Meet the man who posted himself from London to Australia in a wooden BOX so he could get home for his daughter's birthday

Read the interesting life story of a man who posted himself from London to Perth in a wooden box just to attend his daughter's birthday.

Story begins...

In 1964 Australian Reg Spiers while in London had no money for a plane ticket home to Adelaide for his daughter's birthday and to see his wife, he decided to post himself back in a wooden box.

The 22-year-old champion javelin thrower visited his close friend, John McSorley, an English javelin thrower to narrated his situation. Together both of them mapped out a plan to build a timber box and send Spiers back to his home country via air freight.

It was a 63-hour journey via Paris, Bombay and Singapore and Spiers took with him a bottle of fruit juice, two tins of spaghetti, a packet of biscuits, a bar of chocolate and a tube of fruit gums. 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 traveled 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".

Plan to build the box
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, and 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).

Spiers and McSorley 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.

The journey begins
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.

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.
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, and used his passport to clear immigration and walk out of the airport like a regular traveler.

From Perth he hitchhiked his way across the Nullarbor before meeting a priest who shouted him a train trip to Adelaide.

After all the discomfort over 63-hours, Here is were the sadness comes in
Spiers was supposed to contact his friend McSorley back in London to let him know he arrived in Australia safely. But the became talk of the media as McSorley in fear 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. 

He went on to live a rough life
Spiers went on to live an extraordinary life in which he traveled the world with his lover, assumed false identities and smuggled narcotics for international drug syndicates.

After so many arrest and bail, he continued with his illegal activities until he 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.

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, and all charges against him were dropped in 2013 at the Port Adelaide Magistrates Court after prosecutors tendered no evidence.

Spiers is now 73, and lives in Adelaide with his new partner and two dogs and he remains close friends with the McSorley family.

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