Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[David Orsam]

What I don't understand is why someone who thinks the diary is an obvious forgery is so agitated by the possibility that Mike and Anne Barrett might have been involved in forging it and spends so much time and energy trying to argue (in such an adversarial fashion) that it was forged by someone else. I mean, to what real purpose?

Great, so Person A didn't forge the diary it was Person B. Hallelujah. It's soooo important to know it wasn't Person A but Person B isn't it?

Even more odd is that when I wrote a post saying that one reason why James Maybrick would not have written the expression "one off instance" in 1889 was because no-one else would have understood it, this was challenged by that same person and the point was made that it would have been understood from the context. Perhaps that person was playing Devil's Advocate but when they make points like that it's no wonder that people are confused as to what they are actually trying to say.

[John Wheat]

That's fine, John. We're all entitled to our views, and I'm not remotely 'convinced' the diary can help us solve the ripper case.

I do find it odd that people who believe as you do continue to spend their time reading and posting on diary threads, as if there are scores of rabid diary believers who need to be shown the error of their ways. I haven't seen more than one or two at most on the boards for as long as I can remember.

Love,

Caz
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Hi Caz

But there are people who do believe the diary is genuine. The diary needs to be proven a fake which I believe has now been done to clear Maybrick once and for all. Also threads on the diary don't tend to be the first threads I read or post on.

Cheers John

[Kaz]

Hi Caz

But there are people who do believe the diary is genuine. The diary needs to be proven a fake which I believe has now been done to clear Maybrick once and for all. Also threads on the diary don't tend to be the first threads I read or post on.

Cheers John

The only person (on these boards) who was convinced the diary to be 100% genuine was Iconoclast, and he's not posted since early Sept.

Theres more of us who remain open minded. Lets just hope some little nugget of information puts it to bed for good. I'm quite optimistic its out there....somewhere.

[caz]

That’s an odd expression there James. “I think it is reasonable for me to conclude that the electricians are associated”. What does “associated” mean? Is it supposed to be a synonym for “involved”? And if you are saying that it is reasonable to conclude that the electricians were involved in finding the diary simply because they were interviewed by police officers from Scotland Yard then I’m afraid to say that, no, that is not a reasonable conclusion.

Hi David,

I know you were addressing James, but I'm sure he won't mind me adding a few observations. As I'm sure you know, the Scotland Yard investigation was concerned with whether or not Robert Smith was knowingly involved in fraud, namely if he knew the diary was a modern fake. The electricians would have been questioned [in October 1993] in connection with the possibility that the diary was found in Battlecrease House. If the rumours began and ended with Feldman earlier that year, and the story simply wasn't true, one might expect all their police statements to reflect this. But do they? If Brian Rawes, for instance, gives an account of the day he arrived at the house one Friday morning in July 1992, to be told by Eddie Lyons that he had found a diary under the floorboards which could be important and didn't know what to do about it, that is - interesting, to say the least.

It would fit neatly with the timesheet for Friday 17th July, which we know fits neatly with the story Rawes told Robert Smith in 1997. Graham Rhodes and Eddie Lyons were indeed working at the house that day, on the ground floor wiring, which, according to Paul Dodd, was run along the cellar ceiling without the need to lift any floorboards. Arthur Rigby and Rawes had a roofing job that day at a police station near Widnes. The two drove there via Battlecrease, where Rawes was to collect the firm's van and some equipment, while Rigby continued on to the roofing job in his own car. If Rawes was misremembering, or making up such an incident, his timing was spot on when talking to Robert some five years later. But what about when he was talking to the police in 1993? One would expect the story to be left out entirely unless Rawes was telling the truth to the best of his recollection, which was apparently pretty accurate.

As we know, the investigation against Robert was dropped, which might suggest the police got something out of their Battlecrease enquiries to support the floorboard stories. The diary had to come from somewhere.

But if the diary is a modern forgery by Mike and Anne (and/or others) there isn’t a great deal to research is there? At least not without having police powers of search, arrest and interview under caution.

Well Scotland Yard did interview Mike while investigating Robert Smith, which tells its own story. Presumably they could not touch Robert if they found no evidence that Mike was knowingly involved in fraud. Anyway, nothing came of it, even when Mike confessed to fraud the following June and again in January 1995.

Do you accept that it is possible that Eddie told Brian that he had found “something” under the floorboards and then after being questioned by Feldman about a diary, Brian’s memory became affected and the notion of a book or diary was placed into his mind? Perhaps Brian’s memory actually became clearer in 1997 when he toned it down from a "diary" to "something" when speaking to Robert Smith.

