Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[Sam Flynn]

Nothing unusual or remarkable about it at all.

Thanks for providing that example, David, and I do take your point. However, whilst it's no doubt the case that adverts for Ripper books weren't particularly unusual, that's not what's been remarked upon in the case of the Diary. It is, rather, the very close proximity of the notorious advert for a blank Victorian diary to a request for three specific, and somewhat specialist, books about the Ripper. I still find this an interesting coincidence, although whether it is a significant one is another matter entirely. The only way we could know for sure would be if there were some record of who placed those advertisements; in the absence of such evidence, the most one can say is that this is an amusing oddity.

[David Orsam]

Thanks for providing that example, David, and I do take your point. However, whilst it's no doubt the case that adverts for Ripper books weren't particularly unusual, that's not what's been remarked upon in the case of the Diary.

With respect Sam, I think that's exactly what is being remarked upon. Within a list of over 80 books there are three requests for rare Jack the Ripper books (and not even next to the request for the Victorian diary). My point is that it's not at all surprising or unusual or unexpected (and, by definition, all book requests in that specialist magazine are going to be for rare or specialist books).

I still find this an interesting coincidence, although whether it is a significant one is another matter entirely.

That's fine. What I was reacting to was the remarkable statement made above about the three JTR books that:

"These were also enquired about by Mike at the same time"

That was made as a statement of fact, with the only caveat being "unless you fancy another curious coincidence to explain away." Then it was said: "They would seem to indicate his earliest efforts to research the subject of Jack the Ripper".

I have difficulty understanding what goes through the mind of someone who makes such extraordinarily positive but highly dubious assertions - and assertions which are inconsistent with what is stated in their own book to boot!

[David Orsam]

As for the story about the diary being sold for £20 or £25, I can't help wondering if someone is getting themselves terribly confused about a story told by Robert Smith that Alan Davies suggested to the manager of the newly opened APS store in Bootle, Alan Dodgson, that "the diary could be acquired for about £25". However, as Alan Davies told Smith when he later tried to locate the diary: "the book had been sold in a pub in Anfield".

No price was stated for the sale and it's rather hard to fit this story into the new narrative. According to both Harrison and Johnston, the conversation between Davies and Dodgson occurred in late 1991. A small problem for the Diary faithful considering that the Diary was still supposed to be under the floorboards at this date.

Smith, however, dates the conversation to late 1992 at the earliest. This is equally problematic because the new narrative surely requires Eddie to have sold the Diary to Mike in March or April 1992 so it is inexplicable that Davies could be suggesting many months later that it still could be purchased for "about" £25.

So when did this conversation take place and when did the APS shop in Bootle open? Was it November 1991 or November 1992? I think this question needs to be definitively answered before anyone can even start thinking about what it all means.

[caz]

When I said that Rigby could easily have convinced himself that Lyons had been involved in finding something and had passed it on to Devereux and Barrett this in no way assumes that Rigby knew anything about Devereux or Barrett. It’s simple comprehension.

Not if Rigby was a witness to two fellow electricians acting furtively and trying to conceal something from him, which he suspected one or other had just taken from the house. He claimed to have been in the car with them for the trip to Liverpool University, and spotted a parcel wrapped in brown paper under a seat. This led to his conviction that the parcel contained the diary, which had been passed on to Mike, which he knew had to be no sooner than March 1992 when he worked in the house.

He didn’t need to know who Devereux and Barrett were at all.

No, and he probably didn't, but he did know it had to be in 1992, and everyone involved with Mike's account knew Tony D had died in 1991.

The point is that Eddie Lyons was NOT a random coincidence. He probably only exists in the story because he happened to be one of nine Liverpool electricians who drank in the Saddle. It’s not a random coincidence, in other words, it’s a manufactured story created to please the big film producer, Paul Feldman, and give him exactly what he wanted.

But 'probably' isn't good enough for you when anyone else tries it on. How is it good enough when you do it? Why would Eddie effectively be denying finding or stealing 'the' diary, when talking to Robert Smith in June 1993, if he was trying to con Feldman with the opposite story? What was the point of Eddie agreeing to talk to Robert at all?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

What about the idea that someone forged the diary in the 20th century and placed it under the floorboards in Battlecrease? Well, perhaps that is something that can be discussed at the next Mad Hatter’s Tea Party but not worth my time on this forum.

So why are you still here? And why so rude?

You do sound very cross about something.

