A FORMER high speed boat racer and the daughter of a famous record breaker is currently visiting the South West region.
Gina Campbell arrived in Dumbleyung on Wednesday and is spending another three days in Western Australia.
Ms Campbell’s father was Donald Campbell, who broke the fastest water speed record in the well publicised Bluebird K7.
Lake Dumbleyung was where Donald Campbell famously broke the world water speed record, travelling at 266mp/h. Ms Campbell visited the Dumbleyung School early Wednesday morning as a guest speaker and communicated to the children about fulfilling their life ambition.
She spoke about how her her father tragically passed away in an accident while he was trying to break another record.
Ms Campbell spent her life following in the footsteps of her family, pursuing the same ambition to break water speed records.
Her grandfather Sir Malcolm Campbell was also a record breaking speedster.
The children and guests at the Dumbleyung school listened to Ms Campbell share about how she followed the family ambition.
“People use to say – ‘oh Donald is your father, what do you do?’” she said.
“That’s what made me want to emulate what my father did.”
Speaking in an age appropriate manner, Ms Campbell passionately had a coversation to the children about her father and how he wasn’t found after his death.
She talked to the children about how a small bear named ‘Mr Whoppit’, was given to Mr Campbell as a gift and how he would always have it with him on the boat. ‘Mr Whoppit’ was found at the site of Mr Campbell’s unfortunate accident.
Students of Dumbleyung School were prepared to ask Ms Campbell questions about her father and herself. One particular student was curious about how to overcome fear, “were you scared to break records?”
“Oh yes - but you have to overcome that,” she said.
Another student asked about her father’s nickname ‘Skipper’. Ms Campbell responded and talked about the importance of teamwork.
“My father always spoke about how his team achieved all the records; he would not take all the credit himself – that’s how the name Skipper came about.”
Ms Campbell now has the chance to revisit the site were her late father achieved his world record. She also will be given the chance to meet with local members of the community who knew her father.
Ms Campbell previously travelled to Melbourne for the Motorclassica show as a guest speaker.
She laughed to the students about being ‘LOL’ as her current occupational status.
“I’m a lady of leisure at the moment,” she said.
“I am enjoying being retired.”
