Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[David Orsam]

The Return of James Johnston

Anyone who thinks I known nothing about psychology needs to think again.

[David Orsam]

James, great to have you back on the forum, even if only temporarily.

It's a big difference to have someone being helpful and who is able to focus on the point at hand and responds directly to questions without unnecessary speculation.

I'll get round to a proper response to your post in time but, for the moment, I would like to just to pick you up on this statement:

"I'm under no obligation to share all of my hard earned research"

I respectfully disagree with you entirely, at least in respect of your interviews with the electricians. You included snippets of those interviews in your published article and then on this forum. I don't think it's a proper approach to "cherry pick" parts of an interview to support whatever points you want to make. If you refer to one part of a document or a transcript the rest of the document or transcript needs to be made available.

At least if you want to adhere to the highest standards.

I'm not saying you need to publish all your research before you are ready but it's just not right to selectively quote from documents or transcripts to which others don't have access.

[John Wheat]

What I don't understand is these people who don't believe Maybrick wrote the diary but seem to believe it's a forgery Mike had very little to do with to me this makes no sense whatsoever. And I don't get why they are so insistent. Perhaps someone could explain this.

[David Orsam]

I see that the latest absurd and nonsensical, Alice in Wonderland, criticism of me ("You could have waited to see what else there is out there before committing yourself") is for actually posting on this subject in this thread simply because some people are withholding information which they should have released!

But I'm sure the rules can't just apply to me. So let's see if I've got this right. If the Diary Defenders deliberately decide to keep information to themselves then no-one is allowed to express any conclusions about the diary until they day those people decide to reveal what they know, which might be long after the rest of us all die!!!

That is madness.

The fact of the matter is that there was information being withheld about the diary on the day I started posting about it on this forum. The so-called "Battlecrease provenance" information (which was meant to be so compelling in proving that the diary came from under the floorboards of Battlecrease) had been kept secret for years. As I have already said when this was thrown at me at the time, if there is information which is not revealed about any subject I simply ignore it. Just like I ignored Pierre's claim to have information about the identity of the Ripper.

Clearly I was right to do so in the case of the Battlecrease provenance because it was a damp squib.

But what happened in 2017 is that we had an expensive publication in Robert Smith's book "The True Facts" which I understood was to reveal everything then known about the Battlecrease provenance, together with the other diary book which added very little to that.

Consequently I posted an article on my website in response which I was perfectly entitled to do and which I stand by today.

I very much doubt that any more information is going to emerge to prove the Battlecrease provenance (although the Diary Defenders clearly feel, a la Pierre, that there is just that one more piece of evidence they need to find and the case is proved!) and there is no way I am going to wait for people to get round to posting what they know or think they know before I comment on the evidence that has been revealed.

What I criticise is the slow drip feed of information in an ad hoc way in an internet forum thread about acquiring a Victorian diary. If there is information available, it should be either published or posted properly with all the relevant information revealed in one go. If I post something about the diary in this thread, it does not need to be obsessively responded to within 24 hours if there is new information which should be fully explained in detail. The response could wait until the information is properly presented. It's most unsatisfactory that, for example, we have a snippet of information about Martin-Wright's memory of events in December 1992 posted on the internet but no further information and thus real insight as to how significant this is.

If James Johnston has further information which is relevant, it is incumbent on him to post it in order to ensure an orderly debate (as I have been saying repeatedly). If he doesn't do so I simply ignore it as if it does not exist, which until it is published, it does not in my opinion. It is not acceptable to sit on relevant information and play "I know something you don't know" but if someone does want to play this game the only proper response is to ignore it and to discuss the diary on the basis of the evidence that IS publicly available.

Comments like "you could have waited to see" are self-evidently ridiculous.

[David Orsam]

I see that the person who likes to use emojis, such as laughing faces, to make her points feels the need to comment on properly used exclamation marks!!!

[David Orsam]

Did I really just read someone asking what motive a woman could have for collaborating in a financial venture with her husband? Seriously?????!!!!

I mean, does this need any response? I don't think so.

[David Orsam]

The Great Misunderstander strikes again.

When I said that the idea of Mike being involved in an attempt to forge the diary has been criticized "on the basis that no-one in their right mind would have handed total control of the Diary over to Mike yet those same people say that Mike was given total control of the Diary by the person or persons who found and stole it from Battlecrease!!!!" the point is all about why someone would have chosen Mike Barrett to give control of the diary to.

A child could understand this.

So why am I reading a response which tells me that an electrician finding the diary had to hand over control to someone? That's not the issue. The issue is why Mike Barrett.