Take a chill pill.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Why did Mike contact Doreen on 9 March 1992? Well if he was going to contact Doreen it had to be on one day out of 365 in any one year, or indeed 366 in the leap year. You could ask the same question about any day. But was he ever asked that question? I have no idea. Personally I very much doubt that his contacting Doreen had anything to do with the electrical work taking place in Battlecrease. I thought this new evidence was supposed to prove me wrong beyond any reasonable doubt. It's certainly failed to do that.

And personally I don't care what you 'personally' very much doubt.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Mike did not get his diary penned between the end of March 1992 and April 13, but if you seriously think he did, then you may as well think the moon is made of cream cheese, for what good your opinions are to anyone.

What on earth makes you think Keith and others have been investigating this to prove you wrong about anything?

Apart from the fact that they'd have to be mad to think they could ever do so, you and your relatively recent thoughts on the subject are really not as vital as you fondly imagine.

Yes, if it had been a matter of pure chance, Mike could have been dreaming of creating a ripper diary since he was ten, and could have called Doreen, or her equivalent, to see what interest there was, on any number of days between then and when he died in 2016.

And the floorboards in Maybrick's old bedroom could have been lifted at the whim of whoever was living there on any number of days - or indeed never - between May 1889 and today.

But no. You have two one-off instances, with the clearest possible connection to Maybrick and his place of death, not only in the same century, decade, year, month or week, but on the one day in March 1992.

You deal with that your way, and others will deal with it their way.

Good luck.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Just to round off this string of posts with a brief anecdote. This very week - on Tuesday in fact - I happened to mention, over the lunch period, to a colleague at work, someone who I used to work with in the office about three years ago. I hadn't seen this guy (or even thought about him) for the past two years and wasn't even sure if he still worked at my firm. Can you imagine my astonishment when about two or three hours later, at shortly after 3pm, when I was returning to the office from another building to which I had paid a short business visit, I walked past this very chap in the street at a location about a mile from my office? Checking his LinkedIn page when I returned to the office I discovered he had left my firm and moved to another firm which is based close to where I walked past him (thus explaining why he was there).

Now I thought that was quite freaky. So did my colleague to whom I told the story. And funnily enough even today when I was writing an email to someone within my firm who I hardly ever see or communicate with in any way, she walked into my office just as I was about to press send. I told her the above story and that it was clearly a week of coincidence!

That one is obviously less freaky than walking past someone in the street who I hadn't seen or spoken about or thought about for over two years when I had just been speaking about him earlier that day. But, hey, it's just one of those unlikely coincidences. We've all experienced them.

I know all about such things, David. When I was twelve I went on holiday to Cattolica on the Adriatic coast - my first ever flight and my first trip abroad. The beach was absolutely packed, you could hardly see the sand for all the sunbathers. On my first day I happened to look round as I arranged my towel and immediately behind me was a girl from the next class up at my school! That's when I knew what a small world it really is.

Then, in 1998, on a holiday in Vilamoura on the Algarve, we went to a Chinese restaurant one evening and my daughter's school teacher was sitting at a corner table. I was used to it by then.

But based on a similar type of coincidence I am effectively supposed to believe that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper! For make no mistake. If that diary was retrieved from under the floorboards of Battlecrease then it was surely written by James Maybrick and if it was written by James Maybrick then he was surely Jack the Ripper.

Blimey, that's a leap! Robert may well believe that, but he hasn't tried to make me believe it in all the years I've known him, and he knows he never will. So why not treat his book as something akin to one claiming the moon landings were hoaxed, and you might not get so stressed about it all.

But, really, I need more than a mundane timesheet if I am going to even start to think that the diary was ever under a single floorboard in Battlecrease. I rather suspect the same is true for most people.

I rather suspect the whole story, warts and all, is yet to be told, so it's not something to get too worried about. I'm certainly not sure of your confidence that 'most people' think like you do, but that's not something to boast about, considering most people voted for Trump and Brexit.

For a similar type of coincidence, you need to figure in the rumours going round the electricians from 1992, when they apparently would have known nothing about Mike calling Doreen about any diary, and when Mike would apparently have known nothing about any floorboards in Maybrick's old bedroom coming up. There's the small fact that the two events happened at all to consider, before you even get to them both happening on the same day, thus allowing for the rumours to have been true.

I heard you had tried to calculate the chances and downplay them and I did wonder where you learned the craft. Have you learned to turn base metal into gold yet? Or add sugar to ink to break down the molecules?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

This can only emerge from the mind of someone who cannot distinguish fact from wild speculation.

