Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[Sam Flynn]

I'm not trying to butter up Mr Osram I'm just stating what is true.

I think Henry was just making a load of diary - sorry - dairy related puns for the sake of it, John

[Darryl Kenyon]

Could you not think of something more original and insulting than 'crackpot'? It gets old very quickly.
Rather like the ink Mike is meant to have applied to the paper in early April 1992.
Love Caz

That's half baked if you ask me

[Henry Flower]

Could you not think of something more original and insulting than 'crackpot'? It gets old very quickly.
Rather like the ink Mike is meant to have applied to the paper in early April 1992.
Love Caz

That's half baked if you ask me

Darryl, on what evidence is that opinion baste?

[Henry Flower]

Darryl, thank you. I was beginning to wonder if I had been too cryptic....

[caz]

Mind you, as we've been told, he only paid £1 for ownership of the diary so he would hardly suffer a serious financial loss if it was taken away from him.

Fair point, David. I think it might just be worth the £1 Robert paid for it to have Paul Dodd make a successful claim for its safe return to its rightful resting place.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

And, in any case, if the electrician continued to claim that he found the diary in 1989, Mike would have had a Battlecrease provenance for the diary in the public domain (and one that was perfectly consistent with his Tony Devereux story) without having to give up a penny.

Agreed - I think. Mike's story at that point was that he had got the diary from Tony in 1991, who never said where he got it from. So my questions remain: why did Mike strenuously deny it ever came from the house, when according to his own story he could not have known it didn't? Why did he hot-foot it round to Eddie's house to threaten him if he continued to claim he had found it in 1989? Why so proactive? Why so agitated? As long as neither Eddie nor Paul Dodd could prove it came from the house [which they couldn't if Mike knew it was a total invention], Dodd couldn't have successfully claimed ownership, but Mike could have passively allowed the possibility that it had indeed been in the house up until 1989 without Dodd's knowledge.

As he didn't even own the diary at this time what did he really have to lose? If it is said that he wouldn't have wanted to risk 100% ownership transferring to Dodd then his motivation would have been exactly the same if the diary HAD come up from the floorboards in March 1992. In other words, if the Battlecrease provenance was genuine and Mike was worried that Dodd might end up owning the diary due to anticipated financial loss, then giving up just 5% might have made sense if Dodd's ownership could have stopped him making ANY money from the diary.

But again, if Mike knew the thing was stolen from Dodd's house only the previous year, and knew Eddie's admission would have been potentially disastrous [for instance if he didn't stick to 1989, but produced supporting evidence for it being in 1992], the very last thing Mike would have wanted was to concede any of this in advance by giving up 5% of his future book royalties in acknowledgement of the diary's rightful owner. This would explain the little doorstep confrontation with Eddie to try and stop the rot before it got too close to home.

Finally, it's pointless to say that Mike wasn't going to admit getting the diary from a thief in 1992 because that wasn't what he was being asked to accept. The deal from Feldman was very clear. It was based on an electrician admitting that he had taken the diary from Battlecrease in 1989. So Mike could have stuck with his Tony Devereux story if he had wanted to accept the deal.

But didn't you say earlier in the same post that in this case he'd have had a Battlecrease provenance 'without having to give up a penny'?

Yes, the deal was based on the 1989 claim, but Eddie was an unknown quantity. If they'd never met, Mike would have had no idea how any false 'confession' might have looked or reflected on him. Either way, he'd have known the diary was not found in 1989, in which case Eddie was prepared to lie for money and do the dirty on Mike by associating him with stolen property. Mike's angry reaction to this, doing his best to nip it in the bud [which Feldy finished by not pursuing] makes it pretty clear he saw no way of turning the 1989 claim to his advantage, with or without the loss of 5%.

But his rejection of it simply cannot help us in knowing if the diary was a recent forgery or not.