Because it must be equally obvious that if more than one person was involved in forging the diary only one of them could come forward and claim ownership. In other words, the rest of them had to hand over control to someone.

It's the same scenario from a different perspective.

What seems to be being said is that, after Eddie found the diary, handing over control to Mike Barrett was the obvious solution to his problem and that this was all quite normal.

Well forgive me but I don't see it in this way. In fact, the scenario being offered up is rather odd. In the first place I would have expected someone finding the diary to want to sell it as quickly as possible on the black (criminal) market using the fact that it had been found in Battlecrease as a major selling point. They would want hard cash not some form of licensing agreement.

I mean, if Eddie agrees with Mike that they split the proceeds, how does Eddie go about enforcing this if Mike never gives him any money? What leverage does he have? Clearly there can be no legal recourse. But it's not just about getting money, how does Eddie know he is getting his fair share? Who is going to audit Mike's income on behalf of Eddie? I'm not saying anything is impossible, only that such an arrangement in respect of stolen goods would be very unusual.

But the main point is why does Eddie go straight to Mike of all people? Again I don't say he couldn't have thought that he was connected in the publishing world but what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Why couldn't someone who collaborated in forging the diary with Mike have had exactly the same thought? Namely that Mike was the perfect front man to sell the diary to a London publishing house because of his journalistic experience.

THAT is the point I was making and it has not been answered. If Mike is the Go To Man for Eddie why is he not the Go To Man for anyone else? There is a logical hole in the argument of the Diary defenders which says that Mike was perfect for Eddie but not for anyone else.

If you want to argue that Mike was right for Eddie then you have to accept that Mike was right for any possible forger of the diary. And that of course was the point that has been mocked remorselessly. No-one in their right mind would have used Mike as the front man, it was said. Oh, apart from Eddie Lyons!

[David Orsam]

Here's some great logic:

"What I find puzzling is why, if Mike really was part of this nest of forgers, he didn't seize the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon that was Feldy and the Electricians circa April 1993, by saying: "So that's what Tony was keeping from me. It must have come from the house back in 1989 or whenever, and Tony must have got hold of it and worried about what to do with it".

Do you see the problem with that sentence?

The premise is that Mike is part of a "nest of forgers" yet he is supposed to now believe his own fabricated story about getting the diary from Tony Devereux!!!!!!

Six exclamation marks there for anyone counting.

So no, if Mike had been involved in forging the diary he would never have had the thought "So that's what Tony was keeping from me" because, if Mike was involved in forging the diary, the Tony Devereux story was a fabrication. Equally, he would not have thought that the diary must have come from the house in 1989 because he knew it was a forgery.

Really a small child would not make this type of mistake.

As I've said before, if Mike was involved in forging the diary it is perfectly understandable that he would not have wanted to give 5% of everything he made from the diary to Paul Dodd for a cover story which he knew was phoney.

[David Orsam]

As a matter of fact, I did interview Vincent Dring, twice - on the 7th & 14th December 2015 respectively. Vincent's account was much the same as it's recounted in Shirley's book - and he remembered finding two books beneath some wall panelling at Battlecrease in 1982. As inticing as this sounded - when I sent Vincent a series of high-resolution photographs of the Maybrick journal, he said that the books he remembered finding were not of a similar appearance, and 'were too thin'. The books were then discarded into the skip - supplied by a company named Lockwoods. Unfortunately, Lockwoods did not keep records of what was disposed off in the skips. Vincent had no association with Portus & Rhodes and was then employed by a firm named J&T Joinery. Colin Rhodes was able to confirm that Dring had no association with his firm. Further to that - I could find no tangible connection between Vincent, Mike Barrett, Tony Devereux or The Saddle.

Finally, some confirmation that workers, other than Portus & Rhodes electricians, carried out work in Battlecrease in the 1980s.

But J&T Joinery doesn't sound like a firm of electricians to me. Yet in Inside Story we are told that Dring was "one of the electricians who had worked in Battlecrease House during the renovation work". Was he an electrician or not?

What other work is known to have been carried out in Battlecrease prior to 9 March 1992 before (and even after) the involvement of Portus and Rhodes?

Interesting to know that discoveries could be made in Battlecrease in places other than under the floorboards. As I said in my article, Robert Smith and the Maybrick Diary: The False Facts Exposed!, "there is no necessary reason why the Diary, if it came from Battlecrease, had to have been hidden under the floorboards. It could have been hidden away in any nook or crevice in the house".

