What a mess: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46386257
I always felt Donald and his machine should have been left in peace at the bottom of Coniston.
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What a mess: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46386257
I always felt Donald and his machine should have been left in peace at the bottom of Coniston.
Except it wouldn't as you'd get salvage divers picking its "bones" for trophies.
Much more fitting to drag it up and restore it, as it is a hell of a piece of engineering and should seen working.
I agree that it is a mess.
As a frequent visitor to the south Lakes and Coniston it is a shame that there isn't a settled plan.
From recollection, Donald's daughter was happy with the recovery and restoration - so once the family's wishes have been respected I think having it in the museum there for the winter months makes sense, and maybe it could go "on tour" for 3 or 4 months in the summer including running it on Coniston and elsewhere.
It can help tourism, foster an interest in our youngsters for history and engineering.....
Build a replica for the museum. Actually, don't they have a replica in there already?
A few years back I bought Donald's autobiography and a couple of original photos of him in Bluebird on Coniston fell out. I must find them.
That’s a shame especially since as far as I am aware Campbell stated that a man should stay with his machine if the unthinkable happened ....family’s hey even arguing after your dead ...
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Other solutions were surely available, anyway everyone had managed to restrain themselves until Bill Smith went looking.Quote:
Originally Posted by nunya
It seems to me the legalities weren't properly tied up at the start of the restoration. Reading between the lines Bill Smith has financed the restoration so his claim to part ownership is not unreasonable but it would have been better for the museum to have financed it if it wanted full control. You now have two 'co-owners' with very different plans and the machine itself is neither fish nor fowl, far too much new stuff to be original but not entirely a recreation.
I saw Bluebird in a Engineering company in the mid 2000’s , all the blue fairings were off and it looked like a piece of ladderacks furniture. An aluminium frame with thousands of rivet holes. The front where Donald sat was unrecognisable, see one of the photos above.
Even at the time the company was sworn to secrecy as Bill Smith was concerned bits would be removed and sold on the bay!