Vote the Diary

[GUT]

G'day Pinkmoon

A lot of them anyway.

[MayBea]

...I suppose it remains possible the book could've been tucked away behind some obscure piece of panelling or something...but it does seem, (to me at least), rather less likely as time goes by...

Doesn't the Edith Formby provenance become the most likely? We do know the Diary was in the Grahams' hands and we have no better way to understand how the journal itself got there.

An unbiased, un-credited person named Albert Turnbull found this tip for Shirley Harrison, and it was corroborated by a letter Florence's mother wrote which said articles, allegedly including a diary, were stolen from Battlecrease during the Trial and put up for underground sale.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=5lDd...page&q&f=false

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=14290&page=6

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Maybea

I'm not trying to be mean, nor I hope in the least confrontational, but I'm afraid I don't see that the dimunition of one likelihood, automatically promotes another in it's place...my understanding, (as far as it goes, and please do correct me if I'm wrong), is that both are so far totally unproven propositions, and either would have to stand or fall on it's own strengths/weaknesses

All the best

Dave

[MayBea]

Thank you, Dave. That's very fair to all sides. That's all I'm looking for. Fairness.

Any proven provenance would not prove a thing anyway, unless it leads to the identification of a forger, or determines if he has to be old or modern.

Provenance also stalls the debate on legitimacy, which some like to think is over, and others think needs to wait for a proven provenance.

[GUT]

G'day MayBea

I actually think provenance is very important.

If it came from Mrs Graham and she is a descendant it supports the diary more than if it had been found on Liverpool Dump.

If it comes out of the house it adds some support to the diary, does it not?

Neither of the above sources prove it genuine but add support.

However both can not be correct.

To my mind the greatest weakness in the diary, outside of physical testing, are the contradictory accounts from those that should know where t came from.

[caz]

Of course, if you're looking for a forger who knows about ion migration and has a good recipe for baking diaries, not to mention a good ink recipe, look no further than an electrician with a tin of biscuits!

Good one, MayBea.

It's a wonder fake ripper diaries haven't become a cottage industry in Liverpool.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

They could talk their heads off if the diary was genuine and they were telling the truth.

I was clearly thinking of a different group of people than you.

In particular I was thinking of the family, sorry for the confusion.

But how could 'the family' (Barretts or Grahams) have known if the diary was genuine, regardless of how it eventually got into our Mike's paws? They could only know if it had been a modern fake, created with their knowledge or input, then given the unconvincing Devereux provenance.

Mike has talked his head off, but steadfastly rejects the 'in the family' and Battlecrease provenances, and was totally unable to support any of his bogus forgery claims back in the day. While he may know or suspect it came out of the Maybrick house, and may believe it is genuine, neither he nor Anne would have been in any position to know.

Love,

Caz
X

[Livia]

Doesn't the Edith Formby provenance become the most likely? We do know the Diary was in the Grahams' hands and we have no better way to understand how the journal itself got there.

An unbiased, un-credited person named Albert Turnbull found this tip for Shirley Harrison, and it was corroborated by a letter Florence's mother wrote which said articles, allegedly including a diary, were stolen from Battlecrease during the Trial and put up for underground sale.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=5lDd...page&q&f=false

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=14290&page=6

Hi MayBea,

Not the Graham's hands, the Barrett's.

Edith Formby was 14 years old at the time of the trial, Alice
Yapp was 28. Yapp left Liverpool for Shropshire immediately
after the trial. In 1891, she's living in Rosebery Square in
London. In 1892, her daughter, Marjorie Murrin is born in
London. She is living with Edward Murrin, whose first wife
is still alive. They marry in 1904, a few years after Murrin's
wife died. From 1901 through 1931, she lives at 63 Meridian
St South Hackney. There's no evidence that she ever returned
to Liverpool.

Unfortunately, Mr Turnbull does not give a source for his
information.

The other diaries were offered for sale to Stuart Cumberland
and were a set of three and were written by Florence covering
her girlhood, adolescence and married life.



Hi Dave,

Adamant Mr Dodd may have been about the floorboards
and nothing found beneath them, but then why did he
agree to let Paul Feldman broker a deal with Mike Barrett
for 5% of any profit Barrett made from the diary? Mr Dodd
must have put some degree of credence in the diary's
authenticity, otherwise why would a headmaster of a
local school allow himself to become embroiled in a hoax?