Furthermore, it's interesting to know that discoveries other than the Diary were being made in Battlecrease. We've previously been told about the discovery of a newspaper, now we find two books being discovered in the house. So a possible discovery recalled by electricians in 1992 did not need to be the Diary by any means yet it seems to be assumed that if a book was found by an electrician it must have been the diary.

[David Orsam]

According to Colin Rhodes, who had an excellent recollection of the work that was conducted, the floorboards would have been raised in the first-floor of the house first thing on the Monday morning - to make way for the incoming power supply required for the storage heaters. This was also bourne out by James Coufopoulos & Graham Rhodes.

That's fine James but I must remind you that what I was responding to was your statement:

"According to the timesheets, the only date on which floorboards were lifted on the first floor was 9.3.92."

What you seem to be admitting is that this statement wasn't correct. This is not what the timesheets say, it is what Colin Rhodes and others say.

But what it would be very useful to know is what James Coufopoulos had to say about the lifting of the floorboards? Did he remember doing it himself? Was he assisted by anyone? In particular, did he recall the presence of Eddie Lyons?

One thing I am confused about though is this: I thought that you didn't have the assistance of the timesheets when you conducted your interviews. So how could Colin Rhodes, Coufopoulos and Graham Rhodes have told you anything about what happened on "Monday morning"?

Or are you referring to interviews conducted since you saw the timesheets?

[David Orsam]

Correct. There is no mention of floorboard protectors on any of the timesheets save for the 9/10 March. Furthermore, according to Colin Rhodes, Paul Dodd and Graham Rhodes - due to the nature of the work carried out during that period - this is the only date which would have necessiated the removal of floorboards on the first-floor of Battlecrease House.

Does that mean that floorboards on other floors of the house might have been removed on other dates?

Or do you want to rephrase that sentence?

[David Orsam]

Quite correct. Eddie actually agreed to speak with me on three occasions. My gut feeling is that he was attempting to convince me that nothing was found. At that moment in time, Eddie had no idea what information I had in my possession and I think it is quite reasonable that he should have engaged with me, in order to find out.

So you think he was deliberately trying to deceive you during those three interviews? Can what he told you, therefore, be relied upon?

[David Orsam]

In the interests of tying things over however - I have included EL's denial; 'I can understand people saying, ‘oh he must have found it,’ but honestly, I never.'

Come on James, you've got to be kidding me. In three interviews that's the only thing he said about finding (or not finding) the Diary?

I thought you just told me he was attempting to convince you nothing was found. He must have said more than that surely?

[David Orsam]

Portus & Rhodes installed three storage heaters in Battlecrease. Two were new installations, whilst one older radiator was replaced with a larger storage heater in a different position in the same room. This information comes direct from Paul Dodd and was recently verified by Christopher Jones. All of the underfloor wiring, however, was completed on 9/10th March - as far as the timesheets & Colin Rhodes are concerned.

Thanks for this information James. Can you tell us where exactly in the house the three storage heaters were installed?

When had the older radiator been installed? Were floorboards required to be lifted to install it?

Finally, you say that the underfloor wiring was completed "on 9/10th March" so does this mean that underfloor wiring was carried out on 10th March? And does this mean that the floorboards remained lifted on 10th March?

Do we know who replaced the floorboards on 10th March?

Were the floorboard protectors removed from Battlecrease House on that date?

[David Orsam]

I will accept the possibility that Rawes could have picked up on rumours that something may have been found at Battlecrease via the other electricians - but one then has to ask why he has retained the same story for over 25 years, and why he would volunteer this information to the police.

But it's not quite the same story over 25 years though is it? On one occasion he said he was told that "something" was found. On another occasion it was "a book". And on another occasion it was "a diary". What exactly is Eddie supposed to have said to him?

And when he spoke to the police, Harrison's book in which it was stated (by Robert Smith) that the Diary could have been found under the floorboards of Battlecrease had been published hadn't it?

My primary feeling is that Eddie might have said something to him in July which he misremembered a year later after learning that the Diary was supposed to have been found under the floorboards in Battlecrease (and I suspect he had heard rumours that it had been found by Eddie, which rumours had been started because Eddie drank in the Saddle).

What's more, his dating of the alleged conversation is supported by the corresponding timesheets.

But the date of 17th July 1992 doesn't make any sense does it? Why would Eddie, on 17th July 1992 (having long since passed the Diary on to Mike Barrett), have blurted out to Rawes, completely out of the blue, that he had found something important in Battlecrease over four months earlier? Do you have any thoughts about that?