The Lost Bag Scare | Cardiff
This is the story of how my brother and I carelessly left behind a backpack on a train in Cardiff. We then went on an epic adventure trying to recover the bag. It is also a cautious tale for anyone who is prone to losing their items. Recommendations on how not to loose your valuables can be found in the end.
Date: 17 Jan 2022
Location: Cardiff
Approximately 09:00 Raring to go
My brother and I wake up at our family friend’s house in Cardiff. We are excited and plan to do many things—The castle, the botanical garden—the possibilities seemed endless.
We get dropped off at a station close to our family friend’s house. ‘Call me if you need anything’ said our uncle as we headed off to the station.
We buy tickets to Cardiff Queen Street and wait for the train. It takes a while to arrive and soon the doors open and a conductor steps onto the platform.
We enter an empty carriage and settle down in our seats. My brother reached up to place the bag he brought up on the racks.
‘That’s probably not a good idea’ I said. ‘It’ll be fine’ he said. The conductor then came and asked for our tickets.
In no time, we arrived at Cardiff Queen Street and we got off the train. We descended a flight of stairs and got out of the station into Cardiff City.
Since I was a coffee person, I needed some coffee for the day. And so I picked one inside an arcade
I vividly remember the scene of my brother asking me to take a picture of him at the arcade and both of us oblivious to the missing bag that he usually would’ve handed to me.
The arcade where we took a picture. © Copyright Graham Hogg
I picked a cafe to have our coffee. My brother ordered a tea and we settled down in a chair. “Can you pass me the water bottle from the bag?” I asked him to which he responded, “What bag?”
10:00 Where is the bag?!
We rushed out of there cancelling our plans to try some of the pastries they had on sale. Instead, we made our way towards Cardiff Queen Street station where we had disembarked the train earlier that day.
Upon reaching there, we headed to the ticketing office where we spoke to an elderly lady. We explained our situation of how we had taken a train earlier that day and how we had left our luggage on one of the trains.
She didn’t seem overly optimistic that we would be able to find our bag. But regardless, she phoned someone to check the status of the train we had taken.
We were informed that the train we took was on its way back to where it came from and that we had to come back in an hour to find out whether our luggage was still on the train.
And so, having some hope left, we headed out of the station to wait out until the time quoted by the lady. I was intent on buying us both AirTags as it was not the first time something like this had happened.
Not long ago, my brother lost his wallet on the train (which was no doubt taken by a pickpocket). Only to be recovered a year later when a Good Samaritan found the wallet and endeavoured to return it to my brother.
It was clear to my analytical brain since this had happened too many times, I inferred that it was essential to get some sort of tracking device and since we both had iPhones, I settled on getting us an AirTag.
11:00 Buying AirTags
On our way to the Apple Store, we came across a church and my brother—the pious soul that he is—wanted us to go in to say a prayer. It was an airy and bright church situated in the middle of the city. We both spent about 10 minutes praying and then headed out.
A church in Cardiff. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Bill Lollar
After we bought the AirTags, we headed back to the station for some much needed good news. When we got back, the same lady was at the ticketing booth. We introduced ourselves again and asked her for the status of our bag.
After what seemed like forever during which she spent time making and receiving phone calls, she informed us that the station on the other side had confirmed that no bags were left on the train when it arrived at the station.
We walked out of the station a bit dejected. For whatever reason, I packed my Kindle I had owned for around 10 years and some camera equipment worth a good bit of money.
12:00 - 14:00 Exploring Cardiff
We settled down at a cafe where recapped how it had gone wrong. My brother was no doubt feeling just as disheartened as I was. I vowed to take on the responsibility of carrying a bag in our future travels and he decided to do better next time. He also offered to pay for all the gear that I had lost which was appreciated.
We then explored Cardiff with what little enthusiasm we had left. My brother, ever the fan of the English breakfast, led me down to a restaurant in a basement to have some English breakfast. We were pleasantly surprised by how delicious it was considering the price.
English breakfast for lunch
15:00 A glimmer of hope
On our way back, we decided to give it one last try. And so we reached Queen Street Station and went to the same ticketing office which was now manned by a younger male attendant. We explained our situation to him and told him what we had attempted with the lady previously.
“Have you checked with the station master?” he asked us. “No” we replied. And so he gave us some directions as to where we can find him.
The station master’s office was in a building on the side of a platform. We found the station master working on his computer. He was a tall well-built middle-aged gentleman. He was wearing the Transport for Wales uniform.
We got his attention and told him our story. Immediately he takes out his Nokia phone and dials someone and has a conversation for about a minute.
“How many zips did your bag have?” he asked us to which we responded three. “What colour is it?” he asked us to which we told him yellow and black. We even showed him a picture of the bag.
“Your bag is in Cardiff Central at the station master’s office on platform 8. Take a train from that platform and it’s the next stop.” The two of us were over the moon. My brother excitedly went to give him a handshake and dropped his phone and shattered his screen.
We then excitedly took a train to the next station and went the station master was expecting us. He asked us a similar set of questions before handing us our bag back.
Words can’t quite capture the feeling but I’ll attempt anyway. It was the most excited I have ever been to find a piece of item that I owned. We were both happy to have got our stuff back and most importantly, not have to feel like we had lost something.
The moral of the story is to keep your belongings safe and value them well for it may be taken away from you at any time.
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