RANDOM AT LARGE

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32073, 22 August 1969, Page 16

RANDOM AT LARGE

PROGRESS

No traveller is so vastly experienced that he does not, at least on occasion, give anxious thought to the safe handling of his luggage. He has been taught the value of labels ever since the way his printed name was pinned to his shirt and he was off to kindergarten. He has been thoroughly instructed at primary and secondary school about the necessity of naming his possessions. And in adulthood, his first thought before going on holiday is given to printing his name and destination on labels which he ties in boy scout knots to his suitcases. He is especially careful when travelling by

sea or air for his luggage is then out of his sight for long periods. But even the best of intentions come to grief sometimes, and there are not many of us who have not at one time or another forgotten to label one piece or discover that the label is missing at one of the changing points. It is all part of the game. But the wonders of modern science are now taking all the fun out of it. As ever, •they have built a machine which can do better than man. At Heathrow Airport in London, there are 1000 lost suitcases, belonging to passengers who have flown abroad, and their owners cannot be-traced because

all the cases have lost their name tags. The tags were ripped off by a fault in the airport’s conveyer belt system. It is going to be very difficult sorting it all out, even when the owners write, probably in very peculiar forms of the English language, to ask that their possessions be sent on and offer items of identification within the cases. The purple socks of Mr Manuel Espedos may seem unmistakable to him, but when there are a thousand cases to search, perhaps, it is not going to be easy. It really was a triumph for British engineering. They took those thousand tags from those thousand cases all-in the one day.