Agreed. It's more the way he rejected it and his angry reaction towards Eddie [not to mention how Mike found out where he was living at the time], which lack a satisfactory explanation, if he didn't know the man from Adam and his 'confession' could have helped rather than hindered him. Certainly Feldman was thinking this would be the case when he put the deal to Mike.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Incidentally, Feldman said he left it 'a few weeks' before phoning the electrician [Eddie] a second time and being asked what his confession was worth. Within 24 hours of Feldy putting the deal to Mike, a furious Mike was knocking on Eddie's door. Feldy couldn't have phoned Eddie the first time before April 23rd, 1993, when he was given a list of contact details. This didn't include a phone number for Eddie, or his Fountains Rd address, but he was advised that one of the other electricians on the list could supply a phone number for him. A few weeks after the last week in April would take us very close to June 26th, when Eddie agreed to Robert Smith's request, made via Mike, to meet him in the Saddle, where he claimed to have found 'a book' under floorboards in Battlecrease and thrown it in a skip. So if the first time Mike and Eddie had ever set eyes on each other was when Mike was telling Eddie to back the hell off, they seem to have been able to come to terms and bury the hatchet with almost indecent haste.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

And what’s to preclude Barrett to have hoaxed it and had one of the electricians place it in battle crease and or say they found it there?

Hi Abby,

I hope you and Keith don't mind me asking, but why would Mike have gone to all this trouble, only to deny until his dying day that any electricians were involved, or that his diary had ever been anywhere near that house?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

He may have used "was" instead of "is" accidentally. I work with a guy who uses incorrect words all day long. "Let's see where we am" is one of his favourite phrases. Doesn't mean anything really.

I accept that, John. But the fact remains Mike could have used this alleged donkey photo to firm up his forgery claims if he ever had it, and if he still had it in 1995.

Mike was a crafty one, wasn't he? Always stopping short of actually proving anything. Always making sure nobody else knew what he'd been up to, or could ever give him away.

Unless of course this is because there never was any proof, and he had to conjure it up the best he could, hoping it would destroy Feldman if enough people were ready to believe what he gave them.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

It's safe to assume that, given that it was taken circa 1937, the photograph's subject definitely was a "was" by the time MB found it in the scrapbook

Besides, I don't find it particularly odd to say something like: "Ten years ago I found a photograph in my bottom drawer. It was of Elvis". It doesn't mean that I no longer have said photo.

Except we are not talking about ten years ago, in January 1995, but less than three, if Mike first saw such a donkey photo at the tail end [sorry!] of March 1992. It was rather pointless mentioning it as some kind of evidence for his forgery claims, and saying he had kept this one photo for whatever reason, whether he then got rid of it like all the rest before it could help him prove anything in 1995, or kept it but chose not to produce it.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Caz. Here's where I'm at so far. The 'floorboard' provenance appears to have all the elements of urban folklore. Back in 1992/93 Rhodes quizzed his employees and no one saw anything. And Dodd denied it as well, and insisted the floorboards were already lifted in 1977. Yet, meanwhile, this dead end was mentioned in the local papers and in Paul Feldman's video. So the "electrician's story", even though it had been rejected, is "out there" among the public and the seed has been planted. Futher, the electricians have been quizzed by Rhodes, Feldman's team, and who knows who else---Harrison, Brough, Chittenden, etc., who drill them with various questions and theories, and, quite possibly, contaminate the interview with the tale of Dring the carpenter finding two small books. There things sit and fester for ten years, but by now the story is being repeated until one or two blokes are even telling it as their own personal experience, but usually it's about something a coworker told a coworker, etc., what 'Jack told John', or Tom told Dick and Harry, about finding a book, two books, a biscuit tin, a ring, a watch, an old newspaper, the Diary of Jack the Ripper. So 15 years later the original *questions* the various investigators had asked back in 1993, are now remembered as things that had actually happened. And after 25 years their recollections have taken a remarkable turn. One can see evidence of this on the old Casebook CD-ROM, where a chap named Darren Bytheway pops up on the boards in 2001 (3 years before Keith has even begun his investigation into the floorboard provenance), claiming he had heard this from electricians in Liverpool.

"Darren Bytheway, 09 April 2001, 03:56 p.m.":

hi caz, this colleague of mine did know these workers very well as at the time he was in the same profession as they are , he comes from liverpool and the guys who found it were two *electrician* who were re-wiring battlecrease and the company was called rigbys (as far as i can remember). this all started a couple of months ago when my mate lent me the video on the maybrick diary,(i am a jack the ripper nut).anyway me and my mate was talking about this the next day ,and my other mate who as only just joined our company,came out with this lot and he as no reason to tell lies,i cant tell names as i work for a very big company in the UK . cheers daz.
************

Draw your own conclusions, but it doesn't look good.

