Help! Worldwide hunt for old Ringo fan mail

A Beatles fan who bought 84 envelopes which once contained fan mail sent to Ringo Starr is attempting to the letters' original authors.

Joseph O'Donnell, from Tynemouth, bought the envelopes dated between 1965 and 1966 in an online auction in January.

They had been collected by Starr's former employee who had kept them for the international stamps, he said.

Mr O'Donnell has written to the return addresses listed on about 50 of the envelopes, which were sent from as far away as Brazil and Australia, in the hope of finding the original fan letters as well as any potential responses from the drummer.

Mr O'Donnell, who describes himself as a "huge Beatles fan", sent letters and return envelopes to about 50 addresses last week.

"The chances are if there are 50 of these return addresses, I'm going to get at least one letter back," he said.

Mr O'Donnell only has the envelopes and not the original fan letters they contained.

The envelopes had been collected by Starr's one-time employee Roger Hopkins.

"He was kind of the odd job man," Mr O'Donnell said.

Starr would have opened these letters and then given the envelopes to Mr Hopkins because he knew that his father collected international stamps, he said.

Mr O'Donnell had bought them from Mr Hopkins' wife who told him the story behind the envelopes.

One of the envelopes Mr O'Donnell bought was simply addressed to: "Mr Ringo Starr, Liverpool, England".

"The fact the letter still made it to his house in Weybridge in Surrey… I would love to ultimately be able to talk to a postmaster from the 60s," he said.

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