Liv

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Livia

Adamant Mr Dodd may have been about the floorboards and nothing found beneath them, but then why did he agree to let Paul Feldman broker a deal with Mike Barrett for 5% of any profit Barrett made from the diary? Mr Dodd
must have put some degree of credence in the diary's authenticity, otherwise why would a headmaster of a local school allow himself to become embroiled in a hoax?

Same reason anyone would have - to make a useful contribution to his retirement fund. If someone offers you a perfectly legal way to profit from something associated with your house, without perjuring yourself or your conscience, do you turn it down flat, or accept it with reservations?

I'd suggest it would take either very strong reasons or a very principled person indeed to do the former.

All the best

Dave

[GUT]

G'day Caz

Mike has talked his head off, but steadfastly rejects the 'in the family' and Battlecrease provenances, and was totally unable to support any of his bogus forgery claims back in the day. While he may know or suspect it came out of the Maybrick house, and may believe it is genuine, neither he nor Anne would have been in any position to know.

I said they could talk their heads off if they told the truth.

Clearly Mike hasn't always told the truth, "I forged it" "I didn't forge it" as just one example.

My post also needs to be read in context, it was in response to one that said they could not talk as the police were investigating, I was saying that they could talk all they wanted f they had been and continued to tell the truth.

[caz]

I said they could talk their heads off if they told the truth.

Hi GUT,

But that surely depends on what they know to be the truth, and whether it would have done them a bit of good to tell it. For example, if Anne and Mike both believed the diary could have been genuine, and therefore worth a small fortune, when they met with Doreen Montgomery in London, they'd have been idiots not to tell the truth, if it had innocently been passed down the family, in ignorance of its true significance. However, if Mike had got the thing from Christ knows where, they were never going to say so, for obvious reasons.

Clearly Mike hasn't always told the truth, "I forged it" "I didn't forge it" as just one example.

You don't say. Mike wouldn't know the truth from a bar of soap. When anyone starts a sentence with: "To be perfectly honest..." or ends it with: "...and that's the God's honest truth", I tend to get sore misgivings. (Yes, I've tried cream but it doesn't work.)

Love,

Caz
X

[MayBea]

My understanding of the Old Hoax Theory now is that the workmen gave Barrett the Diary just to get rid of it.

Is that correct or are you reserving your position on motivation until the record is set straight on provenance?

In the meantime, from the pictures you've painted, the only conceivable persons who would have given Michael B the Diary are his mother or his wife....

[Graham]

My understanding of the Old Hoax Theory now is that the workmen gave Barrett the Diary just to get rid of it.

Is that correct or are you reserving your position on motivation until the record is set straight on provenance?

In the meantime, from the pictures you've painted, the only conceivable persons who would have given Michael B the Diary are his mother or his wife....

Hi MB,

as I understand it (from Pinkmoon and possibly others) the men who worked at Battlecrease were boozing pals of Tony Devereux and it was to him they gave the Diary (if you accept the Battlecrease provenance theory, that is).
Why they should do so is unknown to me. It is a possibility (and only that) that Devereux himself hadn't got a clue what to do the the Diary either, and probably didn't care a toss about it. As Mike Barrett was also a sometime drinking companion of Devereux's, and had (possibly) some local reputation as a man of letters (Scouse-style, that is, as a result of his writing kids' stories), then Devereux handed the Diary to Barrett with probably a deep sigh of relief. Devereux's daughters were absolutely adamant that they had never seen the Diary in their father's house, nor had he ever referred to it.

As to the possibility of Mike's mother giving him the Diary, how could this be? And why? What had his mother to do with the Graham family, Battlecrease House, etc., etc?

Anne says she gave the Diary to Devereux to pass on, at her specific instruction, to Mike, but this to me has always sounded lame. As has her claim to have stored the Diary behind a cupboard for years and years. Why should she suddenly reveal it when she did? Feldman was never able to establish a family-tree which proved that Anne was descended from Florence Maybrick, and until someone can do what he was unable to, I can't accept that Anne was thus descended. Feldman went to great lengths, both financially and geographically, to try to establish this family link, and couldn't, even though he desperately wanted and needed to, because of his ambition to produce a movie based on Maybrick being the Ripper.

