Re: Donald Campbell prog


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Posted by Peter Ceresole on April 02, 2013 at 04:22:43 user PeterC.

In Reply to: Re: Donald Campbell prog posted by Peter Ceresole on April 02, 2013 at 00:51:00:

It's called 'Donald Campbell: speed king' and is still on the iPlayer.

There's lots of good archive in it, and at the beginning there's a good chunk about his father Malcolm Campbell

It's also pretty interesting on the problems that boys have with famous and dominant fathers. Malcolm seems to have been an unusually obnoxious example of the kind.

It's also interesting to me, in a purely 'Rogerish' mode, in the way that speed record breaking cars and boats were such monsters, really rather crude and so closely focussed on one purpose (they had to be, of course) that they are rather... Nasty was the word that came to me first... The film of Donald in 'Bluebird' at Daytona shows this little human figure in this gigantic comic book shaped car, rather like an image of a fellow pushing a grand piano down the high street. I found it rather repulsive. I once knew a chap, Paul Hawkins, who was a racing car driver and killed himself at Oulton Park in a Lola sports racer, in a similar way to Campbell. At the time we were told that the car had come airborne at speed and flipped- he crashed into a tree and burnt. Paul was a Real Australian- worked with a chap of whom he said 'John? He couldn't drive a nail through soft shit.' John used to drive a Sprite- PMO 200- and is still alive.

Sorry about the wandering off topic, but it was such a large part of my youth that I couldn't resist. Especially as iTunes is randomly playing Charlie Parker as I type. I dissolve into a puddle...


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