[caz]

At last. The obvious answer. Well done Gareth. The majority of people are less than precise in their vocabulary, especially when talking aloud. People who are talking about something that happened in the past tend to continue using the past tense for the duration of the sentence, or even the paragraph. Gareth's example is bang-on. Maybe Caz has been watching too many detective dramas, and has seen too may husbands of 'missing' wives give their guilt away by describing the wife in the past tense.

How to spectacularly miss the point.

Yes, of course Mike could have said the photo 'was' of a donkey, knowing he still had it tucked in a folder at home marked 'foRgERy foR dUmmys'. But there was/is presumably a good reason why the ass was never let out to meet its public.

Any sensible suggestions, apart from the obvious? That Mike knew he didn't need to show the public his ass, in order to make an ass out of his public?

Love,

Caz
X

[Trevor Marriott]

Incidentally, Feldman said he left it 'a few weeks' before phoning the electrician [Eddie] a second time and being asked what his confession was worth. Within 24 hours of Feldy putting the deal to Mike, a furious Mike was knocking on Eddie's door. Feldy couldn't have phoned Eddie the first time before April 23rd, 1993, when he was given a list of contact details. This didn't include a phone number for Eddie, or his Fountains Rd address, but he was advised that one of the other electricians on the list could supply a phone number for him. A few weeks after the last week in April would take us very close to June 26th, when Eddie agreed to Robert Smith's request, made via Mike, to meet him in the Saddle, where he claimed to have found 'a book' under floorboards in Battlecrease and thrown it in a skip. So if the first time Mike and Eddie had ever set eyes on each other was when Mike was telling Eddie to back the hell off, they seem to have been able to come to terms and bury the hatchet with almost indecent haste.

Love,

Caz
X

Where does the truth lie?

I am not an expert on the diary, but sometimes those on here who have been actively partaking in the arguments for and against would appear to have their vision clouded by becoming too involved, and not taking a step back to fully asses and evaluate all the facts, and that is what must be relied on facts, not what I see on here a constant array of uncorroborated hearsay.

There seems to be more inconsistencies with those on the periphery than with Barrett himself. who in great detail in two signed affidavits admits to forging the diary. Why would he admit to it if he hadn't done it, what could he have gained, none of that makes sense.

After the proverbial hit the fan with the press and the media and good on Bobs involvement you can see why Barrett saw this blowing up out of all proportion and that he might be left holding the baby so every reason to be honest about his actions.

The facts are

The diary has inconsistencies which would not be there if the killer had written the diary.

The diary is not in Maybricks handwriting

Barrett admits to forging it

Yes there may be errors in those affidavits, but are they errors which conclusivley show he was making it all up, from what I have seen and I am no expert on all of this diary fiasco I would say no. My opinion on this has not changed since I first read the affidavits many years ago, and nothing had been put before me to suggest Barrett made the whole thing up and in fact as he states it was forged by him in the way he describes.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[John G]

Hi Abby,

I hope you and Keith don't mind me asking, but why would Mike have gone to all this trouble, only to deny until his dying day that any electricians were involved, or that his diary had ever been anywhere near that house?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

I've wondered about this, too. Now, if Barrett was the forger it seems to me his biggest problem was lack of provenance. But let us say he found out about the electricians working at Battlecrease. Could he have approached one of them and offered them a deal, which ultimately went wrong? For instance, he offers them a share of the royalties and, in return, they make the claim they found the diary at Battlecrease, thus providing the pefect provenance. But say, the electrician(s) backs out of the conspiracy at the last minute: due to a dispute over money or, say, concerns about being accused of theft.

Does this make any sense?

