Travel: Liverpool to Hamburg

Stuart Sutcliffe had flown alone to Hamburg on 15 March 1961. While there he and his fiancee Astrid Kirchherr cleared some administrative paperwork to enable The Beatles to return to the city to perform.

The Beatles had left Hamburg under a cloud in late 1960 after George Harrison was deported for being underage, and Paul McCartney and Pete Best were arrested for alleged arson.

Sutcliffe and Kirchherr paved the way for the group’s longest Hamburg residency – 92 nights at the Top Ten Club – which began on 1 April 1961. But first there was the lengthy train and boat journey from Liverpool to Germany, which began on this day.