Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[jmenges]

Ike -- you really ought to take 58 minutes out of your life and listen to the podcast of Mike Barrett on Radio Merseyside on 13th and 20th of September 1995.

This is a rehabilitated Barrett, now on the wagon, once again a Diary believer, who is trying to "walk back" his confessions, and doing a miserable job of it. The interviewer catches him in lie after lie.

Barrett first claims that the only time he ever confessed was to Harold Brough, following a binge with two bottles of scotch. It was just drunk-talk. But when the interviewer brings up a certain signed affidavit where Barrett also confessed, Mike denies its very existence. Pressed further, Mike then claims this affidavit only had to do with his ex-wife's provenance story and his need to see any appropriate documentation. This gibberish makes no sense whatsoever, obviously, so the interviewer presses him even further, and mentions the significant date of January 5th. Mike now knows he is "caught out"--the interviewer has seen the confession affidavit!---so Mike changes his explanation yet again, claiming that he signed a paper that he didn't even read. Mike even suggests the confession was doctored and changed from the one he had signed (!), which, of course, would implicate his own lawyer, whom he had previously lavished with praise.

Roger – I just want to try and clarify in my own mind your interpretation of Mike Barrett’s Radio Merseyside interviews on September 13^th and September 20^th 1995. As you know these come 9 months after Mike’s Sworn Affidavit of January 5^th 1995 and 2 to 3 months after the day in July 1995 when he came up from Liverpool to Paul Feldman’s office in London order to put an end to the Diary once and for all. I was present along with Martin Howells. Mike did not think to bring with him the O&L auction ticket which four years later, in April 1999, he brought with him to the C&D meeting in London to have another go at putting an end to the Diary once and for all – but failed to produce. Common to the January 1995 Affidavit and the July 1995 meeting and the April 1999 C&D meeting is Mike’s determination to destroy both the Diary and Paul Feldman who he blames for everything that has gone wrong in his life since the beginning of 1993. Added to which Feldman is now working with Mike’s wife, from whom he is separated, to find the evidence to support Anne’s story the Diary has come through her family. In Mike’s mind this means the one person he holds most dear, his daughter – and whom he has now lost (because of Feldman) is tainted with being descended from Florence Maybrick and therefore carries the stigma of being related to Jack The Ripper. Thus, Mike and Anne have jointly created a hoax which has taken on a life of its own and like Frankenstein’s monster (I believe Mike actually says that during the interview) has to be destroyed for the sake of his daughter. So against that highly charged and emotional background – complicated by KS syndrome – in the Autumn of 1995, Mike decides the best way to destroy both the Diary and Feldman is to have faith in the Diary he and Anne have jointly created and put out an appeal that everybody should be working together. But it doesn’t seem to be deep concern over his daughter that propels him into action and sparks off the series of Liverpool Radio Merseyside interviews but rather the dismissal of the Diary as a hoax which two authors have just claimed whilst promoting their newly published book on Radio Merseyside. The very thing which Mike wanted to hear and indeed most people believed anyway about the Diary being a fraud, (and by extension therefore no stain on his daughter) has incensed him. So it is a bit of a peculiar interview Mike gives, but I’m sure you will be able to rationalise it allowing you find the emotional context to be of any relevance.

However – are you saying these two Radio Merseyside interviews of Mike Barrett should be listened to from the perspective of Mike’s January 1995 Sworn Affidavit being true, (along with his earlier confession to Harold Brough in June 1994) and that he is now trying “walk back” his confessions because he had decided to become a Diary believer? In other words because it is so full of gibberish and contradictions and contains nothing of value, it should be ignored?

Incidentally, do you know for certain that the Solicitor, in front of whom Mike made his Affidavit, was his own Solicitor – or might it have been a different Firm he went to – presumably with Alan Gray?

KS

[Iconoclast]

Ike -- you really ought to take 58 minutes out of your life and listen to the podcast of Mike Barrett on Radio Merseyside on 13th and 20th of September 1995.

