THINKING INSIDE THE BOX TO TRAVEL HOME
But Brian’s plan to leave Australia nearly killed him on 92-hour trip
THE Welsh suffer home sickness like no one else, it’s said.
But that sense of hiraeth was never stronger than the day, 55 years ago, when Brian Robson decided he wanted to return to his native Cardiff .
problem was the 20-year-old was on the opposite side of the world.
Brian had emigrated Down Under in 1964 as one of the million or so “10 pound poms”, who travelled en masse to Oz after the Second World War.
The only trouble was that he didn’t take to his new life as a railway worker and, after only 10 months, decided he wanted to go back. And, in order to get around the snag of being unable get a passport until he’d lived there for two years, Brian hit upon a crazy plan.
Inspired by the true story of Reg Spiers, the Aussie athlete who had posted himself from London to Perth in a crate to attend his daughter’s birthday party, Brian decided to have himself nailed in a wooden box to undertake a similar journey.
He was sealed, with his suitcase, inside the container – marked “Ajax computer” and measuring only 30x26x38in – by two friends whom he’d convinced to help him.
Shipping himself as COD air-freight from Melbourne to London direct, the journey was expected to last 36 hours – no mean test of endurance in itself.
But, after the first leg of his flight, he was left upside down in his crate on the Tarmac at Sydney airport for 22 hours.
It was then loaded onto a different flight from the one planned, a Pan American plane which had a much longer flight path to the UK – one which, dangerously, also had an unheated hold, meaning Brian would have been exposed to freezing temperatures.
“I was dead scared, petrified would be more like it,” he’d eventually reveal to reporters. “The crate was a bit too small. I had only a pint of water and five biscuits to live on. I had finished the biscuits and had two mouthfuls of water left when they found me.”
But, 92 hours after embarking in what very nearly became his coffin, he emerged blinking into the sunlight in Los Angeles, cargo officials there having heard noises coming from the box.
His muscles seized and too weak to stand, Brian was taken to the prison ward of Los Angeles General Hospital to recover before ending up in court to face charges of illegal entry into the United States and stowing away.
Sergeant Kenneth Larsen of the airport police said: “Another 12 hours and he would have been a goner.”
The Welshman was then deported back to the UK and boarded the plane with just his socks on his feet, carrying his shoes in one hand.
“Nobody’s mad at me,” he later said, after arriving home to an unexpectedly warm welcome.
“Everybody’s on my side.”