UNSEEN colour footage of Donald Campbell's fatal crash on Coniston Water has come to light.

Kenneth Ireland, who lived in Burneside, was on the shoreline with his cine-camera on January 4, 1967 as the speed ace attempted to set a new world water speed record.

After capturing Mr Campbell's practice runs, he went on to record the historic moment that Bluebird flipped.

Sandra Ferguson, Mr Ireland's step-daughter, said that her father had been a huge Donald Campbell fan.

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"My father was so into this speed event he used to go up and watch it whenever he could," she said. "He was there on the day that the accident happened and he filmed it. It was sent to be examined when they were doing the inquiries (into the accident) and things."

Mr Campbell had been attempting to break his own water speed record, hoping to reach 300mph in Bluebird K7.

He was travelling at more than 300mph on Coniston Water when the boat was catapulted 50ft into the air after its nose lifted.

Mr Campbell, 46, was killed instantly as the boat hit the water and disintegrated.

"It's so emotive is this bit of film," Mrs Ferguson said. "It's very short but it shows the up trip and there's just all these people staring at the lake as if they're expecting him to come back up again. Then there's all the people standing around looking afterwards and various boats going out."

Mrs Ferguson, who lives in Staveley, said that apart from having shown the footage to the police and a local videographer, it has remained in the family.

"The police compared where he was standing with the hills in the background as to where the bits of the boat went into the water because it all broke up into bits," Mrs Ferguson explained. "It went up into the air and bits kept coming off over quite a distance."

The original film is with her half sister but Mrs Ferguson has a copy of it on VHS. However, as it also has family footage on it, she has not been keen to share it.

"It's dramatic really, isn't it? To see somebody lose their life like that in the blink of an eye, it makes you think," she said. "I don't think he [Kenneth] could believe it had happened to be honest."

Anthony Robinson, the president of the K7 club who was a friend of Donald Campbell's and worked for his team, said that the footage would be 'quite rare'.

"I am aware of at least one other piece of film that was shot privately - whether it still exists or not is another matter."

Mr Robinson, 72, was in the rescue boat that first attended to the scene.

"As it happened it didn't register for some time the enormity of what happened," he said. "I didn't watch any footage for many years, not the actual footage of the accident. I have seen it since then and it gets a little easier to watch but it's still never easy."

Phil Evans, PR officer for the Speed Record Club, said that new footage would be of great interest to himself and the other members of the group, particularly with the upcoming 50th anniversary of the accident.

"I am not aware of any amateur footage of that nature," he said. "My concern would be at that time that the technology was not particularly good.

"But it's still of interest. To any enthusiast anything that is new after 50 years would be of interest, even if it didn't shed any new light on what happened."

Mike Varndell, the chairman of the Bluebird Supporters Club, said: "It's amazing what people do have stashed away in their attics. In the '50s and '60s everybody went up north to the lovely Lakes to holiday and took photographs."

Mr Varndell said that the fascination with Donald Campbell stemmed from him being the 'last British hero'.