"We
were no saints but we were very much in love"
The Guardian, February 7, 2002
In a new book Tonia Bern-Campbell recalls her wild life with speed king
Donald Campbell.
It was the entertainer Maurice Chevalier who taught her how to deal with loss.
Tonia Bern-Campbell, international chanteuse and widow of speed king Donald,
is recounting the advice proferred by her great friend. When Campbell died during
his fateful world water speed record attempt on Coniston Water in 1967, she
plummeted. "I fell into a bottle of brandy. I didn't want to be awake. Maurice
flew out to London and he said to me: 'You can't do that because Donald was
too proud of you, and this he wouldn't respect. So write everything down, the
good moments and the bad. "The bad will cling to the paper, the good will
remain alive.'"
The therapy had its effect. "Once I had written it I put it behind me. My
reaction was I should not feel sorry for myself. I've had more, I've felt more,
I've seen more than many women do in a lifetime, and I should be grateful, not
sad. And I never stopped him doing what he wanted to do ever. I gave all I had
to give to this man." And within a year, she concludes with a flourish, she
was singing at Carnegie Hall.
Bern-Campbell says she never intended her grief-driven account to be published.
But the raising of Campbell's boat Bluebird last year, and the subsequent burial
of his remains, prompted her to reconsider. "Because of all the ridiculous rumors
I thought I'd set the record straight: we were no saints but we were very much
in love."
When the singer Tonia Bern married the twice-divorced Donald Campbell in 1958,
it caused a sensation. The "chic Belgique", with her continental style and reputation
for straight talking, coupled with the lustful Scots adventurer, proved a provocative
combination. Throughout their marriage rumors of volcanic disputes, passionate
reconciliations and clandestine affairs abounded. Bern-Campbell's memoir certainly
proves an antidote to speculation. Her talent for demure revelation of outrageous
detail is unsurpassed.
She is recounting the moment she met Campbell at a reception at the Savoy:
"I did not expect this. As soon as I saw him walking towards me with those piercing
blue eyes: 'Wow!' I thought, 'I want you!' And I got him! About three hours
later..." She corrects herself scrupulously. "No, we had dinner about two hours
later and we had each other about six hours later."
Now 65, and still singing, Bern-Campbell is a truly merry widow. She sparkles.
A twinkling treble clef dangles from one ear. Delicate silver strands loop at
her throat, while her decolletage envelopes an enormous, arty pendant. Her cowboy
blouse is studded with gold. She has horseshoe charms around her wrist and one
finger. The ring may well be diamond. She is definitely the kind of woman men
buy diamonds for. Even after she's turned them down. She is relentlessly open
about the sexual component of her relationship with Campbell - his night with
an old girlfriend only days after they had met, or the time she charged him
$100 to make love to her after he visited a Hawaiian massage parlour.
It was difficult to capture his seductive charisma on paper, she admits. "I
wrote and rewrote until it didn't sound vulgar any more. I wanted the reader
to sense what exactly happened. It is intimate, but if you're going to write
the story you've got to write the truth. We were very sexually attracted to
each other. I would think at least 50% of our marriage was that, because he
tried to find something better occasionally and he didn't." She purrs with amusement.
Her accent, thick and flamboyant, is performed rather than spoken.
She is anxious to scotch the rumour that their marriage was an open one. "The
first year was difficult, because we were both wild, and suddenly bound together.
And the last. But in between, Donald had no affairs. The few he had were always
publicized and magnified." It was something they accepted in one another, she
explains. "We both knew that we had that weak streak in us and we curbed it.
With Donald, it was especially when things went wrong. He once said: 'I know
I'm an old bastard. Bear with me. Sometimes the human animal has to escape his
problem and I cannot escape with you because you are me.' Which was a lovely
thing to say."
"Having been brought up by a man [her mother died when she was a toddler]
and seeing that my brothers were fickle - one was engaged to a girl he adored
but nevertheless went to bed with the maid - I knew. And I had a thirst, too.
It did not interfere with my love for Donald and I regretted it afterwards,"
she concludes with the hearty insouciance of a woman with a thorough working
knowledge of forbidden fruit.
But in the end he walked alone. "I always knew that I would live next to him
more than with him. But that was fine for my temperament. I never wanted to
change anything about him - never, never - and he didn't want to change me."
"He would look at girls all the time". She affects a fruity Scottish growl -
"'Look at that lovely piece of crumpet over there!' And in the end I was doing
it too. I got so used to it. One friend of mine said: 'Doesn't it annoy you?'"
She gives a droll shrug. "I said: 'No, if it stops I'll take him to a doctor"
- and pats her ash-blonde bob with the back of her hand.
Despite a dismissive aside about "this women's lib", she is actually rather
exemplary in her management of marriage and career. They never tried to change
one another, she says, and she soon recognized that he was in love with Tonia
Bern, not her awkward attempts at playing "Mrs Campbell". She writes movingly
about having two miscarriages, but is frank about her ambivalence towards the
prospect of mothering. Similarly, she rails against Campbell's insistence that
she limit her singing career. "Donald was able to completely amalgamate me with
his dreams. But when he felt that those were not my dreams, he was angry. To
involve a woman was a hell of a compromise because this was a man's world. But
he came to rely on me."
He made her a member of his team and, nicknamed Fred, she accompanied them
on land and water speed record attempts. She loved the camaraderie, and never
feared the worst. "I never thought that what happened would happen. Because
the risks were calculated. I felt excited by record attempts. I would think
of the risk before. When I was making his bed in the morning I would hope I
got to make it the following morning. But that's a feeling you immediately try
to push away."
Did she ever feel overwhelmed by her partner's extravagant presence? "Donald
would be the first to say that he had a hell of an inferiority complex. He was
always trying to prove something. He was not bossy. He was a very understanding
man, very sentimental. I did not feel dominated ever."
Campbell's status as a national hero was all about timing, she insists. "After
all the pop singers - unshaven, greasy long hair and things in their noses -
suddenly a clean-cut classy gentleman came along who was a daredevil. He is
more of a hero than his father was." (Sir Malcolm Campbell was also a record-breaker
on land and water.)
Her eight years with Campbell made her the woman she is. "When I met him I
was a wild girl. He taught me a lot about consideration, and a lot about manners.
Up to then I was a spoilt brat."
Although she has never remarried she feels no especial responsibility to maintain
Campbell's memory. "I live in America. I have a fabulous life - I work, I do
beautiful shows [she sings for supper clubs and conventions], I have a cute
villa overlooking Lake Gregory, I have a tremendous gang of friends, and boyfriends.
I hear women my age who talk about the difficulty of finding an escort. They
advertise, they look on the internet. I have no problems at all!"
Bern-Campbell famously clashed with her stepdaughter Gina, the product of
Donald's first marriage, over the raising of Bluebird. It was a sordid business,
she says. "I wanted him to remain there because he remained alive in the eyes
of everybody, surrounded by mystique. But I completely understand that once
they found him that his daughter wanted a funeral. For me, the damage was done."
She has never stopped loving Gina, she adds graciously. "But that's water
under the bridge. She never stopped loving me. She couldn't because there are
too many memories of togetherness that you wouldn't want to forget."
There has already been some interest in the film rights of her book, and she
nominates Hugh Grant to play Donald. "He has that twinkle. He has the class,
and he's a naughty boy." And herself? Some friends suggested Meg Ryan, but Bern-Campbell
thinks she's too pretty-pretty. "Julia Roberts I think would be a very good
Tonia. Because she's tall and with her hair cut short she'd look like me. She
can be very forceful, and I am forceful. Whether she could do my accent, though,
I don't know."
