Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[David Orsam]

David,

I'm looking for quantification of your use of the word 'huge'. 'A lot' doesn't really help. Since you mention 'typing' skills as the sole requirement of a secretary, I'm assuming your experience of employing them stretches back to the days of the suffragettes.

Gary

Have you heard of sampling? If one extrapolates the sample of secretaries that I know personally - which I assume to be a random and reasonably representative sample - across the whole of the country then the number of secretaries that don't know the difference between "your" and "you're" must be absolutely massive.

And please do go ahead and tell us all about the actual requirements of a secretary in the early 1990s....

[David Orsam]

David,

The point is that you are so deliberately verbose that you are making it impossible for anyone to follow the 'discussion'.

So I was right then. You didn't understand it?

[GUT]

Post 7,457. Remember this one, it's a cracker, and you will be quizzed on it in the future. Just because you have reached post 999,334 and the topic has diverged to the meaning of life and everything, don't think you will be excused from not knowing that Anne once had a bad back.

The meaning of life and everything???

42

[rjpalmer]

HI KEITH. I couldn't help noticing that at the end of Paul Feldman's video, during the closing credits, thanks are given to Albert Johnson and Robert Johnson. (Sorry to lower the bar by mentioning Robbie again, but he seems to keep cropping up). Seeing that the Johnsons (plural) had previously brought their (plural) solicitor around to see Feldman, would it be safe to assume that Albert and Robbie's "cooperation" came with a contract attached to it? If not, why the solicitor? Should we add to the £3000 they (or he) already received from Robert Smith, another £3000 or so from Feldy? Can you offer any enlightenment on this point? You see, I am a little worried that Caroline Morris's constant claim that Albert Johnson, through his honesty, lost money on the watch has no actual source other than Johnson himself. As does her claim that the £30K deal with the Texas collector Robert Davis was cancelled by Albert, and not the other way round. But perhaps you can calm my doubts on these points? THANKS.

[rjpalmer]

Hi David. Regarding Albert Johnson's dubious and suspicious claim about "accidently" finding the faint "Maybrick" scratches in front of a live audience (sounds like a "staged" performance)... I did find one 1992 Antique Roadshow episode that mentions watches: March 8, 1992, filmed in Orkney, where some old gentleman was showing off a collection of antique watches. Now and then I like to throw the Diary Defenders a bone, knowing it will lead to another 15 years of idle speculation. Just think! March 8, 1992! It aired the night before Eddie Lyons may or may not have called in sick at the height of the Liverpool cold/flu season! (Which explains his mysteriously missing timesheet). And also the night Barrett decided to seek out a literary agent, bright and early, first thing in the morning! The mind boggles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsWJ-NfKgYM

The segment starts at 27:06.

[rjpalmer]

Regard the writing skills of a secretary.

Anne worked as a secretary, so unless she was considerably more literate than Mike was, bless him, I'm not sure how she'd have held down a job like that for long. It would have been pretty much a basic requirement, probably more so than for other lowly clerical posts such as filing clerks and office juniors. Martin Fido was surprised, if Anne helped forge the diary, that she allowed it to go out like that. But if she had written it out herself to Mike's dictation [as secretaries used to do when their boss dictated anything], it would have been down to her alone to make sure the spelling, punctuation and grammar [if not the handwriting!] was - WERE suitable for the purposes of forging the diary of James Maybrick. Did she not posses - POSSESS - a dictionary, for example? Did she not think to consult one?

The argument seems to be that Anne Graham was too skilled as a secretary to have written the Maybrick Diary.

But back in 2005, I raised the issue of whether the rather shoddy typescript of the Diary, delivered to the literary agents by Mike Barrett in 1992, was consistent with the work of a professional secretary, as claimed by the Diary Camp. You see, Harrison, Morris, Skinner, and Co. have always insisted that this typescript was created by Mike and Anne as part of the publishing agreement. I questioned this. The shoddy effort seemed more like a draft of the Diary taken off Barrett's word processor than the work of someone who types for a living. To which Caz Morris then responded:

"I don't know why you think that because Anne worked as a secretary and managed to get a book published she would not have made the kind of mistakes you have identified. The legal secretaries where I work are certainly capable of the most elementary blunders on occasion. Recently one of them kept typing 'visible' for 'feasible' and couldn't see why it was wrong even when it was pointed out to her! I have had quite lengthy conversations with Anne and Mike, and have read enough of their correspondence to have a good idea of their individual language usage and skills. Anne may be streets ahead of Mike, but she ain't all that. And don't forget, she had Carol Emmas to help write the book for her."

