Memorial: Ringo Starr and Brian Epstein
Immigration Australia
Arrived 14 June 1964
Sydney Airport 1958 {possibly}
We were puzzled by what seemed to be a second date but Wikipedia shows some examples of this Australian passport stamp and we think the 4 characters after "Sydney Airport" are not a date at all but are a code, possibly identifying the official who wielded the rubber stamp.
This seems to be a piece of stencil graffiti faithfully representing, albeit enlarged, a passport stamp, received on entry to Australia at Sydney Airport on 14 June 1964.
So who was entering Australia at this airport on this date? Ringo Starr and Brian Epstein, that's who. Three Beatles had arrived for their Australasian tour on 11 June 1964 but the previous week Ringo had been taken to hospital (in London we think) with tonsillitis and pharyngitis. He arrived in Sydney with Brian Epstein on the 14th. NSW MAAS provided all this information and no website named anyone else as an answer to this question. However, we can find no connection between Ringo and Brian and this location so we have no idea why this passport stamp has been placed in this very out the way spot in Islington.
Or perhaps it's nothing to do with the Beatles. But in that case, what is it about?
Site: Ringo Starr and Brian Epstein (1 memorial)
N1, Almeida Passage
This item is in a passageway so we've put two photos together to show both ends of Almeida Passage in one image. The western end is in Milner Square near the south-east corner, beside the blue "no cycling" sign, its dark entrance almost perfectly impersonating a front door in this very regimented square. The other end is at the west end of Almeida Street.
The stencilled image is high up at the Milner Square end, facing inwards, in the curved section of the wall above the entrance, above the child's head in our photo.
