Donald Campbell's restored Bluebird in museum home row

[JfromJAGs]

We accidentally ran into you guys at the pub on Bute and honestly, we had nothing to do with the tent breaking down - but we do remember that evening in good memory. I doubt we got half of the jokes you guys made with (and about) us, but we could clearly tell, you are the good guys. I'd love to have more of such evenings next time you are out to run K7. We'll be there.

[Richie]

Any update from the trustees ?

[midlife]

Any update from the trustees ?

Think there's lots of us pacing up & down waiting for news[.][.]
Cheers
Wayne


.

[Sam_68]

Any update from the trustees ?

Think there's lots of us pacing up & down waiting for news[.][.]
Cheers
Wayne

Rumour elsewhere has it that the Ruskin has served a legal claim on the boat as their property.

Perhaps BBP can give either a confirmation of this or a clear denial?

[rich1608]

Rumour elsewhere has it that the Ruskin has served a legal claim on the boat as their property.

Perhaps BBP can give either a confirmation of this or a clear denial?

If this is true then it's not good news and would explain the latest BBP tweet. I appreciate the BBP may not be able to say anything at this stage but I really hope this isn't heading to court.

[Renegadenemo]

If this is true then it's not good news and would explain the latest BBP tweet. I appreciate the BBP may not be able to say anything at this stage but I really hope this isn't heading to court.

Heading to court... I'd be extremely surprised but, for the avoidance of doubt (bit of legalese for you there) here's the latest.

The mere mortal’s ignorance when dipping a toe into the legal world is surpassed only by our non-understanding of medical things. It’s the same problem only a different language. Medics will render anything to do with the human body into indecipherable ancient Greek whereas the legal-eagles prefer Latin. For example, were you to tell someone they were suffering from Cranio-Phallic Anastomosis they’d probably wonder just how serious that was and go look it up. Likewise, if you got a letter one morning from Messrs. Goldberg, Sidebottom & Schytt LLP. telling you that your allegations against their client were both meritless and vexatious save as is expressly admitted or not admitted whilst each and every allegation is denied as if the same were individually set out and traversed seriatim, you would be expected to **** yourself at once and whip out your cheque book.

So – on the basis that the legal profession endlessly seeks to baffle us let’s embark on our latest journey. There is, so far as I know, no way to ‘serve a legal claim’ on someone. If you think you have a legal claim you can either settle it around a table before it gets too legal or issue proceedings and take it to trial if no resolution can be found by any other means along the way.

This, of course, involves the court system, which has but one objective – to scare the crap out of you long before you ever get to court or, if you’re dumb enough to not heed its many warnings, to hopelessly bend you over and do rude things to your bottom if you’re foolish enough to go there without either so much money that you don’t care if you throw away half a million quid, a damned good case that you will likely win or, you’re so blinded by anger or some other emotion that you are going to learn that the law is cruel and heartless the hard way. And, even in these conditions, you still need someone as foolish as yourself to go up against because the moment one party has a sprinkling more common sense than the other the situation either hurries into discussion or ends in crushing defeat for the more stupid one. It’s brutal but fair and clever.

That explained, let’s assume you have a grievance with someone. Maybe a creditor who won’t cough up, or an employment issue. You’ve called the person on the phone, written letters, sent emails, all that sort of stuff – you have to do these things to avoid being punished with costs later - but still you’re getting messed about so you keep the paper trail because you can show it to the judge and prove that you tried hard as you could. Then, having tried and tried and tried again and having got nowhere, what you might end up doing is instructing a solicitor to issue a ‘letter of claim’.
The opening gambit and a basic legal snotogram that metaphorically reads, ‘Give us everything we demand straight away or we’ll kill your children’. At this juncture you’re supposed to soil yourself and capitulate. But, if you don’t, you then reserve the right to respond and metaphorically say, ‘You have it all wrong for reasons x,y&z so do your worst.’

What you shouldn’t do, however, if you’re the party who has been invited time and again to negotiate and refused, is then close ranks and hide behind a solicitor – that’s not clever.

And there’s another fundamental issue here – unless you’re totally straight with your lawyer you won’t get good advice even though you’re paying for it. It’s like moving house, signing up with the new Doctor’s surgery then turning up one day with your liver in a shopping bag claiming you’ve no idea how it fell out when your notes will catch up with you by the end of the week and reveal that in fact you’ve poured vodka over your Weetabix for the past thirty years. Spending large sums to delude yourself isn’t helpful either.

So – what happened is this.

As everyone knows, way back in 2005-ish, we sacked the HLF and decided to go it alone. The deal was that we would build a boat such that it wouldn’t cost the museum anything, they wold build a museum to put it in then we would run on Coniston Water and later display the boat when she wasn’t being maintained, run, conserved or whatever else she might need and because she was being built to be a living machine the BBP would maintain an interest in her and perform these tasks into the future. Hands up anyone who hasn’t heard this a thousand times going back as long as they can remember?