Caz Morris 31 May, 2005.

So which is it? Was Anne too skilled one moment, and not skilled enough the next? Or do her talents expand and contract depending on what argument Caroline Morris wishes to make at the moment?

[Sam Flynn]

I did find one 1992 Antique Roadshow episode that mentions watches: March 8, 1992, filmed in Orkney, where some old gentleman was showing off a collection of antique watches

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsWJ-NfKgYM

The segment starts at 27:06.

Excellent find, RJ, but it was a pretty manky and unimpressive collection, though. It must have been a dull day in the janitors' shed if the conversation turned to this.

[caz]

It was not until February 1997, four years after they had first been questioned about the watch, that Ron Murphy informed Harrison and Skinner that, when he was cleaning the watch after receiving it back from Dundas (in early 1992), he saw scratches which he then attempted to polish out. He then said "I tried to buff them out with jeweller's rouge". Note that he refers to himself here in the singular - so it wasn't "the Murphys" doing the polishing - although he also said "we tried to clean them" which makes it unclear as to whether he did the cleaning by himself or with his wife (or another person). But he certainly wasn't talking about cleaning which he had done in the 1980s. In fact, no mention was made about any cleaning having been done by Mr Stewart in the 1980s.

It's not even clear how Murphy managed to see the "barely visible" scratches and feel that they needed to be polished out. But is it supposed to be the case that his father-in-law had independently spotted the scratches too and had tried to polish them out in the 1980s?

It's a bit of a mystery why it was suggested to Dr. Wild that the watch surface had been polished several years prior to his examination. I presume the original source was Stewarts the jewellers, either from the Murphys or old Mr. Stewart, and Albert had to rely on whatever information they had given him and make sense of it. When he was told they had cleaned and polished the watch, did he perhaps assume this was when they claimed it had first come into old Mr. Stewart's possession, rather than in early 1992, when it finally dawned on them that it might make good business sense to sell the thing in their shop? It would hardly have been Albert's fault if he was told different things at different times about it, or he got the wrong end of the stick because the Murphys weren't clear enough.

Another oddity is that, according to Feldman, at the meeting in February 1997, "Mr Murphy also implied that it was the first time he had seen the watch since he sold it to Albert." Why did he imply such a thing bearing in mind that he said in his October 1993 statement that he was seeing the watch for the first time since he had sold it?

Yes, it's certainly a bit odd, isn't it? Furthermore, Feldman goes on to say that Albert took the watch back to Murphy on Robert Smith's recommendation, after showing it to him, with the original receipt, in early June 1993. Robert advised him to ask Murphy to add the date of the watch and its serial number to the receipt, which he duly did in his own handwriting, having confirmed the year by its hallmark. No date is given for this visit, and it's not clear if it was the first time Albert returned to the shop. But Mrs Murphy made a written statement for Robert Smith on 26th June 1993 to the effect that the watch sold to Albert had been 'in our family' for the last five years. On 28th July the watch was taken to be tested by Dr. Turgoose, who sent his report to Albert on 10th August.

In the September, Murphy told Martin Howells that the Johnsons had come back - he thought it was a few weeks previously - to ask several questions about the watch's history. He thought there was something wrong with it because they'd given him a guarantee. He said that at that point he didn't know why Albert wanted more than the basic hallmark information.

If one asks the question: cui bono? Who stood to benefit from a false claim that there were scratches on the watch prior to July 1992? The answer is very simple: Albert and Robbie Johnson.

But as David knows very well, the claim was from the Murphys, not the Johnsons. Albert never claimed to know anything about the condition of that surface prior to the day when he opened up the back to show his work mates and the light from the window revealed several scratch marks, which required a microscope to interpret the Maybrick/ripper engravings. Where is the evidence that the claim from the Murphys was false? What did they have to gain from a false claim to have noticed several scratch marks in that surface and tried to buff them out? They could have left it wide open and no harm done to themselves, the Johnsons or Dundas, by simply saying they never needed to look inside the watch so couldn't confirm or deny anything. Instead they were 'indignant' with Dundas and flatly contradicted him. Why were their loyalties not with him, as their watch repair man of choice?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

So, recently, I noted that it had been suggested in another thread that Feldman could have said to Eddie in early 1993: "Look, here's my daily work sheet for March 9th 1992, showing I helped out in Maybrick's old bedroom by lifting the floorboards first thing, and I know for a fact that Mike called an agency that same afternoon about the diary I seen and shown him down the Saddle that lunchtime. Check with the agency if you don't believe me. Now what's my confession worth?"

