Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2009 | Page 52

life

FEATURE

Photo above: Nick, Carolyn & Chitty camping on a remote beach down under

screaming like a pig because I’d seen

Word had got around that Chitty was

of cold water over us to shower. I’ve

one on the wall!” Poor Nick was in the

in town, and the couple were asked to

learned to cook a meal in one pan – it’s

doghouse one night when, going out to

do a talk at a primary school in Brisbane.

amazing what you can improvise.”

remove a spider which was on the mesh

The local newspaper put them up at

wall of the tent, he unwittingly came in

Moffat beach, and the headline on the

had begun: all three of them arrived

with it on his head! “I yelled ‘I sent you

subsequent piece ran: “Nick and Carolyn

back home together. Nick and Carolyn

out to kill it and you brought it into the

Pointing having the time of their lives.”

met Chitty off her container ship at

blooming tent’!” laughs Carolyn.

Which about summed it up.

Southampton and they drove her home to

In Australia Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was

Their daughter Michelle came out to join

a known celebrity in her own right, and

them, and this was their excuse to turn

one Chitty fan named Kent, hearing they

from travellers to tourists – to give her

were en route, wrote and begged them

the time of her life, too.

to come and see him. “He was a real

Carolyn looks back on the trip with

Fittingly, the end of the trip was as it

the Isle of Wight. “We’d driven her out,
and we drove her home,” says Nick.
Now back in their day jobs, the Pointings
nevertheless have been no slouches in
writing about their momentous trip. Look

Chitty nut,” she says. “He’s got to have

considerable pride. “I had to improvise

out for ‘Port Out, Starboard Home’, out

the biggest Chitty collection in the world,

so much. I’ve scrubbed clothes in buckets

in August – about them, their adventures,

pedal cars, dressing up kits – but he

in car parks, with water you don’t want

and their four-fendered friend.

hasn’t got a real car! He sat in the front,

to think about. We washed our hair

singing his heart out.”

in seawater, and tipped big containers

52