The Box that Almost Killed Him

In 1318, a young English nun named Joan of Leeds decided she’d had enough of cloistered life. Instead of quietly slipping away, she orchestrated an escape worthy of a stage play. She feigned illness, crafted a dummy to look like her dead body, and staged her burial. Then she vanished into the night, free from the priory’s walls. It was a clever, well-planned escape—until she was discovered living with a man in Beverley and ordered back by the Archbishop of York. Her brilliant ruse bought her freedom, but only briefly. Joan had planned the perfect exit, but she hadn’t thought far enough ahead.

More than six centuries later, a young man from Australia tried something just as audacious—and nearly paid for it with his life.

In the mid-1960s, Brian Robson was stuck. He’d left his home in Cardiff, Wales, for a government-assisted work program in Australia, lured by the promise of adventure and opportunity. The reality was far less glamorous. He found himself doing manual labor for the Victorian Railways in the town of Wodonga, isolated, unhappy, and homesick. All he wanted was to get back to the UK.

The problem was money. His ticket to Australia had been subsidized under the immigration program, but the terms required him to complete a two-year contract before returning home. If he left early, he’d have to pay back the cost of his trip—and he had nothing close to the airfare. He considered his options. Quitting meant breaking the contract and facing debt he couldn’t pay. Working the full term meant enduring another long, lonely year. And then it hit him: what if he didn’t buy a ticket at all?

That’s when the idea took shape. He’d post himself home.

Robson’s plan was bizarre but, in his mind, perfectly workable. He bought a wooden crate big enough for him to curl up inside, packed a small suitcase, a pillow, a flashlight, a book of Beatles songs, a bottle of water, and an empty bottle for… other necessities. He even brought along a hammer in case he needed to break out. Two friends agreed to help nail the box shut and get it onto a flight to London via air freight. It was, he thought, foolproof: a direct trip to the UK without buying a passenger ticket.

But nothing went as planned.

First, the crate was labeled incorrectly. Instead of a nonstop route, it was sent on a multi-leg journey across the Pacific. Robson’s “quick trip” became a grueling odyssey—Sydney to Los Angeles, then to New York, then onward. At times, he was stored upside down. The heat in some cargo bays was unbearable; in others, the cold bit through his thin clothes. He could barely move. His water ran out. His body cramped. Breathing was difficult in the sealed crate. Hours stretched into days, and each time the box was moved, it jolted and slammed, reminding him that he had no control over his fate.

In Los Angeles, the crate was left sitting on the tarmac in the sun for hours. Robson drifted in and out of consciousness, unsure if he’d survive. By the time handlers pried the crate open in a cargo area at Los Angeles International Airport, he was barely coherent. They expected to find inanimate freight—not a gaunt, sweat-soaked young man blinking in the harsh light.

The stunt ended with Robson in a hospital, then in the custody of the FBI. There was no triumphant arrival in Cardiff. He was eventually sent back to the UK—but not as a paying passenger, not with dignity, and not without international headlines that cast him somewhere between a folk hero and a cautionary tale.

It’s easy to marvel at the audacity of the plan. Like Joan of Leeds’ escape from the priory, it was creative, resourceful, and daring. But also like Joan, Robson had focused almost entirely on the escape itself, without truly accounting for the aftermath. What if the trip had gone longer than expected? (It did.) What if the crate was mishandled? (It was.) What if the conditions became deadly? (They nearly did.) His “perfect plan” worked brilliantly up to the moment it didn’t—and then he was at the mercy of forces he couldn’t control.

There’s a parallel here that comes up again and again in personal finance. We sometimes engineer quick fixes for financial problems—solutions that feel clever, even ingenious in the short term—but we don’t fully consider what comes after. A person might cash out retirement savings to pay off a credit card, thinking they’ve eliminated the problem, only to face taxes, penalties, and lost growth that leave them worse off. Someone might sell a house in a hurry to escape mortgage stress, only to find themselves priced out of the market later. Others might take on a high-risk investment in hopes of a big payoff, only to realize too late that they haven’t prepared for what happens if it fails.

The allure of a quick fix is that it offers immediate relief. But relief isn’t the same as resolution. Robson’s crate could have gotten him home, just as Joan’s dummy corpse could have kept her free—but neither had a plan for the life they’d face afterward. A real solution isn’t just about getting out of a bad situation; it’s about ensuring that what comes next is better, safer, and more stable than what came before.

In the end, the most dangerous escape isn’t the one you fail to make—it’s the one you make perfectly, without any thought of where you’ll land.