Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[caz]

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

The old ones were big enough, rj. And I think even a dodgy electrician would smell a rat if they found an old diary squeezed into a modern tin.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

Thinks. Perhaps we should check the diary for crumbs.

[Graham]

More thinks: what about the black powder said to have been found in the spine of the Diary? I've heard nothing about this. Anyone know?

Graham

[caz]

Inside No.7

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

Hi Graham,

Since the floorboards were lifted easily enough by an electrician or two on March 9th, 1992, I can't see why someone who lived in the house between 1889 and, say, 1946, when it was first owned by the Dodds, couldn't have stashed it there for jolly - someone with an abiding interest in the murky history of their own home and true crime, a love of word games and cryptic crossword puzzles perhaps, and a darkly comic sense of the bizarre. They'd be quite at home in Royston Vasey - the Mr Chinnery of the literary world if you will.

Now that might - just - get round David Orsam's 'one-off' objection, to leave him with no objection really worth the effort of justifying. He has already conceded the possibility that Mike wanted to have a bash at writing his own diary while coveting the one Eddie Lyons had shown him. That is a biggy. David thought the weakness to this theory was the unlikely 'coincidence' of Mike's 11 day creation claim fitting so perfectly into the actual interval of time he'd have had between receiving and rejecting the little red diary, obtaining the scrapbook from O&L, and taking the finished product to show Doreen. But this would be a misconception. It's actually a strength if Mike merely swapped his wait to get his paws on Eddie's diary with his auction/creation story.

Love,

Caz
X

[Observer]

Thinks. Perhaps we should check the diary for crumbs.

Not to mention the possible damage that the diary sustained after being thrown into a skip.

[caz]

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.

Charmed, I'm sure.

But where is your evidence that Mike ever bought or borrowed 'a load of books on James Maybrick', or even on JtR for that matter?

Love,

Caz
X

[Kaz]

Charmed, I'm sure.

But where is your evidence that Mike ever bought or borrowed 'a load of books on James Maybrick', or even on JtR for that matter?

Love,

Caz
X

another sensible post, caz

[caz]

Where is the evidence that the diary is anything other than a modern forgery? There are one or two people who keep posting going on about how there keeping an open mind etc but when everything points to a modern forgery with a complete lack of evidence to the contrary they have no leg to stand on.

I don't know about such people, John. I can't open my own mind to what I find a completely idiotic attachment to Mike's equally idiotic, drunken forgery claims. Only if he could have pinched someone else's creation without their knowledge or approval, might I then be open to the possibility that the writing is more recent than the 'prior to 1970' date which the Rendell team finally settled on.

I do know I have a leg to stand on, however. In fact I have two. I used them to dance with less than a week ago.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Anyone calling caz a complete idiot needs to look in the mirror...

By all means call me an idiot, its water off a ducks back, I retired at 40 and have 15 property's.

The balls in your court, PROVE mike wrote it....good luck.

Oh I don't mind whatever people want to call me, Kaz. I'm doing a public service while everyone else is left alone.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I asked for evidence proving that the diary was a modern forgery. So far no one has posted anything that proves it's a modern forgery. Considering the amount of backtracking over the diary surely it's up to those who believe it to be true or even a modern forgery to provide evidence of this? I haven't specifically called anyone an idiot. Also I have never specifically said Mike wrote the diary I have stated Mike or someone close to Mike wrote the diary for the simple reason that the evidence all points to this. It means nothing to me that you own 15 properties I couldn't care less. You might want to read others posts properly though.

You might want to read your own posts properly, John. Just a thought.



Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

More thinks: what about the black powder said to have been found in the spine of the Diary? I've heard nothing about this. Anyone know?

Graham

Oreo cookies?

[caz]

Not to mention the possible damage that the diary sustained after being thrown into a skip.

If it was ever thrown into a skip. That claim IMHO was only made by Eddie Lyons to distance himself from allegations that he had taken the diary away from the house.

Love,

Caz
X

[Kaz]

You might want to read your own posts properly, John. Just a thought.



Love,

Caz
X

Indeed...

John 'UNSPECIFIC' Wheat should just stick to the serial back patting

[Graham]

Oreo cookies?

If I even knew what 'oreo cookies' are, I'd be happy...no ma'am, in one of the Maybrick books I recall reading that an investigator, could have been Baxendale, found what was said to be a fine black powder in the spine of the book. This IIRC was apparently identified as 'bone black', which supposedly was a Victorian remedy for arsenic ingestion (amongst other uses).

So what IS an 'oreo cookie'?

Graham

[Kaz]

So what IS an 'oreo cookie'?


Graham

Lets have a heated debate, the naysayers can claim its a cake and us open minded posters can claim its a biscuit in disguise as a cookie!