It’s late August 1961. Rory Storm and the Hurricanes have come to the end of their summer season at Pwllheli. They were such a success that they have already been invited back next year.
Ringo loves to travel. The Hurricanes were promised tours on the Continent in the autumn, but somehow or other these failed to materialise. Ringo grows fidgety: now might be the time for a bold move, away from the group, away from Liverpool, away from Britain.
He has always been attracted to America, its large cars and country music and blues music and rock’n’roll and westerns. Why not live there? Inspired by Lightnin’ Hopkins, he opts for Houston, Texas. Accordingly, he walks into the American Consulate in the Cunard Building in Liverpool and picks up the immigration forms. It turns out he will need to prove that he has money and the promise of a job. Undaunted, he writes to the Houston Chamber of Commerce; in return, he receives a list of local employment agencies. After more to-ing and fro-ing he picks out a job in a factory, thinking he can switch to something else once he gets there.
He’s now all set, but what he later calls ‘the really big forms’ prove a stumbling block. The Americans want to know everything about his family, including their political affiliations. ‘Was your grandfather’s Great Dane a Commie?’ is his way of describing it. These extra forms get the better of him: he simply can’t face grappling with them, and eventually he calls it a day.
A few days later, Tony Sheridan asks him to join his backing band for a stint at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg. He doesn’t hesitate. He gives Rory Storm twenty-four hours’ notice, and sets off for Heathrow, a little nervous before boarding the aeroplane, as it’s the first time he has ever flown. But for one or two forms, he might well have been flying on a different plane, in the opposite direction.