You don't even realise it when you do exactly the same thing, do you? Look at the post you wrote immediately before the above and watch yourself in action.

In the first place, we are told in Inside Story (p.237) that Keith Skinner investigated the purchase of the Victorian diary and discovered that HP Bookfinders "had received a telephone enquiry from a Mr Barrett asking them to locate a Victorian diary, which struck them as an unusual request". Nothing said there about any further enquiries for Jack the Ripper books. So unless it is being said that Keith Skinner's investigation was faulty that's a dead end right there.

Oh don't talk such crap. You were told that Keith was investigating the purchase of the Victorian diary [which Mike himself had revealed and Anne had supplied the details], not investigating whether Mike may also have used the same firm to advertise at any point for Jack the Ripper books [which Mike never claimed as far as I'm aware], or books on How to Obtain Victorian Ink, Pens or Cheap Scotch to get him through a future confession session for that matter.

Furthermore, Martin E. Earl's advertisement contains requests for over 80 books on all sorts of subjects. Is it being said that Mike Barrett was the person who wanted all these books????? It's absurd.

It would be absurd, if anyone was saying Mike wanted 80+ books on all sorts of subjects, from Forgery For Dummies to How to Make a Convincing Confession Under the Influence. I now have the three JtR items in question at the bottom of my list of coincidences which may not be - and nobody has been hurt in the process. Do get over yourself.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

And surely that disposes of that barmy and laughable suggestion. I mean, perhaps people are in denial but the clear and obvious reason for Mike Barrett to have gone on the hunt for a Victorian diary with a MINIMUM of 20 blank pages – I repeat a MINIMUM of 20 blank pages - was to obtain a volume in which the text of a "Victorian" diary could be written. (And we may note in passing that the transcript of the JTR Diary in Shirley Harrison's 2003 book is exactly 20 pages.) This notion perfectly fits in with Mike making the telephone call to Doreen on 9 March 1992, having in his possession an already written or typed up draft of the text of the diary, establishing from Doreen that such a diary would be valuable and realising that he now needed to obtain a bound volume containing paper from the period which, by random coincidence, is exactly what he said he was doing in his January 1995 affidavit. It certainly explains why he didn't rush down to London with the diary but waited over a month to meet Doreen. Realising the Victorian diary was too small he then managed to obtain the scrapbook (quite possibly at an O&L auction held on 31 March) and this would literally have given him just sufficient time, as stated in his affidavit, for the text of the diary to be written by hand into the scrapbook (i.e. 11 days) before being presented to Doreen in London on 13 April 1992.

Do you see what you did there? You went seamlessly from a barmy and laughable suggestion of your own to a statement of fact that Mike obtained the scrapbook after realising the one for 1891 was too small [just too small? ] for the text of his faked diary.

Everyone was capable of working out that you were merely speculating and describing what you considered to be a possible scenario, so it might be wise not to insult their intelligence by warning them that when I do the same I am claiming my scenario as established fact, when it's blindingly obvious that I'm doing no such thing, but just going with a particular thought process. You may see it as weakness to explore alternative options openly, if you find your strength from clinging to the Barrett forgery wreckage, but that is your problem, not mine.

The notion of a modern forgery (in 1992) is the only one that sensibly fits the fact of the purchase of the Victorian diary - indeed it fits all the facts - and, even after all this time, I really have no idea why there is such fanatical resistance to this simple and obvious explanation.

Yes, you rightly call it a 'notion', but no, it most certainly doesn't fit all the facts, and what may be simple and obvious to you is anything but simple or obvious to the people who have been at the heart of the investigation since 1992, while you sit there sneering, a million miles from the reality, moving the personalities involved around like pieces on a chess board. This might explain why you 'have no idea' and probably never will.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I see that some people are now reduced to reproducing unsubstantiated rumours in support of the Battlecrease provenance. This must surely show how desperate these Diary believers are. The timesheets were supposed to prove the provenance but that turned out to be damp squib. So now we are told that the diary was sold in an Anfield pub for £20. Forgive me, but where is the evidence for this assertion? What is the source of it?

All I keep reading in this thread are unsubstantiated and unsupported statements. Like: the 9 electricians were never in Battlecrease before 1992, the floorboards in Maybrick's room had never been dug up before, Arthur Rigby and Coufopolous were working in the morning in Battlecrease on 9 March 1992, they definitely lifted the floorboards on 9 March, the Portus & Rhodes working day was between x and y etc. etc. Is it not possible to stick with the actual evidence in this case? And if there is evidence in support of any such statements it should be provided so that we can see it.

