One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Graham]

Yes, Anne Graham was Mike Barrett's wife, now widow. She said she became fascinated by the Maybrick Case, and the wrongful imprisonment of Florence - which is fair enough. She was a secretary, work-wise, and evidently a good typist, but this book she wrote in conjunction with Shirley Harrison, very much a published writer and investigator of some note. I agree that it is rather tempting to accuse Anne of conceiving and writing the Diary, but she always swore black and blue she only corrected the text at Mike's request, and typed it out on his word-processor. However, one thing the Diary Case has taught me is not to readily believe anyone, whether or not they swear black and blue about anything. It is also rather tempting to read 'something' into Anne's long silence concerning the entire sorry story.

Enjoy the book, c.d.!

Graham

[Abby Normal]

someday psychologists are going to use this as a classic case study for Reverse Stockholm Syndrome by proxy.

[rjpalmer]

She was a secretary, work-wise, and evidently a good typist, but this book she wrote in conjunction with Shirley Harrison, very much a published writer and investigator of some note.

You may wish to check your notes, Graham. Shirley Harrison was not the co-author of The Last Victim.

Perhaps the publisher thought it would be too disconcerting to have Anne, the scrap-metal dealer's missus, to suddenly arrive on the scene as a full-fledged competent writer, so they lent her Carol Emmas, in the same way that certain male romantic leads in Hollywood are sometimes lent a wife by the studios. But I'm a cynic.

[Graham]

A mere slip of the memory, no more than that - Carol Emmas often collaborated with Shirley Harrison, hence my mistake. I did read it when first published, but wasn't immensely impressed, have to say.

Graham

[rjpalmer]

A mere slip of the memory, no more than that - Carol Emmas often collaborated with Shirley Harrison, hence my mistake. I did read it when first published, but wasn't immensely impressed, have to say.

Graham

I think you still don't have it quite right, Graham. Wasn't Shirley Harrison's researcher and sometimes co-author Sally Evemy?

Harrison and Evemy are Londoners, are they not? Isn't Carol Emmas from Liverpool?

[Graham]

Listen mate, I'm getting on a bit, don't really take that much interest in JtR stuff any more, was simply replying to c.d.'s question as nobody else did, couldn't really give a toss who was Anne Graham's co-author or who Shirley Harrison's partner was as it's not really all that important, so please can the corrections if you don't mind. I don't know when Anne Graham's book was published - probably a good 20 years ago - and I read it when it first came out. OK? Good.

Graham

[rjpalmer]

Good to know you're not interested in accuracy, Graham. I won't trouble you again.

For those who might be interested, the Liverpool Echo of 6 February 1999 identifies Anne's co-author as a fellow student she met while pursuing a health studies degree at John Moores University. Emmas, they write, had a previous interest in Jack the Ripper.

So any suggestion that Emmas was brought in to make-up for Anne Graham's alleged writing deficiencies doesn't appear to be accurate (or at least as in doubt), which I think would be relevant in regards to C.D.'s original question.

[Iconoclast]

I don't think there is any secret that Anne Graham - privately-educated as she was - was a distinct trophy wife for the distinctly-understated Mike Barrett, nor that she had the education to write a decent yarn. If anyone wants to pinpoint Anne as the source of any mooted hoax scrapbook, then I'll be the first in the queue to hear what they have to say on the matter. Just as long as we don't have to endure any convoluted, thoroughly corrupted involvement from the lie-a-thon that was Mike Barrett's life.

[Abby Normal]

Listen mate, I'm getting on a bit, don't really take that much interest in JtR stuff any more, was simply replying to c.d.'s question as nobody else did, couldn't really give a toss who was Anne Graham's co-author or who Shirley Harrison's partner was as it's not really all that important, so please can the corrections if you don't mind. I don't know when Anne Graham's book was published - probably a good 20 years ago - and I read it when it first came out. OK? Good.

Graham

lol. so when your obviously wrong you respond with arrogance and i dont give a crap non chalance? lol.par for the course for the diary defenders.
you seemed so sure of yourself when you did us all a favor and responded to cd.

[Iconoclast]

lol. so when your obviously wrong you respond with arrogance and i dont give a crap non chalance? lol.par for the course for the diary defenders.
you seemed so sure of yourself when you did us all a favor and responded to cd.

Abby,

You have been on this Casebook and on the Maybrick threads for as long as I have - at least ten years - during which time Graham has posted largely en passant (as the A6 murders are his big thing). If you were paying even the slightest attention to his comments over that decade you would know that he is no 'diary defender', so please don't waive your gun around like that as it will cause the more easily-influenced to imagine you have bullets in the barrel.

Graham is not even an agnostic. He has stated many times over the years that he does not believe that the scrapbook was written by Jack the Ripper. He generally does it with good humour - such as the classic occasion when he imagined the author of this very thread as wearing a salt and pepper longcoat with wild hair flying behind him like a latterday Emmett Brown (an image which - personally - still makes me chuckle ten years after he made it).

He is to be rightly criticised for being an Aston Villa fan and I'm sure deep-down he knows that - their choice of taunting banners should never be forgotten by right-minded football fans (though for as long as they keep the team they taunted out of the relegation zone with wasteful defeats against ten-man teams, we can arguably look the other way) but he has never once been arrogant. I suspect that under normal circumstances he is not easily riled, so evidently something must have riled him. I don't think I good-naturedly and without any intended malice called him some fairly random character from a beloved 1960s TV series so I'm sensing it's not something I've said to which he has reacted so I'm feeling fairly smug, secured here in my sanctimony.