I think you do me a disservice, Roger. I'm confident (though not certain) that I myself pointed our readers to this series of broadcasts in one of the active Maybrick threads just a matter of a few weeks ago (I don't recall which), though I may be confusing myself with my latest updates to Society's Pillar in which I write [p95]:

Rather critically, Barrett took part in a Radio Merseyside broadcast (aired on September 13 and 20, 1995) during which he very soberly, articulately, and even rather self-effacingly deconstructed the hoax confession he had made over a year earlier [42]. Those who persist in clinging to Barrett’s alcohol-induced confession that he created the Maybrick scrapbook – if sincere – need to qualify his inability to provide a cogent account of how he created the hoax along with his later sober rejection of it.

In terms of context, would anyone in all seriousness tout a drunken confession to anything as having greater validity than a sober reaffirmation of what drink rejected unless one is psychologically drawn towards the former over the latter? At best, one might strip out the alcohol and argue that the two claims simply cancel one another out; but to continue to give credence to the confession over the rejection of the confession simply points the finger at the commentator and begs the question of what could possibly motivate them to cling so desperately to that which was so rapidly and enduringly disavowed?

This is a rehabilitated Barrett, now on the wagon, once again a Diary believer, who is trying to "walk back" his confessions, and doing a miserable job of it. The interviewer catches him in lie after lie.

Catching Mike Barrett in a lie was not unique to any given period of time post the breakdown of his marriage. It seems that for as long as he managed to grasp any opportunity to stay in the limelight, he fell prey to his own weak ego, independent of what that day's version of 'the truth' happened to be.

Barrett first claims that the only time he ever confessed was to Harold Brough, following a binge with two bottles of scotch. It was just drunk-talk. But when the interviewer brings up a certain signed affidavit where Barrett also confessed, Mike denies its very existence. Pressed further, Mike then claims this affidavit only had to do with his ex-wife's provenance story and his need to see any appropriate documentation. This gibberish makes no sense whatsoever, obviously, so the interviewer presses him even further, and mentions the significant date of January 5th. Mike now knows he is "caught out"--the interviewer has seen the confession affidavit!---so Mike changes his explanation yet again, claiming that he signed a paper that he didn't even read. Mike even suggests the confession was doctored and changed from the one he had signed (!), which, of course, would implicate his own lawyer, whom he had previously lavished with praise.

What you and Keith seem to be insinuating is that Barrett only told wild porkies when he was in 'confessional' mode. Such is not the case. Here is Barrett, diary believer, sober, "playing nice" with Robert Smith and Doreen Montgomery, caught in a long string of verifiable horse-pucky.

I can only take from this that you are implying that Mike's retraction of his 'honest' confession was insincere because of the 'lies' you feel he was peddling when retracting his confession in a radio interview. We are all welcome to take Barrett's post-1994 comments with a very large pinch of salt. That includes his retraction, of course, but I keep raising this as a reminder to all that "the forger confessed" was only a - relatively brief - part of Walter Mitty's long autobiography which he started at some point in 1994.

And as for your suggestion that Mike would be the greatest actor in the world to pull this off...uh, listen for yourself. Messrs. Olivier, Branagh, Brando, and Day-Lewis have very little to fear!!

No, you are quite right, and I'm really surprised to see that you failed completely to see the irony of my suggestion in the first place. Of course Mike Barrett wasn't the greatest actor of all time. He didn't need to be between 1992 and 1994 (when his consistent story started to break down) because neither was he the greatest forger of all time. He was telling the truth between 1992 and 1994, and then his faculties started to fail him and his 'truth' became whatever he thought he would like to say in the moment he said it. Before then, he was not an actor, nor a forger. He certainly became an actor on a stage after 1994's meltdown, but never once a forger, never mind the greatest of all time.

