Bluebird museum asks restorers to end 'harassment'

Bluebird was put on display at the Ruskin Museum earlier this month

The museum which owns and displays Donald Campbell’s Bluebird has pleaded for the end of what it describes as online “harassment” from the group which led the craft’s restoration.

The hydroplane went on display in Cumbria earlier this month after engineer Bill Smith relinquished his bid for part-ownership following a years-long row.

Since then, Mr Smith's Bluebird Project (BBP) team has been posting online, calling for its involvement in maintenance and any future running.

He disputes the characterisation of "harassment".

Mr Campbell was killed in January 1967, when his Bluebird craft somersaulted during an attempt to push the world water speed record past 300mph (480km/h) on Coniston Water.

Its wreckage was lifted from the lake bed in 2001 by a team involving Mr Smith.

Five years later, Bluebird was gifted to Coniston's Ruskin Museum by the Campbell Family Heritage Trust, with Mr Smith enlisted to lead its repair before relations soured dramatically.

It was finally transported to the museum on 9 March and at the time of the handover, the BBP said "the baton will be passed to RM [Ruskin Museum] to continue BBP's legacy".

That, though, has been followed by numerous online posts by the BBP calling for the group to be welcomed back into the fold.

'Barrage of abuse'

Responding on X (formerly Twitter), the museum called BBP's behaviour "ridiculous".

It said: "You chose to walk away and now you are harassing us online.

"We just want to get on with things without the constant barrage of abuse from you."

In response, BBP posted that the requests from the team and its supporters were "holding you accountable for what you've done".

Mr Smith said not all the messages attacking the Ruskin had been from BBP.

"It's not always us saying it - other people are putting it out there [by tweeting support for the BBP] and if we agree with it, we endorse it [by retweeting]," he said.

The handover had seemingly brought an end to a bitter dispute in which Mr Campbell's daughter, Gina, accused Mr Smith of having betrayed her trust by claiming part-ownership of the machine midway through the restoration.

She said earlier this month he had "held [Bluebird] up for ransom to the [museum] trustees by refusing to give her back" for more than a decade.

Miss Campbell added Mr Smith must be "living in cloud cuckoo land" to think the museum would want his continued involvement in light of him being "so rude and plain nasty to people".

'No position change'

On the day of the handover, Mr Smith told the BBC his team had not been invited to an unveiling event at the museum, that he did not mind because "it'll be full of people we don't like" and that they would soon have numerous other projects to work on.

But in subsequent social media messages, the group claimed the public was "shouting for BBP to run [Bluebird]" on water as it did on the Isle of Bute in 2018 and that "now's the time for discussions".

Asked what had led to his change of opinion having previously explained he was going to "walk away", Mr Smith said the Ruskin had always suggested "once Bluebird was back in the museum they would discuss future arrangements".

"Our position hasn't changed," he added.

"We said the baton was being handed over and that we'd see if they were any good. It never meant we were going to disappear into the sunset.

"Anyone who thought we'd go quietly was a fool. If we feel we need to speak, we will. There's been no harassment."