Luggage

What do you pack in your  luggage  when you go on your travels? For me it's always been very simple - clothes, books and toiletries - regardless of whether it's a business trip or a jolly holiday. But then I'm just normal, and that doesn't make for a riveting read. Consequently, I've been doing a bit of twice-removed baggage checking for today's blog in order to regale you with some of the stranger items that frankly less normal people have packed in their luggage. By the way, suitcases despite their name rarely contain suits these days.

Let's start with food. It's quite a popular one, baked beans especially. When the Beatles went to India in 1968 to study with the Maharishi for a few weeks, Ringo Starr took a suitcase full of baked beans because he and Maureen didn't want to eat Indian food. And currently on tv there is an advertisement featuring a moping man on holiday, sad because his suitcase full of baked beans has gone missing in transit.

And it's not just baked beans. For Brits going abroad the following also feature quite regularly: marmite, tea, chocolate digestives, tomato soup, fruit cake, brown sauce, pot noodles, tinned rice-pudding and corned beef. For people coming into the UK, it's mostly sausage, apparently. If I were to take any food item (and I don't, obviously) it would probably be mustard. How about you?

Weaponry is more common in luggage than one might expect. Sometimes it's claimed it is for personal use, an axe, a knife, a pistol, a short-sword, knuckledusters, length of chain, mace or pepper spray. More  often than not it is the smuggling of items of hardware for sale - hand grenades, guns (often in parts to be assembled  later), rocket launchers, silencers, clips of ammunition. Do these people expect to get away with it?

Drugs is another obvious one, not just for personal use but saleable quantities of cannabis, cocaine, heroin/opium and methamphetamine, along with a range of prescription medicines such as anti-depressants, contraceptives, sedatives, slimming tablets and tranquilizers.

Valuables feature quite often in the form of gold articles, diamonds and other precious gems, and hard currency in rolls of bank notes (usually stuffed into socks). Sometimes they are the family jewels of people fleeing for a better or safer life somewhere else, more commonly they are the trophies of robberies or part of an illicit but highly organised trade.

If none of that has raised many eyebrows let's up the stakes a little. Did I say stakes? I might have meant snakes, quite a popular number to pack in with the underwear, it seems. Other reptiles are available. Baby alligators, lizards and tortoises are quite frequent fliers. Then there was the man who tried to smuggle 100 tarantulas into France in a valise.

Moving up the scale, anaesthetised birds, rabbits, kittens and puppies packed carefully among the clothes are not unknown, as passengers try to bypass quarantine laws. There are cases (pun intended) of people smuggling tiger cubs in suitcases.  And recently someone attempted to leave Thailand with a red panda in his luggage. 

Among the other weird and wonderful items spotted by the x-ray machines can be found roller-skates, teapots, urns containing people's ashes, human skulls, cattle prods, garden gnomes, dumbbells and chastity belts - obviously not your run-of-the-mill holidaymakers.

But the strangest and most shocking example I came across was that of a boy in a suitcase. This happened in 2015 when a man originating from the Ivory Coast but legally resident in Spain returned to his native country to abduct and then smuggle his eight-year-old son into Spain. 

The boy had been packed in the foetal position into the suitcase along with a few clothes as padding. The man paid an unrelated Moroccan woman to take the suitcase through customs at the Spanish border. Customs officials were amazed, when the case was x-rayed, to see a body inside. Fortunately the boy was alive and not seriously harmed by his incarceration. The father was subsequently arrested and charged. The boy was reunited with his mother back in the Ivory Coast.

I did also uncover a couple of accounts of dead babies in luggage, but that's all too harrowing, so let's move on to less distressing ground. 

How many of you remember an ITV series from 1967-1968 called 'Man In A Suitcase'? In this instance the title character wasn't so much in the suitcase as living out if it, as he was technically on the run himself, accused of treason, earning his living as a bounty hunter and private investigator. The show was launched as a replacement for 'Danger Man' once Patrick McGoohan had called time and moved on to 'The Prisoner'. Richard Bradford played the PI McGill and the series ran for thirty weekly episodes, being filmed mostly at Pinewood Studios but also on location in Europe and Africa.

I suppose it had thematic similarities with 'The Fugitive' and 'The Champions' and though it never captured the public imagination in the way 'The Prisoner' did, it was perfectly good viewing and apparently is available as a set of DVDs nowadays. 

I didn't mention DVDs earlier, but they still feature strongly in smuggling-in-luggage scenarios along with other mobile and saleable contraband like cigarettes, perfume and dried fish (no kidding). And there I shall leave it - except for this latest weird little poem which derives inspiration partly (and very loosely) from another real-life incident of the Special Intelligence Services agent found dead inside a padlocked holdall in London in August 2010, partly from the 1951 satirical sci-fi comedy film 'The Man In The White Suit' and partly from the mysterious 'voices off' reaches of the imaginarium.

The Case Of The Man In The White Suit

Folded up like Houdini on a drunk week-end

in limp limbed linen, a big boy's lolling head

with those glassy eyes and GCHQ IQ waited

for the manipulator to unhasp the musty case

and arm him with deceptive plosives to spray

from that loosely hinged jaw, and never mind

any reputational damage such utter lies might

cause as he played to the gullible press corps.

He longed to make the most of  such moments 

at the weekly briefings, wished to go off script,

tell it like it really was for once, even just blink

or wipe that varnished grin off his face, but no

slack is given to a mannequin. For him thought

could never be master to the deed. He dreamed 

memoirs: My Life In Mothballs  perhaps, though

he feared he'd forever remain the reamed stooge.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Luggage, Memories and Art

Suitcases have been an integral part of my life story. They transport all sorts of things from one place to another and they can be powerful metaphors for journeys. My first memories of such items are of my parents’ 1940s Samsonite brown faux leather hard shell suitcases, most likely a wedding gift or purchased for their honeymoon.