The moral of this story is that people who begin a post with the word 'So' are quite likely to make other faux pas, such as confusing Feldman with Eddie.

I commented that:

No need to go into that comment, except to observe that in July 1994, Anne was highly unlikely to have thought there was much danger of anyone being able and willing to contradict her 'in the family story' with a verifiable confession to having stolen the diary and passed it on to Mike in March/April 1992. This would have applied whether she and Mike had been forging the thing in March/April 1992, or whether all she knew was that he had brought it home in March/April 1992 and said no more about it. "Did you nick it, Mike?"

Even assuming Anne knew that Feldman had tried to broker a deal the previous year between a Battlecrease electrician, Paul Dodd and Mike, on the basis of the diary being found in the house back in 1989, she'd also have known how that had ended, with Mike having none of it and Feldy washing his hands of the electricians. What incentive would she imagine there'd have been by July 1994 for anyone to confess to theft, let alone demonstrate beyond doubt that they'd done this?

Bearing in mind that Paul Dodd was apparently offering an amnesty in 1993 for a 5% cut of proceeds, such an amnesty must also have been a possibility in 1994, which would have meant Eddie had nothing to worry about (if he had stolen the Diary) and could have spilt the beans.

Don't forget the 5% was for Dodd. What was Eddie's confession worth to Eddie? The only way he could have afforded to spill any real beans was if Feldman could guarantee he'd never have to set foot again in anyone else's property. An amnesty like that could only ever work once. A one off instance if ever there was one. Who in their right mind would employ an electrician, or even leave him alone in their house or business, if he produced sound evidence that he had stolen the diary while employed by Portus & Rhodes?

Unless Anne was psychic she could not have known whether such a thing would happen or not, Mind you, she would have done had she known that the Diary had been forged in her house during March/April 1993.

An awful lot more people would have had to be psychic if it wasn't forged until 1993.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The answer to almost everything at the moment is "Colin Rhodes said this" and "Colin Rhodes said that". Yet no evidence is ever provided and we have never been told what Colin Rhodes has actually said. Presumably he said something to Keith Skinner on 2 July 2004 but no note or record of any such interview has ever been produced. So Colin Rhodes appears to say whatever a particular Diary Defender wants him to say at any particular time.

Let's have a look at the latest claim about what Colin Rhodes said. We are told that Colin (and his son) observed that "Eddie appeared to have been at a loose end during the break in the Skelmersdale contract from Monday 9th to Thursday 12th March."

This is the first time that we have been told that Colin Rhodes has stated that Eddie Lyons "appeared to have been at a loose end" on 9th March. If he did say that I find it very strange that we were told in #1462 that Eddie Lyons, "could have just gone sick with a heavy cold for all I know."

If Colin Rhodes had confirmed in 2004 that Eddie Lyons was actually "at a loose end" how could it be speculated that he had gone sick with a heavy cold? Either he was possibly off sick or he was definitely at a loose end. Which is it? What did Colin Rhodes actually say?

Without having the daily work sheets from 1992 in front of them twelve years later, it was a case of Colin and his son Graham working from memory and the weekly time sheets for 7 Riversdale Road and Skelmersdale to try and help Keith ascertain what Eddie was doing, if anything, between Monday 9th March and the end of the Skelmersdale contract. Keith's purpose was to try and get Eddie eliminated from his enquiries, by establishing where he was during this period, but neither Colin nor Graham was able to tell him. So, as I said, it appeared to those present that he was at a loose end because he was not on the time sheets and it was considered unlikely that he'd have gone off on holiday in March. They didn't recall him going on the sick either, but that doesn't mean he wasn't at home in bed with the Night Nurse.

I can't think why David would consider it a crime to speculate, in the absence of any concrete evidence, that Eddie was too ill to have been lifting the floorboards at No. 7, or watching anyone else doing it, or acting as courier for the diary between Aigburth and Anfield. I'd have thought he'd be jumping for joy. There ain't no pleasing some people.

Further, if Colin Rhodes didn't like his men to be kicking their heels, what was Brian Rawes doing on 9th March 1992? What was Alan Davies doing on that day? What, indeed, was Graham Rhodes doing? What about the other Portus & Rhodes electricians? Were they ALL supposed to have been at Battlecrease? If not, why was only Eddie (and Jim) sent to Battlecrease?

