Help! Worldwide hunt for old Ringo fan mail

Joseph O'Donnell bought the envelopes that once contained Ringo Starr's fan mail in January

A Beatles fan who bought 84 envelopes which once contained fan mail sent to Ringo Starr is attempting to contact 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.

A number of the envelopes included return addresses, said Mr O'Donnell

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 letter was simply addressed to Starr in 'Liverpool, England'

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.

"Was there a pile in every Post Office that was for the Beatles?"

Starr was "notorious" for responding to fan mail, said Mr O'Donnell

Another pair of envelopes, both from Glasgow, appear to have been sent from friends who lived just one street apart.

One had written in the envelope "please give to Paul", while the other had written "please give to John".

The letters were all sent around the time the Beatles had just become big in the US.

"Ringo was notorious for answering all his fan mail," said Mr O'Donnell.

An episode of The Simpsons even parodied this reputation in 1991.

"I think because it's just an envelope, people say to me 'Why is this interesting?' but there's a chance for those letters to come back and almost fill the space," the collector said.