Robby Elson of Genesis writes about Postcards From The Boys:

'A lot of other people know more about my life than I do' writes Ringo Starr in Postcards From The Boys.

He may well be right. Many others' lifetimes have gone into chronicling those of The Beatles. Countless hours of research, analysis and debate have consumed amateur myth-makers and professional pedants alike. Such has been the Fab Four's impact on western society, the facts of their lives have become public property.

We know the big things: that they travelled to Rishikesh to meditate with the Maharishi, and that they played their last concert on the roof of the Apple building. And we know many of the small things too. For instance, that on Monday 14th October, 1968, Ringo flew to Sardinia for a two-week holiday.

But lives are more than a series of facts cemented together into a proper order. We know where Ringo went that Monday in 1968, but when he woke was he concerned about any significance people might later attach to his taking a break before the final mixing for The White Album was completed? Or was he wondering where he'd put his passport?

For all the factual breeze-blocks of the Beatles' lives we piece together, we only ever see the outside of the building. We rarely get to peek inside the rooms where John, Paul, George and Ringo played together, laughed, bickered and forged relationships stronger then mere friendships. In this book, Ringo opens 53 small windows into those rooms.

On the following pages are a selection of postcards sent to him by 'the boys.' Accompanying them are Ringo's comments; whatever thoughts and memories came to him as he thumbed through this collection. The well-known stories do not need to be re-told; as Ringo observes, 'it's in all the books.' Instead these little windows throw light in unexpected places.

There's the three sent by Paul between 27-31 January, 1969, while the band were finishing the troubled recording of Let It Be; one is a cryptic apology from 'Mr B Lumpy' while another, sent the day after the band's performance on the roof of Apple Studios states simply: 'You are the greatest drummer in the world. Really.'

There's news from the band's retreat in Rishikesh - Ringo had returned home early - that John and George had managed seven hours of meditation; Paul and his girlfriend of the time, Jane Asher, two and a half. And that the Maharishi was planning to build a new swimming pool.

Less than a month after the initiation of court proceedings to bring about a legal dissolution of The Beatles, on a card dated January 21, 1971, John has written simply and despondently, 'Who'd have thought it would come to this?' By the late Seventies, when Ringo's solo career was - in his words - 'turning to hell,' John is suggesting Blondie's 'Heart Of Glass' is 'the type of stuff y'all should do.'

One card, bearing just a cartoon and the legend, 'Hiya Toots', stirs Ringo's memories of a fireworks party he and John gave for their kids. Another prompts his recollection of that Monday morning in 1968: as the rest of the band settled down to mix The White Album, he simply decided he had had enough and flew to Sardinia to stay on Peter Sellers' yacht.

The postcards themselves range from the bizarre to the banal; from naked Hawaiian beauties to cats playing with balls and a photo of Scotland's Campbeltown high street. On them the correspondents have scribbled haikus, drawings, odd references to long-forgotten private jokes - should we, like Olivia Harrison, be looking forward to Ringo's elephant jokes? - and wishes of love and happiness for a good friend.

In fact, this is the most revealing aspect of these cards: that no matter what we might have read, no matter what we've been told and no matter how it sometimes might have appeared to the world at large, John, Paul, George and Ringo retained a familial bond throughout all and everything. They stayed friends, even if they couldn't stay as The Beatles.

As Ringo writes: 'It didn't matter what people's perceptions of us were, you can see from these cards that there's still a lot of contact, a lot of thought. The relationship never went away.'

RBE