Presumably they'd have got in Arthur Rigby's way if they'd all been sent there, but I don't see why one or two couldn't have been sent to help out for a couple of hours, given that no work was being done at Skelmersdale on either date.

The puzzle concerning Eddie was why he did not appear on the resumed Skelmersdale time sheets, unlike the two other main men, Graham Rhodes and Jim Bowling. Eddie had been on that job full time with Jim Bowling from December 1991 right up until 7th March 1992, and indeed had been taken on by Colin Rhodes at the end of November 1991 for that purpose. Neither Colin nor Graham could shed any light on the reason for his absence towards the end of the contract, which immediately followed the break when the Battlecrease floorboards had been lifted. We are none the wiser now, so it may or may not be of any significance. It's merely a question mark.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

"As for the point that the diary is not in Maybrick's handwriting, I don't recall ever doing any research into this issue or telling anyone anything about it. But, yes, of course the fact that the handwriting is not Maybrick's is important but we have been told that psychopaths or sociopaths or whatever can have multiple styles of handwriting. I don’t have sufficient knowledge of graphology to contradict such a statement and feel I have to accept it as true. That being so, the handwriting can hardly be the clincher that the Diary was not written by Maybrick."

Just as a point of interest, in April 1999, Mike was telling Keith and all those assembled for his interview at the Cloak & Dagger club [which included me - my first ever meeting] that the reason the diary handwriting does not resemble Anne's was not because she was able to disguise it so effectively, but because she suffered from multiple personality disorder. Mind you, this was on the same occasion when he lifted his whisky glass and said dramatically that if he added sugar to it, it would no longer be a glass of whisky, but a glass of whisky with a considerable amount of sugar in it. He was becoming frustrated because Keith couldn't seem to grasp the simple concept of adding sugar to the diary ink to mess with its molecules and was asking Mike to explain further.

"A forensic document examiner might be able to analyse handwritten text or signatures to see if someone has been attempting to mimic someone else's handwriting (due to hesitancy in pen strokes), although the fact of the matter is that this is very difficult to do and forgeries of signatures cannot always be detected by any means, but to assume that such an examiner is able to tell whether handwriting on a document has been disguised is almost certainly a false assumption."

Well I bow to David's superior knowledge on the subject, although I did think it should at least have been possible for such an examiner to identify points of similarity between Anne's usual handwriting and the diary, if she was the scribe, even if she'd had the skill to disguise it extremely well over 63 pages, with or without the opportunity to practise beforehand with a suitable pen and ink on a comparable surface. The paper in the guardbook wasn't ideal for writing on as it wasn't made for that purpose, so might that not also have presented anyone with a challenge who was not thoroughly at home with that method of writing, even when using proper writing paper?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi David. Regarding Albert Johnson's dubious and suspicious claim about "accidently" finding the faint "Maybrick" scratches in front of a live audience (sounds like a "staged" performance)... I did find one 1992 Antique Roadshow episode that mentions watches: March 8, 1992, filmed in Orkney, where some old gentleman was showing off a collection of antique watches. Now and then I like to throw the Diary Defenders a bone, knowing it will lead to another 15 years of idle speculation. Just think! March 8, 1992! It aired the night before Eddie Lyons may or may not have called in sick at the height of the Liverpool cold/flu season! (Which explains his mysteriously missing timesheet). And also the night Barrett decided to seek out a literary agent, bright and early, first thing in the morning! The mind boggles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsWJ-NfKgYM

The segment starts at 27:06.

I can't see the relevance, rj, if nothing was discussed on that particular episode about Victorian 18 carat gold.

Or was it just another opportunity to snipe?

Have yourself a warm and cuddly afternoon.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Regard the writing skills of a secretary.

The argument seems to be that Anne Graham was too skilled as a secretary to have written the Maybrick Diary.

Not quite, rj. Others have been suggesting she wrote it out to Mike's dictation. This wouldn't have been like anything she'd ever been given to type up for the boss at work, would it? For starters there'd have been no boss to check it over and get her to correct her mistakes before signing it off. It was Martin Fido who expressed surprise that Anne would have let what he considered such a poor example of written work go out. She'd have been on her own, so again I have to ask why she would not at the very least have consulted a dictionary, if she thought good spelling was important to making the project a success. That would have been the case regardless of her basic literacy skills as a secretary at work.