Personally, when I read his posts (above), I got the feeling that he was sick of the pedantic nit-picking of so many of us on this site - apparently seeking a triumphal though pretty meaningless point over actually making a argument. Ah - my own good sanctimonious self included, of course.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Just ordered the diary from amazon. Another book came up as well entitled "The Last Victim: The Extraordinary Life of Florence Maybrick" by Anne E. Graham. So is this Michael Barret's wife? If so, how does this square with the idea that the Mike and his wife were incapable of writing the diary when it seems that she is in fact a published author? Add to that that her book is about the wife of James Maybrick. Thoughts??????

c.d.

For clarity, cd, as this evidently has not been addressed to certain people's satisfaction, we must distance the capable Anne Barrett who did not publish anything and presumably did not ever think to, from the equally-capable Anne Graham (for she was the same person, of course) who used the platform of her involvement with James Maybrick's scrapbook to publish her and Carol Emmas' research into Florence Maybrick. I assume you have read the book in question so you will know that it is a competent piece of research without being necessarily game-changing. This shows us that Anne Graham who became Anne Barrett before becoming Anne Graham again is a well-educated, capable individual - whose ambitions were perhaps limited during her married life - who was able to seize a wonderful opportunity to research and then publish a piece of work which clearly was very close to her heart. We should not immediately be suspicious of this. I don't think anyone has ever accused Anne Graham of being a fool, nor do I think not being a fool immediately makes you a brilliant master-forger.

Ike

[Graham]

Personally, when I read his posts (above), I got the feeling that he was sick of the pedantic nit-picking of so many of us on this site - apparently seeking a triumphal though pretty meaningless point over actually making a argument. Ah - my own good sanctimonious self included, of course.

Ike, m'boy, I couldn't have put it better myself, but I was waiting to cool off a little before I made any response. I don't know who rjpalmer might be outside of his posting here, but if he wishes to correct me, or anyone else, on a small and frankly unimportant point from two decades ago, then there is a way to do it, and obviously a way not to do it. Simple as that. I was not being intentionally arrogant, merely intentionally slightly pissed off.

And thank you, Ikey, for stating my case, and I have to be dead honest - I also still have a little smile play across my lips when I read your posts and remind myself of my imagined description of you! I wasn't that far off, was I???

All the best, mate - and all the best to everyone who posts on this thread, as a lot of patience - which I sometimes slightly lack - is required to hold on to one's sanity.

Graham

[Iconoclast]

And thank you, Ikey, for stating my case, and I have to be dead honest - I also still have a little smile play across my lips when I read your posts and remind myself of my imagined description of you! I wasn't that far off, was I???
Graham

Indeed, a mirror's eye for detail you do possess, young man. Had you gone further and mentioned the twisted oak cane and the plus fours, I'd have positively wondered if you hadn't got my webcam to operate quietly and for your personal edification those many years past.

Most graciously yours,

Ike

[Graham]

Ike! Hey, it wasn't our innocent banter that got the site hacked, was it? Flippin' hope not! We're made of better stuff! Well, at least the Villa got a point yesterday, never mind that they were 2-1 up at one point. Rescuing a draw from the jaws of victory, you think? As for the Toon, laike, wha' can Ah seeya, mon? Leicestah? Do wha', laike? What's gannin on, laike? There's a tear in my eye as I write this, seriously....it's like the Villa getting stonked by Watford. No, it's worse than that.

Oh yes - just a quick message for all the experts who post on here. Lots and lots of stuff about celebrated Scouser Carol Emmas in Paul Feldman's splendid work 'Jack The Ripper - The Final Chapter', and there is even a picture of the lass in the pages of 'Ripper Diary - The Inside Story'. Which works I do hope have been read, enjoyed, and digested, by all on here. Or not. See? My memory's already returning...isn't it? What is?

Graham

[Iconoclast]

Hi Graham,

I've been following Newcastle since my first match on April 12, 1971 (appropriately, a dull 0-0 draw against Manchester City, Alan Foggon effort disallowed for offside, me knocked off the kid's wall in the last minute by a clearance from City's Tommy Booth that hit me square on the forehead - one might think it was a foretelling of the nightmare to come). I've never once in the half century that has more or less passed since then wanted the team to lose a game of football. Yesterday, I was disappointed it was just 5-0. I was hoping for at least 7-0 or even more. That's what My Cashley has done to our hopes and feelings for the club. Three relegations in 11 seasons are now looming, and - again - I wouldn't want it any other way. Like any Newcastle fans, I want only one outcome - the removal of that sneering leech from our club; and if heavy defeats and the threat of relegation (or the eventual fact of it) could help in any way towards that end, then that is a pain worth suffering for the longer-term future of the club.

But back to Jack the Milburn, I mean the Ripper. I too got myself a little mixed-up between Carol Emmas and Sally Evemy. I think it's easily done when you're out on the periphery of the issues as we are. Ultimately, it is of little consequence. The issue at hand is the Victorian scrapbook. It clearly (based on the evidence of all we have seen) could not have involved Mike Barrett, but it certainly could have involved Anne Graham. I don't think it did, but that's irrelevant of course. What is relevant is only that which can be proven or at least demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt. I think the argument could be made for Anne's involvement, though there isn't - to our knowledge - any back catalogue of her as writer or forger until the moment when the Victorian scrapbook reared its head so unexpectedly in 1992. And - of course - it could have been someone else who created the scrapbook. And that someone else - once you strip away the impossible - most certainly could include Wor Jacky himself. Once again, Ripper, I mean, not Milburn.

Mad, Fuming Ike