Where is your evidence that Feldman had ever heard of Brian Rawes, let alone questioned him before the police did? It was Alan Davies who advised Robert Smith to speak to Rawes in 1997. Even if his memory became affected by rumours from workmates, why tell the police anything at all unless he felt obliged to say what he knew about it? Eddie had either been lying to him or he really had found something which could have been the diary and taken it without permission. It's a strange thing to volunteer to the police if only based on a vague memory of Eddie claiming something or other the previous summer.

Regarding the Anderson article, in a nutshell, as you ask, the focus on Diamine ink is understandable but what should not be overlooked is that, if Barrett did purchase ink to forge the diary from the Bluecoat Chambers art shop, it might not have been Diamine ink.

Might not? Nobody has ever produced any good evidence that it could be, and all the evidence that has been produced indicates that it isn't.

The owner of the shop, when asked in June 1994, said Barrett would “probably” have bought Diamine ink and then Barrett quite possibly simply parroted this in his Jan 1995 affidavit.

IIRC it was the only possibility the owner could come up with.

I certainly wouldn’t expect Barrett to necessarily know what exact type of ink he bought.

I'm frankly astonished by this. Would you also not expect the art shop owner to know what ink he would have sold to anyone asking, if not Diamine? Or did Mike not even hint at the type of ink he was looking for, and then trust to luck that the one he was sold might be able to mimic a Victorian ink under expert scrutiny of the kind which quickly put the Hitler Diaries to rest?

All for now. Have a great weekend, David and everyone.

I'll be back!

Love,

Caz
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[John Wheat]

The only person (on these boards) who was convinced the diary to be 100% genuine was Iconoclast, and he's not posted since early Sept.

Theres more of us who remain open minded. Lets just hope some little nugget of information puts it to bed for good. I'm quite optimistic its out there....somewhere.

My view is that David's research has put it to bed for good.

[Kaz]

My view is that David's research has put it to bed for good.

David's conclusion that Mike concocted it holds no water, he never met the guy.
Just as he's never met anyone else and has no intention of doing so.


If caz says mike didn't/couldn't...trust me, he didn't/couldn't.

[rjpalmer]

They must have enormous biscuit tins in the UK. Should I feel cheated?

[Graham]

David's conclusion that Mike concocted it holds no water, he never met the guy.
Just as he's never met anyone else and has no intention of doing so.


If caz says mike didn't/couldn't...trust me, he didn't/couldn't.

I really only got interested in the whole Diary hoo-ha when I bought Feldman's book. As I've said before, it was an enjoyable read, but no more than that - it was almost as fictional as David Copperfield. After reading further works, and posting on these boards for a good few years, I don't think I've changed my tune. Mike Barrett on his own could never have written it; Anne Barratt very likely could have (Martin Fido said she could have composed it with one hand tied behind her back). But as she seems to have vanished into the evening mist we'll probably never know from her precisely what her input, if any, was. And if we did, who would believe her any more than anyone has ever believed Mike?

Another possibility is something that I know Caz has had some sympathy with: that the Diary is old, maybe was found in Battlecrease, but was not written by James Maybrick. I wouldn't lightly dismiss this possibility.

James Maybrick died on 11 May 1889; he had been ill for some time. The final entry in the Diary was claimed to be 3 May 1889, just over one week before James died. Can someone explain to me how a dying man could, just days before his death, raise the heavy oak floorboards of his bedroom in order to conceal something beneath them? Nah. Never. So if the Diary was indeed completed within days of James Maybrick's death, it was almost certainly not he who placed it under the floorboards. And not he, as handwriting comparisons have dismissed, to my satisfaction at least, who wrote it anyway. So who did? Mike Barrett? Anne Barrett? Someone known to either one or both of them? The 'Nest Of Forgers' so beloved of Melvin Harris and who he threatened to name but never did? Obviously Mike Barrett got his hands on it one way or the other, but I seriously doubt if we will ever know precisely who passed it on to him....or if he nicked it.

The longer this debate goes on the more I incline towards the Diary's production many years ago, and certainly not in modern, i.e., late 20th century, times. Proof? I have none.

