EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Mementos of Sir Malcolm Campbell’s race tragedy go up in smoke as fire destroys tens of thousands of pounds worth of photographs, memorabilia and valuable collectors’ model vehicles
Donald Campbell’s family has had to endure many setbacks since he lost his life at the age of 45 trying to break the water speed record in his boat, Bluebird, on Coniston Water in the Lake District in 1967.
But now, I can disclose, another tragedy has struck the family which has left Campbell’s nephew, Don Wales, devastated.
A fire in a storage unit near Don’s home close to Brooklands circuit, in Surrey, where his grandfather Sir Malcolm Campbell used to race cars, has destroyed tens of thousands of pounds worth of photographs, memorabilia and valuable collectors’ model vehicles.
Don used to display them at trade shows to keep alive the names of his uncle and grandfather.
‘It has been absolutely devastating,’ Don, a fashion and beauty photographer, tells me from his home, near the storage unit in Weybridge, where he toiled for two years producing prints of Donald and his Bluebird boat from original film shot by celebrated sports snapper Geoff Hallawell.
Sir Malcolm Campbell with his son Donald sitting in the cockpit of his new car, Bluebird in 1933
British racing driver Sir Malcolm Campbell (right) poses with his son Donald in Southampton on April 23, 1934
More than 100 prints, some mounted on card and framed, which sold for at least £80 each, went up in smoke, along with collections of model cars. Don was selling the items to raise funds for the Ruskin Museum which is trying to recover the Bluebird boat.
But retired engineer Bill Smith, who has been restoring the wreckage in his workshop in North Shields, refuses to give it to them as he does not want it kept in a museum.
The fire may have destroyed valuable Campbell memorabilia but it has not dampened Don’s spirits. He is supporting the Bring Bluebird Home campaign and is holding a trade show this weekend.
Donald Campbell’s jet hydroplane Bluebird is pictured at speed on Coniston Water in the English Lake District
The Bluebird emerges from the icy depths of Coniston Water with Bill Smith leading the team of divers who recovered the craft in 2001
A right royal welcome for Vick and mum
TV presenter Vick Hope managed to pull a fast one on Buckingham Palace officials. The former Strictly star, 33, reveals that her mother, Adeline Nwosu, sneaked into an official line-up to meet Prince Edward at a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award ceremony.
‘I was in line to meet the Duke, it’s all very well-orchestrated and official, but I looked at my side and my mum was just there,’ she tells me. ‘You could see [Edward’s] aide thinking: ‘Don’t know who this woman is.’ I was, like: ‘This is Mum.’ So he did an official handshake.’
Vick Hope revealed that her mother, Adeline Nwosu, sneaked into an official line-up to meet Prince Edward at a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award ceremony
Politicians have been forced to become ‘much more chilled-out about having the mickey taken out of them’, Dame Andrea Leadsom tells me at the first night of Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image The Musical, at the Phoenix Theatre in London.
‘When Spitting Image was first out [as a TV show in the 1980s] I think it would have been a little more difficult to laugh about it,’ the Tory MP adds.
Book prize honed Louise’s diplomatic skill
Coping with difficult guests on BBC Breakfast seems to have been a piece of cake for former presenter Louise Minchin compared with her recent role as chair of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
‘Between us, we read around 160 books,’ she tells me at the ceremony at Bedford Square Gardens in London. ‘There were, as you can imagine, passionate and respectful discussions.’
She adds: ‘It was both inspiring and very difficult. I’m a diplomat, and I let people speak and put their point of view.’
The judges included best-selling novelist Bella Mackie and Labour frontbench MP Tulip Siddiq. The £30,000 prize went to U.S. author Barbara Kingsolver for Demon Copperhead, a modern reimagining of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield.
Former BBC Breakfast presenter Louise Minchin attends The Women’s Prize For Fiction Awards at Bedford Square Gardens on June 14, 2023
Will £6.5m manor spook buyers?
The richly named Sir Mervyn Tregonwell Medlycott, 9th baronet, failed to father an heir. So when he died in 2021, aged 74, the Medlycott baronetcy expired with him.
Now, I can reveal that the magnificent family seat, Sandford Orcas Manor House in Dorset, is for sale for the first time since 1736, for £6.5million. The new owner will, it’s said, become the custodian of a house riddled with ghosts — a lady in red and a screaming sea cadet, a footman who preyed on serving wenches and a priest who refuses to appear before any woman who’s not a virgin.
Perhaps Sir Mervyn will periodically materialise to see how they’re getting on.
A superstar gift for Labour MP…
Sanctimonious Labour MP Stella Creasy posted a video online earlier this month of the ‘life lessons’ she learned from attending a concert by pop superstar Beyonce. The ‘lesson’ she failed to mention was: how to get a charity to provide her with tickets worth £1,000.
Creasy, 46, has now revealed in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests that the two tickets, complete with hospitality, for the show at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in north London, was provided by the Outward Bound charity, which ‘inspires young people to believe they can achieve more than they ever thought possible’.
Sanctimonious Labour MP Stella Creasy (left) posted a video online earlier this month of the ‘life lessons’ she learned from attending a concert by pop superstar Beyonce (right)
He cooked for world leaders at the G7 summit in Cornwall and kept his restaurants afloat during Covid.
Yet The Great British Menu winner Adam Handling struggles to keep his cool in the kitchen, even after receiving death threats for his outbursts on the show.
‘I was an a***hole,’ he says of his stint on the BBC2 competition. ‘I hadn’t practised as much as I possibly could, and I was stressed as s***. I was a stress-head with very little patience.’
It sounds like Gordon Ramsay has a successor…
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