The larger of the two suitcases had a wardrobe frame with hangers and to my recollection it was lined with a patterned fabric. They were very much like the one pictured below.

a typical tan suitcase

The only photograph I have depicting either of these suitcases is a priceless image, part of a well-documented event when my father loaded a pile of furniture on top of the car making it looking like the Clampetts from the Beverly Hillbillies during our yearly family vacation visiting my grandmother. This photo shows what appears to be the larger of the suitcases tipped upended on top of the 1962 blue Buick station wagon.

loaded and ready to roll

For most of my growing up years we would travel every summer 800 miles to visit my dad’s family, with a car full of luggage, kids and dogs. The Clampett episode was a one off when my parents needed furniture for their new house they had moved into a couple months prior. Looking back, I’m assuming that my experience of travelling annually to visit loved ones influenced my choice of subject for a demonstration speech I gave in my high school Spanish class pictured below.

Cómo hacer la maleta

I thought ‘How to pack a suitcase’ would be an entertaining focus for this assignment. The photographer for our yearbook happened to be in the class during my delivery and hence this photo has been permanently etched in the Rouser pages for posterity.

I had no idea how prophetic this activity was at the time and how important the suitcase would become as an invaluable functional and metaphorical object in my future.

I received my first proper set of luggage as a high school graduation present from my mother, two cream coloured hard shell Samsonites. Forty years design advancement from my parents’ set meant that they were lighter, more streamline, had wheels, a pull handle and the casing was polypropylene with an injection moulded shell that had a bit of give – not quite so rigid.

These suitcases served me well over the next 20 years. They were drug back and forth to and from university, taken along on several holidays, accompanied me on my honeymoon, helped me moved across country from Chicago to Seattle. Finally these two workhorses along with 14 other pieces of our family’s luggage (most of the others bought in charity shops for about $1) ended up venturing to the UK bringing clothing, children’s toys, games, art supplies, books and toiletries. After over two decades, those suitcases are sadly now long gone after leading much appreciated useful lives.

Due to the nature of my life, frequently going from one country to another, the suitcase became objectified over the years becoming a symbol of travel and journeys. It was inevitable that it would make its way into my artwork. I have used suitcases, suitcase handles and luggage tags all within my assemblage art. Here are three examples.

The first was a commission representing the life of the Murray family, who enjoyed travelling. I also included other objects representing the family such as the children’s shoes.

Life's Open Book (detail), Assemblage 1999, © Kate Eggleston-Wirtz 

The second example is one of two suitcases that were part of an art installation in the What Would You Do If? Exhibition at Salford Museum in 2006. The installation was a response to working creatively with older people about their of evacuation during WW II. The suitcase pictured below is about a Jewish boy who fled his home in Hockenheim to settle in the North West of England. Included in the artwork were photographs and relevant text. By using objects creatively in this way, it helps to 

bring stories alive.

What Would You Do If? Exhibition (detail) 2006, Salford Museum, © Kate Eggleston-Wirtz 

The third example is a more recent artwork, the Insect Hotel, commissioned by Manchester Museum for my Artist in Residence in 2020 set within the Beauty and the Beasts: falling in love with insects 

exhibition.

The artwork was constructed out of a grandfather clock and was a creative interpretation of an insect hotel. I consulted with others about what would be included in this insect hotel. I received answers 
such as a spa, suitcases and leaves for bedding. One can find a suitcase handle on the top right of the artwork. The artwork is on permanent display on the 3rd floor of the newly refurbished museum.

The Insect Hotel and detail, Assemblage 2020, Manchester Museum, © Kate Eggleston-Wirtz 

I was creatively inspired by the museum’s entomology collection not only to produce the 3-d Insect Hotel but also to produce a collection of poems about different insects and other small creatures with the same title. Here are the first and last poems of the collection:

Welcome

This hotel will make you smile.

Check it out and stay awhile.
Have we got a room for you?
Tiny friends indeed we do.
Tuck in tunnels warm and snug.
Perfect beds for any bug.
Underneath leaf litter - crunch.
Might find something good for lunch.
Time for dinner. Time for tea.
Door is open. Here’s the key.
Come on in - creep or crawling.
Fly in visit - comforts calling.
Call it home - a new frontier.
Be our guest, your home is here.


Letter of Appreciation

Dear Guest,
Thank you little friend for coming,
we truly have been blessed.
You came, checked into our hotel,
you’ve been a perfect guest.

No other visitors were stung
or eaten, thankfully.
We hope that you’ve enjoyed your time
and that you would agree

your bed was cosy, belly fed,
the room kept out the wind and rain;
you felt at home and free from harm.
Please visit us again.

Kind Regards,
Manager and Staff
The Insect Hotel

And finally for a bit of nonsensical fun written this week inspired by the ‘How to Pack a Suitcase’ demonstration speech…

In the Bag

Lug the luggage,
gage the gage.
Lug the lug nut,
page by page.
Bag the baggage,
throw in stuff.
Stuff the suitcase,
that’s enough!

Thank you for reading!
Kate J

Sources
Samsonite, 2024.Samsonite Our History. https://www.samsonite.co.uk/history/ Accessed 28 March.
Travel and Leisure, 2022. The Evolution of Luggage: A Timeline. https://www.travelandleisure.com/style/evolution-of-luggage Accessed 28 March, 2024.

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