Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[John G]

This has been discussed at length in one of the Maybrick threads. You can probably guess as to the outcome of the exchanges.

Hi Observer,

Yes, I've posted at length myself, arguing that no explanation is the least bit plausible, and no-one seemed to disagree.

However, some people clearly do believe in the story, or at least consider it viable -Robert Smith, for example, and possibly Ike, who left Casebook for a while after the story of the timesheets broke, arguing that the case was now effectively closed-so I was curious as to what their explanation was.

[pinkmoon]

time sheets

So a company kept time sheets from 15 years ago ?

[GUT]

So a company kept time sheets from 15 years ago ?

Not unheard of with smaller (family controlled in particular) businesses.

[James_J]

From KS

Thank you Director Dave, Hunter, David O, Pat D, Observer and Ozzy for all your input and assistance in patiently helping me with regard to my technical ineptitude. I’ll try and work through all of your constructive suggestions but I fear more confusion probably awaits...

However, I do want you to know that I changed my typewriter ribbon, unaided, the other day!

Best Wishes To All

KS

[pinkmoon]

Not unheard of with smaller (family controlled in particular) businesses.

They just gave them away to anyone who wanted them?

[Phil Carter]

Perhaps I'm being obtuse.. but...
Surely if the biscuit tin story is just a ruse..a hoax..a lie..a made up story (take your pick...)...
Then ANYTHING to do with electricians finding anything under floorboards has to be discounted as extremely doubtful. Surely? You cant have one thing as truth but dismiss the other as false. It's all part of the same story.

Perhaps that is far too blinking simple to understand?



Phil

[Observer]

Here are a couple of questions for Mr Skinner.

I recently returned to reading Paul Feldman's book "Jack The Ripper The Final Chapter" in it Mr Feldman describes a visit paid to the home of Paul Dodd accompanied by Mike Barrett. To cut a long story short Mr Dodd informed Paul Feldman that in 1988/89 work was carried out to install storage heaters.



Firstly. Do you know when this visit took place? I know Mr Feldman first met Mike Barrett in 1993, but I believe the visit to Battlecrease House was on a subsequent visit.

Secondly. Have you any thoughts on why we are now led to believe that the storage heaters were installed in March 1992, as opposed to 1988/9 as reported in Paul Feldman's book?

Thanks

[rjpalmer]

From KS: this could support an assertion, I believe you made, that Mike was trailing the Diary around several publishers before he contacted Doreen Montgomery? Two questions in this post...!

Hi Keith - I'm not as emphatic about this as I was many years ago, and am quite willing to retrace my steps. My source for Barrett trailing around London in search of publishers, as you no doubt know, was Maurice Chittenden in a Sunday Times piece. I don't have it in front of me, but it painted a mental image of Barrett roaming London, Maybrick Diary in hand (or only manuscript in hand?) trying to find a publisher.

Yes, this was merely Chittenden's claim, and it wasn't much to go on--simply a working hypothesis I was toying with--but it wasn't outside the realm of posssibility. Could Barrett have previously tried to publish the Diary simply as a manuscript? He had been working as a freelance writer, after all. It was also claimed by members of the Diary team that he had previously contacted Pan Books. So, what is so crazy about Mike, having found no 'buyers' for his Maybrick theory, and frustrated by his lack of progress, deciding (to use Mike's own phrase) to 'go Hell or Bust,' thus turning the manuscript into an 'artificact'??

No, I had no evidence, nor do I insist that this is the correct "answer," but it seemed at least theoretically possible and worthy of investigation. It's not unusual to hear about writers submitting their manuscripts to dozens of different publishers. Not everyone is lucky enough to hit pay dirt the first time around and thus end up ruining their own life, as well as their ex-wife's.