[Spider]

PS. As for Anne Graham, it was reported in Ripper Diary that she has washed he hands of the affair. Further, you hinted on these boards back in 2006 or so that she held "Ripperologists" in contempt. Yet, more relevant than any of this, it was recently reported that Shirley Harrison tried to touch base with Anne a year or two ago, and as soon as the Diary was brought up, the call was quickly terminated. Your friend James J. to me, in a post on these boards, that he had no luck in contacting Anne. So I don't hold out much hop on that score. But I'll tell you what. I plan on being in the UK in 2021. If you're still around and interested, how about if you, I, James, Lord Orsam, Caz, and Ike, etc., hoist a glass of ale (or mineral water) down the boozer and invited Anne to accompany us and put this thing to bed once and for all? In the words of the great Yogi Berra, these conversations tend to be like "déjà vu all over again," and wouldn't it be nice to find some resolution?

I've often said that Anne could totally rid us of the smoke and mirrors regarding the origins of the 'Journal'. How nice it would be to finally get some clarity once and for all! The only problem is would she now be believed?
100% genuine article for me all day long

[Herlock Sholmes]

Out of curiosity did their daughter ever comment on the subject?

[jmenges]

Out of curiosity did their daughter ever comment on the subject?

Keith Skinner responds:

Paul Feldman, in his book, talks about going up to Liverpool at the beginning of 1993 when he became involved in the Diary project.
He took with him Paul Begg and Martin Howells and claims that Paul and Martin relentlessly interrogated daughter Caroline when they were all going out to lunch – Mike and Anne in a taxi – both Pauls, Martin and Caroline in a separate car - as Caroline wanted to
ride in Paul’s smart car! I spoke with Martin (Howells) about this episode a few years ago and he said it was utter bullshit what Paul had written. His recollection was that Caroline had very little to offer and he had come away feeling very flat and disappointed from
their visit to Liverpool to meet with the Barrett family. My understanding is this was a very traumatic and painful time for Caroline because of the rows between her parents, the domestic upheaval created by the Diary and eventual separation of her parents.

A gentleman I sat next to at the 2017 Liverpool Conference told me he knew Caroline’s teacher at the time (circa 1992-1995) and how much it had affected Caroline at school. Could be all rubbish and pretence of course but she and her mother never did return to the family home after Anne walked out at the beginning of 1994 – and I sometimes wonder if Mike and Anne did create the Diary, was
their daughter an innocent casualty of their duplicity?

KS

[Iconoclast]

I've often said that Anne could totally rid us of the smoke and mirrors regarding the origins of the 'Journal'. How nice it would be to finally get some clarity once and for all! The only problem is would she now be believed?
100% genuine article for me all day long

Agreed Spider, and agreed entirely that she would not be believed regardless of whatever she said, which is actually quite fair I guess because we can't have it both ways (we don't believe Mike, so we shouldn't believe Anne or anyone else for that matter unless they can produce evidence to support whatever claims they made or will make).

I don't know what evidence Anne could produce to prove the scrapbook is genuine so all we can probably hope for is that she produces the evidence that proves it is a hoax, but I don't believe that she can (because - like you - I don't believe it is a hoax) so I think we are all going to be left in limbo forever.

Still, I'm 99.9999% certain it is the real deal (slightly short of your certainty but perhaps not by a meaningful amount :-)) so I'm pretty cool with limbo.

Trust you're well, young man.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Keith Skinner responds:A gentleman I sat next to at the 2017 Liverpool Conference told me he knew Caroline’s teacher at the time (circa 1992-1995) and how much it had affected Caroline at school. Could be all rubbish and pretence of course but she and her mother never did return to the family home after Anne walked out at the beginning of 1994 – and I sometimes wonder if Mike and Anne did create the Diary, was
their daughter an innocent casualty of their duplicity?
KS

Hi Keith,

Here's something that I have always struggled with. There doesn't seem to be any doubt that Caroline was the apple of Mike and Anne's eyes, and quite rightly so, and yet we are to believe that her parents committed fraud whilst she was present (Mike claimed that Caroline was on occasion witness to the hoax being created, if my memory doesn't fail me). This just doesn't ring true to me in any way - that they would gamble their beloved daughter's future happiness for the sake of the King's shilling. They were financially stretched, but we have to believe that - unlike millions of couples who struggle with money - they were willing to get out of their pecuniary challenges by committing a serious crime, a felony which would land at least one of them (possibly both of them) in gaol if they got it wrong in any way. What sort of future would young Caroline have had in that event?