Graham

[StevenOwl]

I really only got interested in the whole Diary hoo-ha when I bought Feldman's book. As I've said before, it was an enjoyable read, but no more than that - it was almost as fictional as David Copperfield. After reading further works, and posting on these boards for a good few years, I don't think I've changed my tune. Mike Barrett on his own could never have written it; Anne Barratt very likely could have (Martin Fido said she could have composed it with one hand tied behind her back). But as she seems to have vanished into the evening mist we'll probably never know from her precisely what her input, if any, was. And if we did, who would believe her any more than anyone has ever believed Mike?

Another possibility is something that I know Caz has had some sympathy with: that the Diary is old, maybe was found in Battlecrease, but was not written by James Maybrick. I wouldn't lightly dismiss this possibility.

James Maybrick died on 11 May 1889; he had been ill for some time. The final entry in the Diary was claimed to be 3 May 1889, just over one week before James died. Can someone explain to me how a dying man could, just days before his death, raise the heavy oak floorboards of his bedroom in order to conceal something beneath them? Nah. Never. So if the Diary was indeed completed within days of James Maybrick's death, it was almost certainly not he who placed it under the floorboards. And not he, as handwriting comparisons have dismissed, to my satisfaction at least, who wrote it anyway. So who did? Mike Barrett? Anne Barrett? Someone known to either one or both of them? The 'Nest Of Forgers' so beloved of Melvin Harris and who he threatened to name but never did? Obviously Mike Barrett got his hands on it one way or the other, but I seriously doubt if we will ever know precisely who passed it on to him....or if he nicked it.

The longer this debate goes on the more I incline towards the Diary's production many years ago, and certainly not in modern, i.e., late 20th century, times. Proof? I have none.

Graham

FWIW, I completely believe Mike Barrett's original story of how he came by the Diary; the story that he stood by from 1993 until his death, apart from the couple of sworn statements which he later retracted. It's nothing more than a gut feeling, I admit. So for me the question has never been where did Mike get the Diary from, but how did Tony Devereaux come by it?. Sadly, I don't think we'll ever know the truth, but if we could ascertain that one fact then I think we could start getting closer to the truth about the Diary's origins.

[GUT]

FWIW, I completely believe Mike Barrett's original story of how he came by the Diary; the story that he stood by from 1993 until his death, apart from the couple of sworn statements which he later retracted. It's nothing more than a gut feeling, I admit. So for me the question has never been where did Mike get the Diary from, but how did Tony Devereaux come by it?. Sadly, I don't think we'll ever know the truth, but if we could ascertain that one fact then I think we could start getting closer to the truth about the Diary's origins.

But even Tony seems to have been dropped from the story.

[John Wheat]

David's conclusion that Mike concocted it holds no water, he never met the guy.
Just as he's never met anyone else and has no intention of doing so.


If caz says mike didn't/couldn't...trust me, he didn't/couldn't.

That is absolute garbage. Someone acquiring a Victorian diary, either buying or borrowing a load of books on James Maybrick and then suddenly having a diary allegedly by James Maybrick purporting to be The Ripper has either forged it themselves or someone close to them has forged it. Anyone who thinks different is a complete idiot.

[Graham]

FWIW, I completely believe Mike Barrett's original story of how he came by the Diary; the story that he stood by from 1993 until his death, apart from the couple of sworn statements which he later retracted.

Yes, but the two contradictory sworn statements, whether retracted or not, would surely have severely dented his credibility. It would in my eyes, at any rate.

Tony Devereux's daughters were all totally adamant that they had never seen the Diary in their house, nor had their father ever referred to it. Not that this proves that Tony didn't receive the Diary and pass it on to Mike, but it's part of the story I have never quite been able to accept. Anne claimed that the Diary had been in her family for decades, that she hid it in her house, and eventually passed it on to Mike via Tony to 'give him something to do' to get over his general depression. Dunno about this, either.......

Graham

[caz]

I fully appreciate that someone is agitated by any mention of the June 1993 meeting and just keeps on returning to it, only serving to show that the lady doth protest too much. Someone clearly knows they have made an error but yet simply cannot admit to it.

Why would I return to this subject if I were 'agitated by any mention' of it? That doesn't make much sense to me.

Here is what was said in post #49

"We know Mike and Eddie Lyons knew each other by June 1993 because he actually came into the Saddle one night when Robert Smith was there with Mike."

That is such a simple and easy to understand sentence. It is being said that we know Mike and Eddie knew each other by June 1993 BECAUSE he came into the Saddle one night when Robert Smith was there with Mike.

But that is a false statement.