But, in the end, I had to admit that Chittenden's account was vague, and I have an email before me from one Keith Skinner, dated 2005, suggesting that Chittenden may have "misreported" what had actually occurred. In your view, it was really Doreen making the rounds to various publishing houseses between April 13 and June 10, 1992, trying to test interest in the Diary, and I can't prove that you are incorrect, but I do still wonder. Around the time we first discussed this, I found Chittenden's email address at the Sunday Times and asked him for clarification. I think he sent me back a very brief sentence to the effect that it was a relatively small story in a long career and he had no recall. Full stop. So no, it looks like we currently have nothing definite to show that Barrett ever mentioned the Diary prior to March 9, 1992. According to your 2005 message, both P Feldman and D Montgomery contacted Pan Books, but could find no one who could confirm this phone call.

That said--and I don't think you would mind me repeating this--you also voiced considerable frustration that the documentation of such details were not always pursued with great vigor by all members of the Diary team.

Second question. I was already rethinking Martin Howell's quizzing of Barrett before your post #944. It was not meant as a criticism. I think Martin probably took it as far as he could; he was, afterall, not a policeman in an interview room with a bare lightbulb dangling over Barrett's face, trying to trick him into a confession. He was simply trying to get Mike's 'side of the story' for the sake of Feldman's video. As I think I admitted earlier, the Diary's early investigators did not have the power of the police, and had to rely on cooperation, tact, and persuasion. RP

But Keith, I'm starting to feel like the man in the hot seat. You've asked 3 questions in your last two posts, but have failed to answer my latest. Do you have a source showing that Barrett hired the private detective Gray "to help him prove the Diary was a forgery"? It's a very minor point. Did Barrett himself ever claim this? Thanks.

[Abby Normal]

From KS

Thank you Director Dave, Hunter, David O, Pat D, Observer and Ozzy for all your input and assistance in patiently helping me with regard to my technical ineptitude. I’ll try and work through all of your constructive suggestions but I fear more confusion probably awaits...

However, I do want you to know that I changed my typewriter ribbon, unaided, the other day!

Best Wishes To All

KS

whats a "typewriter"?

[James_J]

Evening all - just passing this along from KS. If I may be allowed to add a little something - the electrician which Feldman eventually accused of removing the diary (E.L) was not employed at Portus & Rhodes until November 1991 - making the date of 1988/89 all the more confusing.


TO OBSERVER

Thank you for your two questions in #967.

Paul Feldman’s first visit to Liverpool, (accompanied by Martin Howells and Paul Begg), occurred in February 1993. This was when they met Mike Barrett for the first time - had lunch – and then all went together to visit Battlecrease House. I agree the sequence of events is a bit unclear in Paul Feldman’s book.

I imagine the reason we are now discussing the installation of storage heaters in March 1992, is because we have a March 1992 timesheet showing the preparatory work for two storage heaters to be installed in Paul Dodd’s living room, (the room which, in 1889, was James Maybrick’s), later on that summer. It is the first hard piece of evidence we have relating to the installation of storage heaters. Now, quite why Mr Dodd informed Paul that work was carried out in 1988/89 to install the storage heaters, I don’t know. Perhaps other storage heaters were installed during that period? I wasn’t part of that initial investigation and only started looking at and revisiting it myself in 2004. It is, however, something we are currently trying to clarify and resolve with Mr Dodd’s full co-operation. Certainly the 1988/89 date was welded into Paul’s mind and this is what triggered off his investigation into the electricians.

Best Wishes

Keith

[pinkmoon]

money

I would like to see a breakdown of the research fees levied against the income from the book and video tape sales .

[David Orsam]

This is what the narrator says in Feldman's 1993 video:

"The floorboards in James Maybrick's study had been lifted for the first time in over a century just prior to the diary coming to light."

How much further have we come in the last 25 years?

[Phil Carter]

This is what the narrator says in Feldman's 1993 video:

"The floorboards in James Maybrick's study had been lifted for the first time in over a century just prior to the diary coming to light."

How much further have we come in the last 25 years?

Which back my point.
Thanks David



Phil

[John G]

According to Shirley Harrison's book, Paul Dodd told her that the storage heaters were installed in two phases: in Maybrick's bedroom in the late summer of 1991 and the downstairs flat in 1993.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

This is all very fascinating.

Who put the diary under the floorboards in the first instance?

Regards,

Simon