Gina Campbell: ‘I don’t recall any affection. I didn’t love my father but I didn’t half respect him’

I must have been about seven years old when I started to become aware of what my father did, not least because that was when the Bluebird’s engine arrived in the garage at home.

It looked absolutely huge. Sometimes my father would fire it up and I was told to come out of my bedroom which was in line with the jet blast. It made a terrific noise and I can still see Leo Villa, my father’s engineer, leaning on the fence with the little hair he had all standing on end.

I think it was something of a party piece for my father – he was a bit of a showman. Or maybe I’m being unkind.

It must have been around that time that I was first taken to Lake Coniston. It took forever to get there, probably two days from the south in little old cars which chugged along.

To me, Bluebird was just a 
boat, although it didn’t even 
look like one. I didn’t have a 
clue what it was all about. Nobody had sat me down and said your father breaks water speed records in this boat.

But he broke one record on 
my seventh birthday, September 19, 1956, with a speed of 226.5 mph. Everyone was thrilled, 
but it all happened in the blink 
of an eye.

My strongest memory is of someone with a microphone coming up to me and saying: “Well Gina, isn’t that the best birthday present you can have?” And I said: “Oh no, I’d much rather have a pony.” My father had promised me a pony if I stopped biting my fingernails.

By then he was definitely becoming a mover and shaker. He had met Marlene Dietrich, 
the Hollywood film actress and that same year he appeared on the BBC’s This Is Your Life presented by Eamonn Andrews.

I was almost detached watching him on television. Did I look at the programme and think: “That’s my dad?” I didn’t really know him.

At boarding school, all the girls had lovely tuck boxes – an old chocolate box or biscuit tin with their name on. They were kept locked in a cupboard and the girls had to stand in line while the teacher would reach down each box and allow them to take a Kit Kat, a Mars Bar, a Crunchie, but just one, not the whole box.

I didn’t have one, so I used to stand there waiting for someone to give me a bite. In every letter I wrote, often to my dad’s secretary Rosie Pielow, I would says: “Dear Mrs Pielow, could you send me some sweets please?”

It wasn’t because of any meanness on his part, just a complete oversight and lack of parental involvement. I was out of sight, out of mind – pay the bills and get rid of her to school. I often used to inherit cast-off school uniforms because there was no one consistently at home to make sure what I needed.

That’s not to say there aren’t memories that I prize. Take Christmas Eve 1958 when my father married his third wife Tonia Bern. The wedding breakfast was at the Savoy and I sat next to Terry Thomas the actor.

When the waiter came round, frightfully posh, and asked me what I wanted for my meal, I said: “I would like two boiled eggs please.” Terry Thomas said: “What an amazingly good idea, I think I’ll have the same.”

But then my father and Tonia went off to Courchevel on honeymoon. They left me at home – well you can hardly take your daughter on honeymoon. I was bit like a prized exhibit – I came out when it was appropriate and was put back into the box when it wasn’t.

People could say I didn’t have family love or the stability of a home, but what I lacked in one department – and I was not 
aware that I lacked anything then – I gained in wonderful experiences.

How many kids ate boiled eggs at the Savoy at their father’s wedding or sailed to America in the early 1960s? How many attended the Princess Grace Ball in Monte Carlo when Sammy Davis Junior and Lena Horne provided the entertainment? 
Now when I go to Monte Carlo I look up at the pink palace and think: “I was there.” Yet, apart from once, I never had a family birthday party.

Usually, my dad was quite formal. He never displayed any affection towards me, never put his arm around me, never sat me on his knee, never praised me. In fact all he seemed to do was belittle me.

He criticised my laugh, said I sounded like a bloody donkey, mimicking the “ee-ore, ee-ore” sound. Maybe that’s why I don’t laugh out loud much now.

I don’t remember any 
affection, caring or love. I probably didn’t love him, but I didn’t half respect him. If he 
said, “jump” it wasn’t a case of “why?” it was a case of “how high?” When I look back now, I honestly think I was lucky not to have been feted with fancy cloths and toys. It’s made me into the person I am. I’m not scared by what the big wide world has to throw at me. I’ll make my own decisions.

On reflection too, I believe my father did the best for me in the way he knew how. He didn’t praise me, he didn’t participate in my life, but what difference would it have made?

It might have made it even harder when I lost him. I also know his character was formed by his own father, Sir Malcolm Campbell.

His obsession with speed meant he was a renowned racing driver before my father was born and he broke the world land speed record for the first time in September 1924 when Daddy was three years old.

Apparently, Malcolm wanted 
to be the master of whatever he did, even down to competing with his children to prove he was better at anything they did together.

My grandfather died in 1948, nine months before I was born, but I soon began to hear the extravagant stories about his life, not just his nine world land speed records and four world records on water, but the amazing adventures which also defined him.

Like the time in 1910 that 
he built his own plane. He’d 
been inspired by a film of the Wright Brothers’ primitive aeroplane in flight and was spurred on by a cash prize of £1,000 offered by the Daily Mail newspaper owner Lord Northcliffe for the first mile-long circular flight by an all-British machine.

Grandfather, who was an underwriter in the City, 
rented a barn on the edge of a 
strawberry field near 
Orpington and spent every evening there after he finished in the office working with a local carpenter.

He chose a Sunday in June for the trial flight when unfortunately lots of people turned up and stretched out across the field which was to be his runway. They had objected to his plans from the moment they knew what he was up to, claiming they were entitled to be on what was a public footpath.

They were not going to deter Grandfather. He started the engine, his friends who were holding the wings let go and 
he began to run down the 
sloping field.

He pulled back the joystick and lifted a few feet in the air before sadly crashing back to ground seconds later.

The story goes that when he emerged splattered in red, everyone immediately thought it was blood – in fact, it was squashed strawberries.

My grandfather died in bed at home on New Year’s Eve, 1948 after suffering a stroke 
on Christmas Eve. He was 63. 
For the rest of his life, my father used to go into a terrible depression at that time of year. His father’s death has such a lasting impression on him, he used to say that he was heartbroken to see the man who had been such a hero so ill, so diminished.

But Sir Malcolm was not diminished. My grandfather established the Campbell DNA

My father described him as 
“a courageous, colourful character; a dynamic, dominant personality. You could love him, you could hate him, you could never forget him”.

I know that my father never did forget him and was always striving to reach the standards he knew my grandfather expected of him and to match his achievements.

In a similar way, I know that I have always been influenced by my father when it comes to competition. Even now when I am playing golf and standing 
over a putt, I can sense some pressure. I am telling myself: “Come on girl, your father would expect you to hole this one.” There was never any place for second best.

Watch an extended video interview with Gina Campbell exclusively on the Yorkshire Post’s iPad app. Download a free 30-day trial from the Apple App store, or subscribe to the paper for unlimited free access.

Following in father’s footsteps

Following in his own father’s footsteps, Donald Campbell set eight world speed records during the 1950s and 60s.

In 1967, his thirst for adventure took him once again to Lake Coniston in the Lake District. However, on the second run, disaster struck and his beloved Bluebird flipped, shattering as it plunged back into the water. Campbell was killed instantly. The wreckage was not recovered until 2000 and Campbell’s body was not found until the following year.

Daughter of Bluebird by Gina Campbell is published by Great Northern Books, priced £8.99. Gina will be speaking at the Yorkshire Post Literary Lunch on Harrogate on November 15. To book tickets call 07731 690163.