Why is it? It's a simple enough fact, David. We can only know for sure that Mike and Eddie knew each other by June 1993, when they sat in the pub with Robert and Eddie told him his little story.

It is not the reason we know Mike and Eddie knew each other by June 1993. We know that they must have already known each other before this because Mike confronted Eddie at his home.

Aside from your difficulty in understanding what 'by' means [that they had met previously], do you know when this confrontation happened, and how do you know it happened? Who is your source? Hmmm?

I was assuming that 'we' would consider Robert Smith the more reliable source for anything said or done by either Mike Barrett or Eddie Lyons. I certainly do. But if I assumed wrong, then I fully admit that was an error on my part. But let's assume Mike did confront Eddie at his home, and this was prior to June 1993. Did they know each other by then, or did Mike only know of Eddie from Feldman, which led to him obtaining his address and confronting him in anger on his doorstep? Had they ever met before at that point? Do 'we' know or not? Because it seems they got to know each other a bit better between that first angry meeting and the one in June, where they were perfectly civil towards each other in front of Robert.

The latest excuse for mentioning the June 1993 meeting...

I'm so sorry, David, I didn't realise I needed an 'excuse' to mention anything at all related to the diary saga. I am often going to see more than one good reason for doing so, and I will continue to do so, even when you see no good reason and no 'excuse'. I suggest you get used to it before it gives you an ulcer.

So the story has changed again.

No, David, the story hasn't changed. All the events happened years ago and I wasn't there. The June 1993 meeting does demonstrate that Mike and Eddie knew each other by then, regardless of who chooses to mention it. Your nit-picking here is ridiculous. But why you should think Eddie would meekly agree to sit down over a pint with Mike and Robert just because the latter had 'expressly requested' it via the former, I haven't a clue. Eddie didn't know Robert Smith from Adam, so it was entirely his choice to do the honours and co-operate with both. What happened between the doorstep confrontation and their 'entente cordiale' in June? I don't know and neither, I suspect, do you.

And all these pointless posts because one individual physically cannot admit to making an error in posting a false point but instead has to go and on in a futile attempt to try and justify the unjustifiable.

A false point? Were you at the Christmas sherry when you wrote this?

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Now let's just pause a moment and think about the amazing coincidence of a book being found by Eddie (if he really did find a book) which he threw into a skip.

One of the things we know as a fact (or as close to a fact as we can get) is that an old newspaper was also found in Battlecrease by an electrician, although we don't know when it was found or by whom. This information came from Colin Rhodes.

So, if the JTR Diary was also found in Battlecrease, we have the coincidence of another old item being found in the same property (probably on a different date by a different electrician).

If two old items could be found in Battlecrease then why not three? What would be so amazing about it?

And if three old items could be found, then - if we assume the diary was a modern forgery which did not come out of Battlecrease - why would it be so surprising that just two old items were found, namely an old newspaper and an old book?

Not sure I follow your drift, David. It wouldn't be so surprising if ten old items were found in an old house on different occasions by different workmen and 'liberated', no matter where the diary came from or when it was written.

An old book that was found by Eddie and thrown into a skip. Something that he paid no attention to at the time but was built up into a massive discovery after Feldman started making his enquiries.

I don't see this as anything remarkable.

I'm sure you don't. But if you are open to Eddie telling the truth about finding an old book, which version do you accept and why? Has he ever said he found this old book anywhere other than "under the floorboards"? If he said he found it in 1989 he lied. He wasn't employed by Colin Rhodes until November 1991. No source has any floorboards being lifted while Eddie was with Portus & Rhodes except for those on the first floor on March 9th, 1992. So if he found it on any other date he lied about it being under floorboards.

It would certainly explain a lot of the stories.

Good to see you exploring a possible explanation which would have begun life before Feldman came on the scene. But clearly if Eddie did find an old book under the floorboards, and mentioned the fact to Brian Rawes in July 1992, the 'scam', which Feldman suspected the following year, was not quite as it seemed, but based on a real find on March 9th, 1992. So some other old book then - same time, same place - just not the diary. Too close for comfort yet?

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Has a miracle occurred on this thread today?

After months and months of me banging on to no effect that the only sensible explanation for Mike Barrett trying to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages is that he wanted to forge a Victorian Diary, and being told in response that there were a number of other (barking mad) explanations for his actions, we finally have an agreement that well, yes, actually, this does seem to be a sensible explanation after all.

