There is now just one treatment for the condition known as homesickness. I’m heading home. However, there are situations when the odds are stacked against you.
When this occurs, people are more likely to engage in some fairly weird schemes in an attempt to get themselves back to the place they so desperately want to be.
At the age of 19, Brian Robson was miserable and working in Melbourne, Australia. He had a strong yearning to return to his home country of Wales.
Because he was in such a rush to get back to Cardiff, he actually had himself packed into a crate and sent there by his buddies so that he could get there as quickly as possible.
Robson enrolled in a program that helped people immigrate to the United States back in 1964.
His travel costs were covered by the Australian government, and in exchange, he was required to accept a position with Victorian Railways for a period of two years.
Robson almost immediately came to regret agreeing to the deal, but if he failed to fulfill his end of the bargain, he would be required to reimburse close to £800 in travel fees that had been spent getting him there.
Robson and two of his coworkers, Paul and John, came up with a “top secret” scheme to send him home by simple mailing because they did not have the necessary amount of money.
Robson was placed inside a wooden crate that was three feet tall, three feet wide, and two feet deep.
Paul filled up the necessary freight papers, while the other two members of the group made sure the crate had ventilation holes for Robson.
He thought he was settling in for a 36-hour journey to the United Kingdom, so he curled up inside the box with only a bottle of water, an empty bottle (“for obvious reasons”), a pillow, hammer, flashlight, and a small bag. However, the three people didn’t consider what would happen if the crate was put on the wrong flight.
After the lid was nailed shut, his sidekicks designated the box “FRAGILE” and “THIS SIDE UP.” However, much like many of our well-laid schemes, the box would soon take a significant detour from its intended path.
Robson quickly discovered that he was being treated with anything but care by those around him. The journey that was supposed to take three days developed into a marathon that lasted five days.
During those five days, he was inverted for a total of 24 agonizing hours.
Robson contemplated giving up as the arduous journey dragged on, but in the end, he chose to push through it and finish what he started.
“I messed around with the concept for a few seconds and convinced myself, Look, you’ve done all of this. You can’t risk embarrassing yourself at this point.
Robson advised the host of CBC’s As It Happens that they should proceed with the plan despite his objections.
When Robson finally landed, he assumed he was in London, but he had actually been routed to Los Angeles.
There, he shone the beam of his flashlight through the hole, which alerted a worker. When Robson finally regained consciousness, he thought he was in London.
Robson was relieved to emerge from the confines of his container and find that he had made it through the journey alive, despite the fact that he was badly dehydrated and had had some pretty significant injuries.
After hearing Robson’s story of homesick blues, airport workers quickly sent the teenager home — only this time, as a first-class passenger courtesy of Pan American Airline.
Airport workers wondered what to do in the bizarre situation and called in many U.S. officials. After hearing Robson’s story, airport workers quickly sent the teenager home.
“Everything the Americans did, from the FBI and CIA to everything else, they were great. “I mean, I fell in love with America because I’ve never been treated so wonderfully,” said Off. “I’ve never been treated so well in any country.”
“Everyone there truly looked out for me,” the woman said. They were thinking nothing more than, “Oh, it’s just this clumsy youngster getting himself into trouble,”
Robson’s epic narrative did receive its fair amount of coverage once he returned home, but he refused to disclose the names of his companions because he didn’t want to put them in a position where they could be in danger.
Now, however, with the release of a book chronicling his exploits—ingeniously titled The Crate Escape, which is available on Kindle and will soon be available in stores—Robson believes that the statute of limitations has likely expired on anything criminal, and he would love to get back together with his old friends to swap stories.
The problem is that he can’t recall the surnames of his friends or where in Ireland they are from. This is a problem. He had written to his Irish friends who were the same age as Robson but had not received a response from them.
He expressed his desire to see them again by telling the BBC, “If I meet them again, I’d simply like to say that I’m sorry I got them into this and that I missed them when I came back—and that I’d like to buy them a drink.” He is optimistic that they will get together again.
In the same year that Robson was working as a laborer in the Land Down Under, an Australian who was stranded in London pulled off the stunt in reverse by sending himself home in a crate.
While this way of travel is not encouraged by any stretch of the imagination, it did happen.
Reg Spiers had his wallet taken after a failed attempt at the Olympics; thus, he asked a buddy for assistance in returning to his home in order to replace it.
In a box that was only slightly larger than Robson’s and equipped with inner straps to keep him safe, he endured only one difficult layover in Mumbai before landing in Perth thirty-six hours later. Robson’s box had no such features.
Post Views:
86