But back in 2005, I raised the issue of whether the rather shoddy typescript of the Diary, delivered to the literary agents by Mike Barrett in 1992, was consistent with the work of a professional secretary, as claimed by the Diary Camp. You see, Harrison, Morris, Skinner, and Co. have always insisted that this typescript was created by Mike and Anne as part of the publishing agreement. I questioned this. The shoddy effort seemed more like a draft of the Diary taken off Barrett's word processor than the work of someone who types for a living. To which Caz Morris then responded:

"I don't know why you think that because Anne worked as a secretary and managed to get a book published she would not have made the kind of mistakes you have identified. The legal secretaries where I work are certainly capable of the most elementary blunders on occasion. Recently one of them kept typing 'visible' for 'feasible' and couldn't see why it was wrong even when it was pointed out to her! I have had quite lengthy conversations with Anne and Mike, and have read enough of their correspondence to have a good idea of their individual language usage and skills. Anne may be streets ahead of Mike, but she ain't all that. And don't forget, she had Carol Emmas to help write the book for her."

What's not to understand about Anne being 'streets ahead of Mike', but still susceptible to making mistakes in her written work, as we all are, you and I being no exceptions? I'm not sure what argument you think you are making here, rj, because being capable of some 'elementary blunders on occasion', as I imagine Anne would have been, is one thing; being incapable of anything other than elementary blunders on every occasion, as Mike appears to have been when it came to writing anything at all, is another.

Your argument was that the 'rather shoddy typescript' of the diary seemed more like a draft taken off the word processor than the work of a professional secretary. But what does that mean in practice? That you think Mike created the shoddy draft on the word processor and Anne meekly went along with his effort and had no input - not even doing her usual 'tidying up' on this most important of occasions? I apologise if I have misunderstood what you are saying here.

The 'shoddy' typescript delivered to Doreen in 1992 had to reflect what was handwritten into the guardbook, regardless of which came first. My own opinion, of course, is that Anne merely typed up what was already in the diary, shoddy or otherwise, in which case she could have done sod all about the quality of the writing. If this had been Mike's original draft, which he finally dictated to her to write into the guardbook, as soon as he acquired it from the O&L auction, I dare say it would have looked an absolute shambles from start to finish, and would have involved a complete redraft by Anne herself, long before dipping pen into ink and putting ink to scrapbook quality paper.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I never intended it to be anything other than my own private notes on what transpired to be a truly atrociously-written piece of text, Caz (I was surprised at how bad it was, in fact). Howard asked me if he could upload my "Annotated Diary" on his site, and I was pleased to let him do so, but it was never intended to be a structured critique in the form of, say, a dissertation.

Rough as they are, however, I think my notes are still useful in highlighting just how many clunkers there are in the diary... for whatever reason. I'd still maintain that the most likely explanation is that the hoaxer(s) wasn't/weren't particularly well-educated.

It's one explanation, Gareth. But then, whoever authored the diary, for whatever purpose, and made no attempt to make the handwriting resemble the real JM's, need not have been in the premier league of cunning linguists.

We still don't really know what literacy/language skills the real JM managed to acquire before leaving school in the early 1850s, and what kind of 'clunkers' we might have seen in his personal diary. Nor do we know if the 'clunkers' were all entirely unintentional and accidental, or put there by the hoaxer deliberately, as part of a plan to pull the Maybricks down. If just one of them could have been included by design, as with the Lusk letter, any argument about the writer's supposed education is going to remain subjective at best.

The difficulty here is maintaining any sense of objectivity once you have decided that a Barrett was most likely involved in the creative process, and was trying to do their best with limited 'tools' for the job of passing their own work off as that of JM. Are the 'clunkers' being used to support the Barrett forgery theory, or are the Barretts being used to support a theory about what the 'clunkers' are doing there?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

David,

Just how many secretaries have you known who didn't know the difference between 'your' and you're'? No doubt you interrogated a vast number of them rigorously to make sure they wouldn't have inadvertently misspelt the word. 'Huge' suggests, maybe, hundreds ... thousands... millions...?

You're eager public awaits clarification.

Tina from the tiping poole

Hi Gary,

I suspect David knows the wrong type of secretary.

I don't know about anyone else, but if I had to constantly correct the typing of a secretary working for me, I think I'd soon be looking for a new one.

Obviously no secretary is perfect, or their boss would sign off everything without bothering to check it first.

But what's truly hilarious is the idea that there wasn't much to choose between Anne and Mike, or that she didn't need to have considerably better literacy skills than him in order to work as a secretary. So the question for David would be what he imagines would have happened if Anne or her boss had been unwise enough to allow Mike to stand in for her one afternoon while she had her hair done, went shopping or had a late lunch with her girlfriends.

Love,

Caz
X