended. Smith ap-

pears unwilling to hand over Bluebird, pleading unreadiness; the

Museum has called in lawyers to try to take possession of its

prized exhibit. Meanwhile, the Campbell family, led by Donald’s

daughter Gina, is trying to keep the peace.

The two sides might be conciliated were they to agree on Blue-

bird’s future. They don’t. They are not within shouting distance

of each other. Smith argues that many more people would visit

Bluebird if she were promoted not only on Coniston, but also on

the various foreign waters over which she skimmed: Lake Mead

in Nevada, Lake Dumbleyung and the Swan River in Western

Australia, and Lake Como in Italy. Vicky Slowe, curator of the

Ruskin Museum, says the trustees disagree: “Museums preserve,

protect and defend icons, not turn them into an end-of-the-pier

show...Bill has talked about a world tour. We are not sure that that

is the right way forward.”

It is easy to sympathise with the Ruskin’s position. The Muse-

um raised funds to build a new wing especially to house Bluebird

as a permanent exhibit, not act as a de facto garage-cum-green-

room for her public appearances. Besides, running Bluebird on

Coniston throws up costs, risks and logistical headaches. Be-

tween August 1939 and January 1967, when Sir Malcolm Camp-

bell and later his son Donald ran Bluebird K4 and Bluebird K7

speedboats on Coniston, they could have wandered as lonely as

Wordsworth’s “cloud”. Today, they would barely be able to move

for canoeists, anglers, ferries, launches, sailing boats, swimmers

and the John Ruskin fan club. Clearing a safe passage for Bluebird

would require negotiating a labyrinth of red tape that would give

a Minotaur nightmares. Smith disagrees, saying that overcoming

such hurdles is simply a matter of will.

Has the unstoppable force (Smith) met the immovable object

(the Ruskin Museum)? Gina Campbell, who I imagine holds her

breath or her tongue quite a bit, “sees both points of view” but

adds, “I would love Bluebird to fly again.”

Smith was applying the finishing touches to Bluebird when I

visited his workshop on an improbably dour industrial estate in

North Shields. There is a whiff of Steptoe and Son about his “man

cave” crammed with industrial detritus, including a rapid-start

valve from a Vulcan bomber, and an antique jet engine under res-

toration. It makes photographs of Tutankhamun’s tomb look like

the Ideal Home Exhibition. Smith is clearly incapable of throwing

anything away. Possessive? Territorial? Perhaps.

Holding centre stage, Bluebird glows like Excalibur. Finned

and clawed, this giant blue aluminium bird-lobster that set seven

world speed records inspires awe, admiration and affection. You

don’t sit in her tiny cockpit; you wear it. Designed in the mid-

1950s, this noisy, leaky, pitiless, evil-handling death trap was

B

luebird K7, the hydroplane in which

Donald Campbell died trying to

break the world water-speed record

in 1967, is at the centre of a row

between the Ruskin Museum on

Coniston Water in the Lake District,

which owns Bluebird, and Bill Smith,

the engineer and entrepreneur who

found, recovered and is rebuilding

the famous hydroplane.

VANITY FAIR EN ROUTE

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