Gina Campbell: 'Dad told me to sit on Bluebird and wave' When my father came to pick me up from boarding school for half-term in June 1957 he told me, 'Oh, by the way, we're going to America tomorrow and you won't be going back to school for the rest of the year. He was going to try to break the water speed record he had set the year before with a speed of 226.5mph [rough water would thwart his attempts]. I was seven years old, and in those days little kids didn't travel across the world. The crossing on the USS United States took four days, which felt like a lifetime. This photograph was taken as we arrived in New York. Dad had told me to put on my school uniform - in those days it was your best clothes - and to sit on Bluebird, his record-breaking boat, which had travelled over with us, and wave. I didn't realise at the time how extraordinary my father was. As far as I was concerned his job was record-breaking, like other people's fathers went to an office and did accountancy. My grandfather Sir Malcolm Campbell broke world speed records on land and water during the 1920s and 1930s, and after he died my father felt compelled to join the family business. My grandfather had always raced in a car or boat that he called Bluebird, and my father kept the name when he built new boats. My father broke his first water speed record in 1955 with a speed of 202.15mph, then again in 1956 on my seventh birthday. I remember someone shoving a microphone in my face and saying, 'Well, Gina, your father's just broken the record, isn't that the best present you could have hoped for? I replied, 'Well, actually I wanted a pony. Donald Campbell and a model of Bluebird I loved every minute of being in upstate New York. England was still a bit drab after the war, but in America everything was big, bright and brash. We stayed for months. I lived with a family who had lots of children, which I loved as I was an only child. Then, on my eighth birthday, in September 1958, we went to Canada so my dad could attempt another record, which he duly broke with a speed of 248mph. That year I was given a little card and a watch from the team - it was the first birthday present I remember ever being given. Nine and a half years after this photograph was taken, in January 1967, I was in the Swiss Alps when I got the awful phone call saying, 'Your father's had a terrible accident. He was 45 and had been attempting another record in the Lake District, trying to get to 300mph. But Bluebird crashed and sank, taking him with it. The boat wasn't found until 2000. Once it came up and you could see the extent of the damage, I just knew it had to be restored, which is what is happening now. I think I will feel only relief once that has finally happened and I see Bluebird back on the water again. Interview by Jessica Salter Daughter of Bluebird" by Gina Campbell (Great Northern Books, £16.99) is out now