It is for simple, human reasons such as this that the Barretts-as-Master-Forgers theory is so implausible. There are other reasons why that theory fails, but perhaps the simple human one is the most compelling?

Cheers,

Ike "Tears in his Eyes" Iconoclast

[rjpalmer]

I just want to try and clarify in my own mind your interpretation of Mike Barrett’s Radio Merseyside interviews on September 13^th and September 20^th 1995. As you know these come 9 months after Mike’s Sworn Affidavit of January 5^th 1995 and 2 to 3 months after the day in July 1995 when he came up from Liverpool to Paul Feldman’s office in London order to put an end to the Diary once and for all. I was present along with Martin Howells.

Hi Keith. Yes. Exactly. Barrett made repeated claims of having hoaxed the diary, beginning in June 1994, and continuing up through July 1995.

But--and this was my main point-- was that the impression that Mike Barrett was trying to leave with the Radio Merseyside listeners and with his interviewer Bob Azurdia?

Hardly. Barrett was trying to falsely assert that his confession was a brief, "one off" statement to Harold Brough, made after a session of binge drinking. I quote from the interview.

BA: Yes, but you had signed a statement to the effect that it was a hoax, not necessarily by you yourself.

MB: It was a Daily Post statement.

BA: Indeed--

MB: And that was the only statement I've ever signed. Only to the Daily Post. No others whatsoever.

So yes, this is Barrett falsely "walking back" what was, in reality, a long string of confessions. He doesn't mention his taped efforts with Alan Gray. He doesn't mention the affidavits of Jan 5^th and Jan 25^th 1995. He doesn't mention your meeting with him in July. He doesn't mention his scribbled notes to Anne Graham. He is trying to leave the impression that there was only one brief confesssion: to Brough, made while drunk. He is being evasive and dismissive. There is no other way of interpreting it.

Here he is again

BA: But is it not the case that on the 5th of January this year you signed a statement, you actually signed a statement in the solicitor's office in Dale Street in Liverpool to the effect that your wife, Anne, had physically written the diaries, you provided the information for her to write and the two of you together with Tony Devereux had conspired the whole thing?

MB: No, that is totally incorrect whatsoever.

But of course, this ISN'T "incorrect." It is precisely what Barrett did do.

Here it is a third time:

BA: Well now, you did say earlier on that you had not signed any other affidavits at all or any other -

MB: The only affidavit I did sign which I think this is where the misconception is, arose, is that I had, I made an affidavit saying that I do not and will not believe Anne's statement until is explained and I had the evidence in front of me.

As for Mike's original rationale for confessing, you write:

In Mike's mind this means the one person he holds most dear, his daughter and whom he has now lost (because of Feldman) is tainted with being descended from Florence Maybrick and therefore carries the stigma of being related to Jack The Ripper. Thus, Mike and Anne have jointly created a hoax which has taken on a life of its own and like Frankenstein's monster (I believe Mike actually says that during the interview) has to be destroyed for the sake of his daughter

Yes, that's Mike's alleged rationale. But Keith, are you suggesting that in June 1994, when Barrett first began confessing (to Brough) that Feldman had already formulated the theory that Anne Graham was related to Jack the Ripper, and Mike Barrett knew about it? Or is the chronology of Mike's rationale entirely wrong? It has always been asserted that Anne Graham only came forward and began working with Feldman after Mike's June 1994 confession in the Liverpool Post. Does this not make Mike's excuse of "I confessed because they said my daughter was related to Jack the Ripper" an obvious anachronism?