There is also a further possibility that the Diary could have been abstracted from Battlecrease at some time well in the past - it is on record that items were removed from Battlecrease during and after James Maybrick's last illness.

To be absolutely honest, unless Keith Skinner (or someone else) presents rock-solid 'proof' of a Battlecrease provenance for the Diary, I don't think we'll ever be able to establish its true origin. But I for one am prepared to accept that it was not produced in the late 1980's or early 1990's, but is much older. I always think, reference the modern hoax theory, of Melvyn Harris's well-known and now-hackneyed expression "a nest of forgers", to which he was never able to add names - with one exception, I believe, but even then he was unable to establish a definite link (and was probably lucky he didn't get sued). Caz knows much more than I about this particular aspect - she knows much more than I about the whole Diary business fullstop.

Anyway, what the hell.....

Graham

[pinkmoon]

Hi MB,

as I understand it (from Pinkmoon and possibly others) the men who worked at Battlecrease were boozing pals of Tony Devereux and it was to him they gave the Diary (if you accept the Battlecrease provenance theory, that is).
Why they should do so is unknown to me. It is a possibility (and only that) that Devereux himself hadn't got a clue what to do the the Diary either, and probably didn't care a toss about it. As Mike Barrett was also a sometime drinking companion of Devereux's, and had (possibly) some local reputation as a man of letters (Scouse-style, that is, as a result of his writing kids' stories), then Devereux handed the Diary to Barrett with probably a deep sigh of relief. Devereux's daughters were absolutely adamant that they had never seen the Diary in their father's house, nor had he ever referred to it.

As to the possibility of Mike's mother giving him the Diary, how could this be? And why? What had his mother to do with the Graham family, Battlecrease House, etc., etc?

Anne says she gave the Diary to Devereux to pass on, at her specific instruction, to Mike, but this to me has always sounded lame. As has her claim to have stored the Diary behind a cupboard for years and years. Why should she suddenly reveal it when she did? Feldman was never able to establish a family-tree which proved that Anne was descended from Florence Maybrick, and until someone can do what he was unable to, I can't accept that Anne was thus descended. Feldman went to great lengths, both financially and geographically, to try to establish this family link, and couldn't, even though he desperately wanted and needed to, because of his ambition to produce a movie based on Maybrick being the Ripper.

There is also a further possibility that the Diary could have been abstracted from Battlecrease at some time well in the past - it is on record that items were removed from Battlecrease during and after James Maybrick's last illness.

To be absolutely honest, unless Keith Skinner (or someone else) presents rock-solid 'proof' of a Battlecrease provenance for the Diary, I don't think we'll ever be able to establish its true origin. But I for one am prepared to accept that it was not produced in the late 1980's or early 1990's, but is much older. I always think, reference the modern hoax theory, of Melvyn Harris's well-known and now-hackneyed expression "a nest of forgers", to which he was never able to add names - with one exception, I believe, but even then he was unable to establish a definite link (and was probably lucky he didn't get sued). Caz knows much more than I about this particular aspect - she knows much more than I about the whole Diary business fullstop.

Anyway, what the hell.....

Graham

Hi Graham,having met Mr Barrett several times over the years I came to the conclusion that he had not been given the diary but he pinched it I have no proof to back this up its just the opinion I formed after talking to him.The only thing that can connect Mr Barrett to battlecrease is him drinking with the workmen also they is no way Mr Barrett could have forged the diary and nobody would be stupid enough to involve Mr Barrett in any deception because he is totally bonkers.

[Graham]

Hi Graham,having met Mr Barrett several times over the years I came to the conclusion that he had not been given the diary but he pinched it I have no proof to back this up its just the opinion I formed after talking to him.The only thing that can connect Mr Barrett to battlecrease is him drinking with the workmen also they is no way Mr Barrett could have forged the diary and nobody would be stupid enough to involve Mr Barrett in any deception because he is totally bonkers.

Hi PM,

I hear what you say, but if as you suggest Mike Barrett pinched the bloody Diary, then who did he pinch it from? The fact that the name of Tony Devereux features in this odd story is, to me at any rate, rather suggestive of some kind of "across a pub table" deal.

It's obvious that (1) he obtained it from somebody and (2) that he never wrote it himself.

Any ideas?

Graham