[James_J]

Caz. Here's where I'm at so far. The 'floorboard' provenance appears to have all the elements of urban folklore. Back in 1992/93 Rhodes quizzed his employees and no one saw anything. And Dodd denied it as well, and insisted the floorboards were already lifted in 1977. Yet, meanwhile, this dead end was mentioned in the local papers and in Paul Feldman's video. So the "electrician's story", even though it had been rejected, is "out there" among the public and the seed has been planted. Futher, the electricians have been quizzed by Rhodes, Feldman's team, and who knows who else---Harrison, Brough, Chittenden, etc., who drill them with various questions and theories, and, quite possibly, contaminate the interview with the tale of Dring the carpenter finding two small books. There things sit and fester for ten years, but by now the story is being repeated until one or two blokes are even telling it as their own personal experience, but usually it's about something a coworker told a coworker, etc., what 'Jack told John', or Tom told Dick and Harry, about finding a book, two books, a biscuit tin, a ring, a watch, an old newspaper, the Diary of Jack the Ripper. So 15 years later the original *questions* the various investigators had asked back in 1993, are now remembered as things that had actually happened. And after 25 years their recollections have taken a remarkable turn. One can see evidence of this on the old Casebook CD-ROM, where a chap named Darren Bytheway pops up on the boards in 2001 (3 years before Keith has even begun his investigation into the floorboard provenance), claiming he had heard this from electricians in Liverpool.

"Darren Bytheway, 09 April 2001, 03:56 p.m.":

hi caz, this colleague of mine did know these workers very well as at the time he was in the same profession as they are , he comes from liverpool and the guys who found it were two *electrician* who were re-wiring battlecrease and the company was called rigbys (as far as i can remember). this all started a couple of months ago when my mate lent me the video on the maybrick diary,(i am a jack the ripper nut).anyway me and my mate was talking about this the next day ,and my other mate who as only just joined our company,came out with this lot and he as no reason to tell lies,i cant tell names as i work for a very big company in the UK . cheers daz.
************

Draw your own conclusions, but it doesn't look good.

Evening RJ,

I'm not usually prone to posting on here - but thought that a response to this would be beneficial.

The 'floorboard provenance' predates Feldman's involvment - and the involvment of the Liverpool press. Feldman did not become involved with the Battlecrease angle until February 1993. The newspapers did not pick up on the story until April. According to Tim Martin-Wright, he was able to date his conversation with Alan Dodgson to December 1992 - when the Diary was offered to him for the sum of £25. After speaking to Mr. Dodgson, I was left in no doubt that the dating of this account is accurate and ties into when APS opened in October 1992. Alan Dodgson recalled that it took place a "month or two" after the shop had opened and that last year (2017) was APS's twenty-fifth year in business. Further to that - we also have Brian Rawes' testimony which has been dated to 17 July 1992. Hving spoken to Brian on several occasions, I have no reason to suspect that he is lying or confused.

At the time when Colin Rhodes questioned his employees - the key individual (Eddie Lyons) had already left the firm's employ - "getting a better job working at Jaguar". Further to that - had any document been removed from the house, it is unlikely that the culprits would have gone running to the boss. Both Colin Rhodes and Graham Rhodes assumed that to be the case - and neither have dismissed the possiblity that the document was found at the house.

As far as I'm aware, Harrison never spoke with the electricians. Her account is a reproduction of Robert Smith's investigation in 1997.

It is interesting that you have introduced Darren Bytheway's account. After a long search, I managed to track down Darren and get in touch with him

Darren served in the military and his memory is not quite what it used to be. At some point (circa 2000) Darren was working as a "spark" at BT. Both he and a colleague, named Nigel Kerr, had taken an interest Jack the Ripper and (being from Liverpool) had picked up on the diary after having watched the 1993 documentary (which Darren owns on cassette). The pair had even gone to visit Battlecrease on one occasion. Whilst discussing the documentary over lunch at work, a younger electrician (who had recently joined BT) overheard their conversation and told them that he knew the two electricians who had found the diary whilst doing a rewire at Battlecrease House. The name given was "Rigby" - which Darren thought may have been the name of the electrical company involved. Of course - in light of what is now known, the association of the name Rigby and the discovery of a diary at Battlecrease is important - and should be overlooked. As far as I'm aware, Arthur Rigby's name had not been publicly circulated in connection with the Diary's discovery. As far as Darren can remember, the electrician who told him this information was called Steve (Darren couldn't recall his second name) who was laid off from BT in 2002. Darren was under the impression that "Steve" had started working on his own after leaving BT.

If the 'floorboard provenance' is nothing more than "urban folklore" - it involves a considerable number of people, all of whom appear to be contributing to a corporate fantasy of something having been found at Battlecrease House. Whatsmore, these stories seem to have been told at a rather serious level - including Scotland Yard.

Best wishes & hoping that this was useful.

JJ