To that end the wreckage (only the wreckage and no more because there simply was no more at that time) was given to the museum though doubts have always lingered over the validity of that gift that have absolutely nothing to do with us, and we sallied forth with our side of the deal as the museum got underway with a building designed with a service door and turning circle for the ‘vehicle delivering/removing Bluebird’. That’ what it says in the plans so clearly we all agreed from the outset that there was going to be more going on than simply wheeling her outside for a static engine run or locking her away forever. Never mind – the years went by and in 2013 we all decided, and by that I mean both BBP and the museum trustees, that we had best do something about donating all the material that BBP had accumulated because there now existed a pile of stuff considerably bigger than just the wreckage and it was a rat’s nest of begged, borrowed and stolen parts. To that end an agreement was drawn up, passed back and forth until it was agreed by all parties subject to some very minor changes, for example that BBP would cover transport costs when using Bluebird, but other than that we all agreed and therefore continued on our merry way conducting ourselves in accordance with, and in so doing binding ourselves to, our new contract. Happy days.

Then we got to 2015 and I started warning those who had to organise Bluebird’s return to Coniston that soon we would be ahead of them unless they got a move on. We were repeatedly told that nothing could be done until we could say when K7 would be finished but of course we couldn’t do that because we’d never done one before and, besides, you don’t need when to begin working on parking, websites, social media accounts, branding, merchandise, shore-side safety, disabled access, evacuation plans, environmental impact studies, traffic management strategy, etc. etc.

We carried on until we knew we could be ready to go by August 2018 but still nothing was in place to go to Coniston so instead we offered that all would be well because we would rather do some training first anyway so we would go to Scotland and learn how to operate the boat thus buying an extra year for arrangements to be made to run on Coniston Water. This we did but when we got back there still wasn’t anything happening and it was very late in the day that dates were finally settled on for our Proving Trial only to have the whole affair cancelled without explanation in January.

By this time we had written a comprehensive water safety plan and submitted it in timely fashion to the LDNPA, surveyed both the launching slipway and the entire course and begun recruiting and training safety and rescue divers. Our volunteers and many more besides who had been invited by BBP to help in Coniston had excitedly made arrangements to be off work and away from home and suddenly they had no gig.
In the meantime we had stripped the boat to make good the damage and flooding caused by our first outing. Lessons learned were put into practice and we were also continuing with the restoration work that was far from complete when we went to Scotland. We reckoned the best answer here was to keep everyone motivated, not let them down seeing as they had organised holidays for the end of July and simply do some more testing while Coniston Water was organised for 2020 so we invited the museum to join with us, come soak up the vibe, promote the museum and the village and learn as much as possible about hosting such an event. What a resource that would be. We got silence. We asked for meetings, left phone messages and sent emails – silence. We said that if we’d not heard to the contrary by whatever the date was, I don’t recall, we’d assume they were cool with the new plan – silence. We drafted a press release saying when and where the public could come to see K7 run in 2019 as we have been inundated with that particular question and suggested a date on which it should go live and this at last generated a response that we wait a week pending a meeting of the trustees – fair enough. Throughout we remained totally accommodating but what came back was not some sort of accord or even an offer to discuss. Nope, what we got was the aforementioned snotogram saying ‘Give us everything we demand straight away or we’ll kill your children.’ followed by more silence.

Now it might only be me but I view that as both unprofessional and a slap in the face for the public, our sponsors and donors, the hard working volunteers, not to mention Gina’s wishes. It sounds like a case of, ‘If we can’t have our ball no one else is going to play with it.’ and is that any way to behave when you’re a partner in a national project?

Anyway – we’ve responded because that’s what you do and we didn’t say a lot in public because it’s such a ridiculous and unnecessary situation and it would have been better for everyone to have squared it away behind closed doors and cracked on, which is what we, the BBP, have tried very hard to do but to no avail. It might have gone a little further but as is usually the case a reporter got hold of it and called up. Nice guy from the Sun so soon the nation can read all about it.

From our point of view nothing has changed. We’ve lived by our 2013 agreement and we’re not asking for any more or anything different. It remains fine as it was and with a bit of common sense there’s still just about time to get on the water this year.

[Filtertron]

Good Lord. I have nothing to offer you and the team but my support from afar, Bill. I cannot fathom what they're trying to achieve by doing this.

[Renegadenemo]

Good Lord. I have nothing to offer you and the team but my support from afar, Bill. I cannot fathom what they're trying to achieve by doing this.

Thanks - no one else can work it out either. It's all very baffling.

[mickday]

Let’s just hope at the end of all this common sense prevails

[VdGGfan]

What a kick in the teeth for you and the whole team, Bill.
IMO Coniston doesn't deserve BBP or K7.
You would be welcome back on Bute anytime ... if legally possible.
Hope everything works out for you.

Douglas