When Australian Reg Spiers found himself penniless in London without enough money for a plane ticket home to Adelaide, he decided to post himself back in a wooden box.
Spiers, now 73, lives in Adelaide with his new partner and two dogs and he remains close friends with the McSorley family.
It was 1964, and the 22-year-old champion javelin thrower was in Britain, desperate to get back to Australia for his daughter’s birthday and to see his wife.
He showed up out of the blue at the East London flat of his close friend – English javelin thrower John McSorley – and presented him with his problem.
Too impatient to work and save up the money for a plane ticket, together Spiers and McSorley hatched a harebrained scheme to build a timber box and send Spiers back to his home country via air freight.
Reg Spiers (left, in the 1960s) posted himself from London to Perth in a wooden box (replica pictured right)
Miraculously he survived the 63-hour journey across three continents inside the 1.52m by 91cm by 76 cm box
What followed was a nightmarish 63-hour journey across three continents in which he was delayed in fog for 24 hours, dropped from a forklift and almost suffered dehydration after being left on a scorching tarmac in Bombay, India.
But Spiers survived, and went on to live an extraordinary life in which he travelled the world with his lover, assumed false identities and smuggled narcotics for international drug syndicates.
His sensational life has been documented in a book by McSorley’s wife and son, Julie and Marcus McSorley, titled Out Of The Box: The Highs And Lows Of A Champion Smuggler.
The specifics of Spiers’ crazy plan to post himself from London to Perth were decided over drinks at Twickenham’s Crown pub in October 1964.
The largest box they were allowed to send measured five feet by three feet by two feet six inches (1.52m by 91cm by 76 cm).
They decided they would label the box ‘plastic emulsion’, to be sent from a fake British chemical company to a fake shoe company in Perth.
A ‘Mr Graham’ was listed as the cash-on-delivery recipient – but because no one would ever collect it the money would never be paid and Spiers’ trip would be free.
McSorley built the box inside his flat over a series of late nights, with a number of specifications including side straps and a belt to hold Spiers in place when the box was loaded onto aircraft.
The timber box also opened at both ends, so Spiers could get out and walk around the cargo once the plane was in the air.
Spiers had worked in a cargo shipping section of an airport, so had some inside knowledge about what could be shipped without drawing undue notice from customs and other officials.
He was also incredibly lucky. By the 1960s, the cargo holds of many commercial airliners were pressurised and heated, to protect goods being shipped. This meant Spiers was able to breathe inside the plane while the air outside became too thin as the plane gained altitude, and he did not freeze to death.
Spiers didn’t eat for a week in preparation for his journey, in order to slow his bodily functions down.
He packed a small bag with essential belongings such as his passport, and food and drink including a bottle of fruit juice, two tins of spaghetti, a packet of biscuits, a bar of chocolate and a tube of fruit gums.
On Saturday October 17 1964, McSorley and two friends loaded the box containing Spiers onto a van and drove it to the terminal at Heathrow Airport.
A clerk weighed the box and McSorley handed him his freight forms, before giving the box a quick pat and disappearing into the airport crowd hoping for the best.
Unfortunately for Spiers the journey did not begin well. A thick fog descended on the airport delaying all flights for more than 24 hours.
According to the watch he kept with him it was more than 28 hours before his box was transported to an airplane for the first leg of the trip – a short flight to Paris.
The timber box also opened at both ends, so Spiers could get out and walk around the cargo once the plane was in the air
Spiers survived the first part of his journey relatively easily – he managed to eat some food and relieve himself in a spare plastic bottle he had brought with him.
The second leg of the journey was from Paris to Bombay.
He was able to get out of the box and move around, but sleeping inside the crate was problematic.
Spiers could only stretch his legs if he was sitting up straight, and could only lie down if his legs were bent.
About 37 hours since he was first dropped off at Heathrow, the plane made its descent into Bombay.
The Indian airport staff that unloaded the aircraft upended his crate as they placed it on the tarmac leaving him dangling upside down from the box’s straps.
He was also precariously balancing a spaghetti can filled with urine, which he had been forced to use after filling the only plastic bottle he packed.
Spiers was left on the scorching tarmac for hours while the Indian ground staff ate their lunch and did other jobs.
He was able to unhook himself from his straps and sit upright in the box, but sunlight streaming through cracks in the wood turned the box into a sauna, and before long he was forced to strip off all his sweat-drenched clothes.
The story was the subject of a media circus after Spiers forgot to contact his friend McSorley back in London to let him know he arrived in Australia safely. Pictured is a cameraman with the box Spiers travelled in
Nearing dehydration, Spiers contemplated turning himself in, wary that the press would ‘have a field day’ if a mysterious naked man emerged from a wooden box on the tarmac in Bombay.
But after a number of hours relief came for Spiers when a vehicle arrived to move his box, driving him out of direct sunlight and onto the aircraft that would take him on the final leg of his journey.
