Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2008/January 2009 | Page 56
life
INTERVIEW
Reality
hits back
Nick and Carolyn Pointing had converted a 1973 Land Rover into a Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang replica. We left them being wooed by the media in Turkey,
but they almost didn’t get that far, finds Roz Whistance.
Two people, one fantasy car on one
adventure of a lifetime – and two separate
stories. From the start, Carolyn Pointing, a
police officer, shared with her husband Nick
the aching passion to buy the right car to
convert. They both spent hour upon filthy
hour sanding and scraping the Landrover
in the freezing workshop. But their stories
remain very much “his n hers”. Anyone
who can’t bear a bit of gender stereotyping
should look away now.
“We’d decided to take a detour through
Germany to see the castle where Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang was filmed – we couldn’t
miss that!” says Carolyn. “Then we went
up through Italy, which was so beautiful, it
was one of the highlights of the trip. The
only frustration was we had no money for
shopping.”
Nick mentioned nothing about wasted
shopping opportunities in Lake Garda, and
in his version the next noteworthy problem,
when they reached Greece, was Chitty’s oil
indicating light. “It means the oil pressure’s
gone and you’ve got to stop. Real disaster
stuff.”
They found a garage and broke camp
56
early the next day to take the car in. It was
when everything was packed and Nick was
pulling the bungee across that a real disaster
happened. The bungee snapped and recoiled
straight into his eye.
“He was on the floor yelling in pain,
clutching his eye. I could see blood pouring
through his fingers and when he took his
hand away I could see a lump of flesh on
his nose,” said Carolyn. Amazingly she
had noticed a hospital as they’d arrived in
the town, but despite his sight being in the
balance Nick insisted on taking Chitty to the
garage first.
“The service was unbelieveable.” This
is Carolyn talking about Nick’s treatment,
but it might just as well be Nick talking
about Chitty’s bit of tlc. While Chitty was
just suffering from a case of dodgy wiring,
though, Nick had gouged a piece of flesh
from the white of his eye, and though it was
not a threat to his sight he was in severe
pain for several days. “He just lay with
his head in my lap as I drove along,” says
Carolyn, “like a puppy.”
The couple also recall different events
when they crossed into Turkey. Nick revelled
in the friendliness and curiosity of locals as
described in the previous Issue. Carolyn’s
memory is more practical. “Istanbul was
not as I’d imagined it, and it was a real low
point of our trip. The weather was wet, and
our bedding got soaked. The recommended
camp site turned out to be a concrete
forecourt on a garage. Luckily our tents
go up on concrete.” They persuaded the
owner to let them use a cattle shed with a
corrugated tin roof and Carolyn managed to
find a men’s toilet block which had a huge
sink with hot running water. “I was there
scrubbing our clothes when a man came in
to use the urinal. I didn’t know where to put
myself.”
Nick had described northern Turkey as
“another planet”, and Carolyn’s views were
not dissimilar. “Because of the time of year
many camp sites had closed. We ended up
camping in the mountains, where it was as
spooky as you like. You were woken in the
night by howls – your imagination ran riot.”
Moving on towards the Iranian border they
were surprised by the sheer presence of the
military. Soldiers with rocket launchers and
tanks constantly overtook them: Chitty likes
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