A film crew has been in Coniston this week recording a programme for the BBC about speed ace Donald Campbell’s last day and fatal crash.

The Lion Television team has been filming one of a 12-part documentary series called Days That Shook the World.

The series, which is first being broadcast on the digital channel BBC Four, and will be shown later this year on BBC2, aims to capture seminal moments in history.

Each hour-long programme features two individual half-hour stories that are linked.

The Campbell programme will follow what the BBC calls “two extraordinary days, 20 years apart”, that define the spirit of the jet age.

As well as US Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager’s first supersonic flight in 1947, the programme tracks the events of January 4, 1967, when after months of frustrations and trials, and dogged by bad weather and mechanical problems, Campbell woke up to find the surface of Coniston Water calm and the jet-powered boat ready for the attempt to break his own world water speed record.

Using what the programme makers say is previously unseen footage, viewers will be able to watch Campbell as he takes his fateful run across the lake.

Campbell’s Bluebird boat and his remains were recovered from the lake in 2001 and plans are being developed to restore the record-breaking boat and house her at the Ruskin Museum, in Coniston.

The programme will be shown on BBC Four on December 3 at 8.30pm.

l Paul Foulkes-Halbard, who hit the headlines in April 2001 when he made a high-profile and ultimately unsuccessful claim that he owned Bluebird, has died, aged 66. His son, Karl, said his father’s collection of Bluebird-related memorabilia would remain at Filching Manor Motor Museum, in Sussex, and would be on show again to the public next year.