Further, it is obvious that the interviewer Bob Azurdia doesn't find Mike's explanation credible. How could a father spare his daughter social embarrassment by falsely confessing to a crime in a statement that would be splattered all over the evening newspapers? The poor kid would be mortified. Is it better to have the world think of her parents as hoaxers, or that her great granddaddy may have been Jack the Ripper?

Anyway, Barrett completely undermines his own rationale by stating several times that he doesn't and won't believe Anne's claims, or Feldman's genealogical evidence, unless it is staring him in the face.

MB: "We have asked for Mr. Paul Feldman, who produced the video, to produce the appropriate documents that he has fit and he has not seen fit to produce them to Shirley Harrison or I or Doreen Montgomery or Robert Smith."
Or, as already quoted earlier:
MB: I made an affidavit saying that I do not and will not believe Anne's statement until it is explained and I had the evidence in front of me.

Mike's now wants us to believe that he falsely confessed to a fraud in order to protect his daughter from an unsupported claim that he, himself, does not believe and won't believe unless the evidence is produced?
How does that one work?

No, I'm sorry Keith. I believe that Mike's stream-of-conscious patter is merely an attempt to "walk back" a SERIES of confessions he had made over a period of nearly a year, and it is obvious that he is being evasive throughout.

But it doesn't seem to be deep concern over his daughter that propels him into action and sparks off the series of Liverpool Radio Merseyside interviews but rather the dismissal of the Diary as a hoax which two authors have just claimed whilst promoting their newly published book on Radio Merseyside. The very thing which Mike wanted to hear and indeed most people believed anyway about the Diary being a fraud

Mike may have enjoyed hearing this back in June 1994, but he clearly doesn't enjoy hearing it here in September 1995 ; for, once again, Mike is donning the jacket of a "true believer".

Why? Is it because of the Evans and Gainey interview? Possibly, but I think Mike reveals a more credible explanation in the course of the interview:

BA: Do you feel that [the Diary] is going to take any more turns at all or will your book be republished yet again?

MB: Oh I should imagine it will be republished because there is talk now of a movie.

BA: Still?

MB: Oh yes, still talk of a movie, yes.

BA: Because surely the feeling was that it was discredited by that story of yours in the Daily Post?

MB: Well if it was discredited then how come just less than a few weeks ago New Line Cinemas stepped in and are offering quite a considerable sum of money to be involved?

BA: In the last couple of months?

MB: It's been negotiated for the last 18 months and that was well before, that was well after the Daily Post, well after the Daily Post, they said they're very, very, interested in making a movie. They're talking about Sir Anthony Hopkins playing the part of James Maybrick.

The way I read this is that Barrett, with the help of Gray, and with the motivation of "getting even" with Smith and Feldman, attempted to sell a true confession of the Maybrick Diary toward the end of 1994. Gray failed to get any publishers or newspapers interested, and, at any rate, his relationship with Barrett completely soured over the following weeks and months.

Meanwhile, Barrett, to his credit, sobers up. Now far more restrained and coherent, Barrett has come to his senses and realizes that his confession has brought his future royalties in jeopardy, with no hope of any other form of compensation.

With a film deal on the horizon, Barrett realizes another edition of the Diary is likely to be published, along with another flurry of public interest. Thus he walks back his confessions, however unsuccessfully, in order to cash in on this new hope in the way of royalty cheques. I'm not saying that Barrett was "put up" to it--he would have realized this on his own--but certainly Smith, Montgomery, and Harrison must have told him many times how damaging his confessions had been to the Diary and how any future sales and/or editions would suffer from it. Thus, Mike was now back "on board."

That's how I interpret it, Keith. How do you interpret it?

Incidentally, do you know for certain that the Solicitor, in front of whom Mike made his Affidavit, was his own Solicitor --or might it have been a different Firm he went to--presumably with Alan Gray?

No. I think you are right. I don't know this was filed with Bark-Jones; it was with a firm of solicitors, D.P. Hardy, Imperial Chambers, Dale Street, Liverpool. Does it matter? I assume you aren't seriously suggesting that D. P. Hardy may have changed Barrett's confession after-the-fact, as Mike implies in the interview? Or do you have some other point in mind?