The flight was supposed to travel directly from Bombay to Perth but made a fuel stop in Singapore
It continued on its journey and after 63 hours and almost 21,000 km Spiers arrived exhausted – but miraculously alive – at Perth Airport.
His box was offloaded into a freight shed and he managed to escape when airport workers left to take a smoke break.
He sneaked along a series of warehouses towards the airport terminal, before blending in with a group of passengers disembarking an Ansett plane that had just touched down.
Spiers used his passport to clear immigration and walk out of the airport like a regular traveller.
From Perth he hitchhiked his way across the Nullarbor before meeting a priest who shouted him a train trip to Adelaide.
The story was the subject of a media circus after Spiers forgot to contact his friend McSorley back in London to let him know he arrived in Australia safely.
Panicked, McSorley called a journalist he knew at a British newspaper asking for help to track him down.
The journalist called a correspondent based in Adelaide, and from there the story was picked up by media all over the world – so much so that the airline Spiers had sneaked onto was pressured into allowing Spiers to fly for free.
McSorley’s son Marcus McSorley – who co-wrote the book detailing his extraordinary feat – said the journey was ‘just the beginning’ of Spiers’ sensational life.
‘After the box incident Reg went on to smuggle a different kind of substance,’ Mr McSorley told Daily Mail Australia.
‘He went onto assume three different identities, was wanted in three different continents, he went on the run with his lover and was sentenced to death in Sri Lanka as a Frenchman.
‘The guy’s lived quite a life.’
In 1981 Spiers and his lover – known under the pseudonym ‘Annie’ in the book – were among a syndicate to be arrested and charged in Australia over a plot to smuggle $1.2 million worth of hashish into the country from India.
But while out on bail the couple fled to India.
They lived very much a Bonnie and Clyde lifestyle,’ Mr McSorley said.
‘On the run there they had to make money somehow and Reg was caught again in Bombay in 1983.’
Police in India alleged he and Annie tried to smuggle hashish back to Australia by attaching it to the bottom of a boat.
The couple spent time in separate Bombay prisons, but when they were out on bail they fled the country.
Spiers was arrested for drug smuggling a third time in Sri Lanka in 1984, over a plot to smuggle heroin to Amsterdam. At the time he was travelling using a French passport.
He was sentenced to death, but had his conviction overturned.
In 1987 he was transported back to Adelaide by Australian authorities where he served more than three years in Yatala, Mobilong, and Cadell prisons for the offences he was charged with back in 1981.
In 1994, Annie turned herself into an Australian embassy in Germany and was extradited home.
She was sentenced to six months in jail after a judge found that she committed her crimes due to ‘an infatuation, bordering on obsession,’ for Spiers.
Annie visited him in Adelaide after she was released, but after almost nine years apart the pair did not rekindle their romance.
Spiers and his first wife stayed married for several years after he risked his life to get back to her in the air freight box in 1964, but they separated after having a second daughter.
In 2012, Spiers appeared in court charged with cultivating and trafficking a commercial quantity of cannabis and illegal possession of a revolver.
In 2013, all charges against him were dropped in the Port Adelaide Magistrates Court after prosecutors tendered no evidence.
‘Reg has such charisma and an aura about him whereby he can make anything happen,’ Mr McSorley said.
‘He makes you feel totally alive when you’re around him.
‘Given all he’s done he’s got a lot of great attributes.’
For more details on Spiers’ extraordinary life, read Out Of The Box: The Highs And Lows Of A Champion Smuggler.
Spiers, now 73, lives in Adelaide with his new partner and he remains close friends with the McSorley family
TIMELINE OF REG SPIERS’ EXTRAORDINARY LIFE
1964: Spiers travels from London to Perth in a wooden air freight box via Paris, Bombay and Singapore.
1981: Spiers is arrested in Australia over a plot to smuggle $1.2 million worth of hashish into the country from India.
He and his ‘lover’ Annie flee the country to India while out on bail.
1983: Spiers is arrested in Bombay and accused of trying to smuggle hashish back to Australia by attaching it to the bottom of a boat.
The couple flee the country again while out on bail.
1984: Spiers is arrested for drug smuggling in Sri Lanka, over a plot to smuggle heroin to Amsterdam. At the time he was travelling using a French passport.
He was sentenced to death, but had his conviction overturned.
1987: Spiers is transported back to Adelaide by Australian authorities. He serves more than three years in Yatala, Mobilong, and Cadell prisons for the offences he was charged with back in 1981.
1994: Annie turns herself into an Australian embassy in Germany and is extradited home.
She serves a six-month prison sentence.
2012: Spiers appears in an Adelaide court charged with cultivating and trafficking a commercial quantity of cannabis and illegal possession of a revolver.
2013: All charges against Spiers are dropped in the Port Adelaide Magistrates Court after prosecutors tender no evidence.
SOURCE:::: SARAH MICHAEL in www. dailymail.co.uk
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