It tells us everything that this is only admitted now that a light bulb has gone off and there is seen to be a way that Mike could have wanted to forge a Victorian Diary without actually being involved in forging the JTR Diary! Just shows how objective some people are.

And of course I never saw that response coming a mile off.

But I entirely agree with that as a possibility. Someone could have offered to sell Mike the Diary of Jack the Ripper - or asked Mike to sell the Diary on their behalf - and Mike, knowing or suspecting the Diary to be a forgery, could have thought that he could do a better job himself. That could explain why he tried to acquire a Victorian Diary in order to create his own Diary of Jack the Ripper but eventually realised he wasn't up to the task.

I really didn't see that one coming. It's a terrific concession and I consider it a breakthrough of sorts.

The weakness of this theory is that it fails to explain why Mike said in his affidavit that it only took 11 days to write out the Diary when most people would have said this task would have taken much longer, yet 11 days is just about the optimum time between the arrival of the red Victorian diary and the journey to London with the JTR Diary.

It's also the only window Mike knew would have been available to him, in which to obtain a more user friendly book and get his masterpiece penned in time for its debut in London. If his acquisition of the little red diary was going to be any use to him in supporting his forgery claims, the window was already in its frame and couldn't be expanded.

Your previous objection IIRC relied on Mike having had no clear recollection, by January 1995, of when the little red diary had arrived or how much later he had taken 'the' diary to London, and therefore, like 'most people', he'd have said the task had taken much longer if he was simply making it up. In short, the fact that his 11 days claim fit so snugly within the actual time frame was, for you, beyond coincidence. Delicious, isn't it?

But let's look at this again, factoring in the possibility that Mike was shown 'the' diary on the same day he called Doreen, and almost immediately began wondering how hard it could be to write one's own ripper diary, resulting in his acquisition of the little red diary for the year 1891 and his answer: "apparently quite hard". So instead of having a diary project on the go from as early as 1990 and getting muddled with his dates five years later, it all began one fateful day in March 1992, followed by a brief but intense and exciting period in which he managed to acquire two old books - the Little and Large of diaries - and get the rapt attention of a London literary agent. I seriously doubt he'd have forgotten that in a hurry, or how quickly it had all gone down.

Now, in the past I would have expected an objection that no-one in their right mind would have used Mike Barrett as a front man to sell the Diary but I don't expect to see any such objection today now that we are told that Mike was the first choice person to be given the Diary because of his perceived literary and publishing connections (alternatively because he was a master fence of stolen goods, they can't make up their minds). In fact, he was so much the first choice that the sun had not even set following the Diary's discovery before Mike had been contacted and shown the Diary.

Of course, 'I would have expected' is not quite as powerful as 'I have found endless examples of', but never mind.

With Mike Barrett's cheeky chappy persona and gift of the gab, I can see how he might have persuaded Eddie Lyons that he was the one to "do something" with an old book signed Jack the Ripper.

The answer to why Mike wanted to acquire his own Victorian diary with blank pages must surely be tied up with the thoughts buzzing round his head if he first saw 'the' diary on March 9th 1992. I often wonder how any of us would have reacted. He gave Keith Skinner the impression in 1994 that he couldn't believe his eyes and thought nobody else would either. How did he feel if he returned home that night without it, not knowing if he'd ever see it again? Might his thoughts have turned to how hard it would be for anyone to come up with something like that? How hard could it be to do one of his own? How many of us over the years have pondered the same question? How hard was it to create, if not the work of Jack the Ripper? After all, only two years on Mike was trying to convince the world that he had done just that.

Does the little 1891 diary not stand as testimony to just how hard Mike would have found it, falling at the first hurdle? How does that fill anyone with confidence that he could have become a main player in a forgery conspiracy? Nobody since has been able to show how easy it would have been, by picking their own ripper, obtaining all the necessary materials and producing one of their own over that legendary wet weekend, which would quickly resist all scientific efforts to prove the ink had been applied within the previous few weeks. People make all kinds of fatuous empty claims, but they never try it for themselves - or if they do, we don't hear about it.

Once Mike had 'the' diary in his hands, it quickly took over his world. His days and nights were filled to the brim with it. He "ate, drank and slept that diary". The excitement he felt when it all began to kick off must have been incredible. And we know that when Professor Canter invited him, along with a couple of his own students, to recreate the missing pages, he set about the task with relish, but unsurprisingly made a poor attempt to imitate the diarist's language, despite having lived with it for years by then.

Love,

Caz
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