Incidentally, David O. has made an entire transcript of the Radio Merseyside interview.

It can be found here:

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...september-1995

Several posters have noted Mike's odd and idiosyncratic use of the word "within" throughout the interview and point out that this same odd usage also appears in the text of the Diary.

[harry]

Ike,
As a matter of interest,I did find the use of one off in a British newspaper of 1871. 24-6-1871 .It relates to a one off sale of goods.Page 3 of a180 page edition.

[Iconoclast]

Ike,
As a matter of interest,I did find the use of one off in a British newspaper of 1871. 24-6-1871 .It relates to a one off sale of goods.Page 3 of a180 page edition.

Hi harry,

Lord Orsam's position is that no-one on the planet in 1888 or 1889 could have conjoined the two concepts of 'one off' (no hypen in the scrapbook, of course) and 'event' or 'instance'. I would ask that you post your source for 'one off sale of goods' as that is clearly not used in the context His Lordship allows. He permits for the use of 'one-off' in a strictly manufacturing context (e.g., 'spoon template, one off the run' or some such jargon) and - by 1903 - 'from a one-off viewpoint' (or was it 'standpoint'?) in relation to the one-off manufacturing process; but he is adamant that the use of 'one off [event]' was not documented until at least the mid-20th century and then only in common written use by around the 1980s. If you have found the use in a British newspaper in 1871 of the expression 'one off sale of goods', I think we will all be back off to the 'Incontrovertible' thread, just for jolly, as you would have dispensed with his theory in one swoop, for clearly if it was used in 1871 in print, how many more times was it used thereafter in written documents and letters and everyday speech?

Amazing work, harry. Let us know the newspaper in question, and - ideally - post a scan of the actual entry.

Cheers,

Ike

[Sam Flynn]

Ike,
As a matter of interest,I did find the use of one off in a British newspaper of 1871. 24-6-1871 .It relates to a one off sale of goods.Page 3 of a180 page edition.

Could you give us a link to the reference, Harry? I ask, because I found an example from an American publication of 1860:



... you'll note, however, that the term referred to here is one "off-sale", not a "one-off" sale.

[Graham]

Harry and Sam,

the term 'off-sale' means the sale of alcoholic drinks, and presumably other items too, for consumption or use away from, or 'off' the premises; same meaning as the more modern term 'off-licence'. My old man sometimes used the term 'off-sale' when he nipped round to the 'outdoor' for a couple of bottles on a Saturday night. If Harry's reference has the hyphen between 'one' and 'off', then he's onto something. I rather hope it has.

Graham

[Iconoclast]

Harry and Sam,

the term 'off-sale' means the sale of alcoholic drinks, and presumably other items too, for consumption or use away from, or 'off' the premises; same meaning as the more modern term 'off-licence'. My old man sometimes used the term 'off-sale' when he nipped round to the 'outdoor' for a couple of bottles on a Saturday night. If Harry's reference has the hyphen between 'one' and 'off', then he's onto something. I rather hope it has.

Graham

It would certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons if it did, though at this point I will remind everyone yet again to be cautious as the author of the Maybrick scrapbook did not write "one-off" anything whatsoever and that it is purely the interpretation of those determined to uncover a hoax which leads people to imagine that it should be interpreted with (rather than without) the critical hyphen (metaphorically speaking).

[Iconoclast]

Ike,
As a matter of interest,I did find the use of one off in a British newspaper of 1871. 24-6-1871 .It relates to a one off sale of goods.Page 3 of a180 page edition.

The way you phrase this, harry, seems to indicate that it should be interpreted as "one-off sale of goods" - the alternative doesn't seem syntactically correct otherwise ("a one off-sale of goods") but clearly we need to see it please.

Cheers,

Ike

[Graham]

Ike, it was our Sam in Post 1781 who showed us the cutting containing the phrase 'one off-sale'. With a totally different connotation to our longed-for and elusive 'one-off'. But the day will come....

Graham