Certainly the claim that the floorboards were lifted remains an assumption and all the argument in the world won't change that. Maybe they were lifted but how do we know for sure? Are we simply supposed to assume they were?

Seems to have got you rattled though, eh?

If you will keep speculating about things you admit to knowing nothing about, you can expect others to come back with their own observations, based on evidence that is already out there, regardless of whether you have seen or heard it or not.

What is your evidence that the diary was not sold in an Anfield pub for £25? That the 1992 electricians did work in Battlecrease before 1992? That the floorboards in that room had been lifted before, but not on March 9, when Rigby completed a timesheet for 8 hours' work on the underfloor wiring in that room? That Colin Rhodes gave Keith incorrect information about who did what and when, or the hours worked on a typical day?

You are the one working unashamedly on pure assumption here, in the hope that there was never anything but assumption beneath those floorboards; in the hope that Rigby got under the floor to install the wiring using only the power of his mind perhaps; or was he like the gynaecologist who papered his hall through the letter box?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The two books Barrett actually mentions in his supposed "research notes" are Wilson/Odell JtR: Summing up and Verdict (1987) and Paul Harrison JtR: the Mystery Solved (1991).

Hi rj,

Do you know if anyone, at any time, has suggested that the above two books would have given Mike some, if not all, the ripper information he'd have needed to create the diary text?

Or do you see this as a smart double bluff, by deliberately mentioning two books that wouldn't have supplied him with all the source material he actually used?

Do you think he read both books carefully, cover to cover, to make sure he could refer to them in his notes without incriminating himself?

Did he fashion the notes to support a perception he went on to feed Keith, that he appeared to know relatively little about the ripper case?

Very little has been said about these notes, so I wonder what thoughts people have about their potential significance.

Mind you, I haven't visited the 25 years thread since September, so I would have missed that discussion if it took place there.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

So now we are being drip fed information – or rather, drip fed statements without any evidential support – not mentioned in Robert Smith's book or any other publication or website of which I am aware, one statement being that the Portus and Rhodes electricians were working in Battlecrease in 1989.

I have definitely mentioned that before, and had to consult the relevant timesheet, but I couldn't tell you when or where I posted it and am not about to look. Something else for you to assume never happened. But to repeat: the two men involved on that minor one-off job to repair a faulty immersion heater did not include any of the 1992 electricians.

One has to love the logic of the argument here. On 9th March there is a timesheet which does not show Eddie Lyons working in Battlecrease. In 1989 there is a timesheet which does not show Eddie Lyons working in Battlecrease. Of course this obviously means that Eddie Lyons was working in Battlecrease on 9th March 1992 but not in 1989! It's Diary logic at its finest.

So you tell us all if you think you know better. When did Eddie start with P&R and when did he leave? While he was working there did he ever do odd jobs or help out on a casual basis, where he may have been paid from the petty cash [as I used to pay our cleaner at a firm of solicitors I worked for] if the work didn't warrant a timesheet? Colin Rhodes would be a good starting point.

Then you wouldn't be stuck loving the logic of an argument. You'd actually have a fact or two under your belt to play with.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Could the Diary have been tossed into the skip and been retrieved by "Eddie", who rummaged through it later to see if there was scrap metal he could sell to Mike (knowing he would see him later in the pub)? Eddie may not have been doing actual work in the house but just scavenging for metal. And where was the site of the skip?

Hi Scotty,

Yes, it's possible something like this happened, although Rigby's story was that he saw two of his colleagues trying to hide something in one of their vehicles. I'm not sure a skip featured in his account, but there could have been one there. Eddie does recall a job in the house involving a heater, which in turn involved lifting the floorboards, which would imply he was there in some capacity on that day. His story of finding a book and throwing it out of the window into a skip sounds like a cover story against the accusation that he took the book away and passed it on to Mike. The implication would then be that if this was the diary, someone else found it in the skip and treated it as a freebie.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

When I think of the importance of Robert Smith's first hand experience of watching the body language of Mike and Eddie during their June 1993 meeting, their eye contact and reactions, well, you know, it makes me wonder why he said not a word about any of it in his book "The True Facts"! And my conclusion from him saying nothing is that it can't have been very important after all.

But more than this, I think that it has absolutely nothing to do with the point I was making which is that Robert Smith set up the meeting in June 1993 specifically and expressly to meet Eddie Lyons, something which he asked Mike to arrange on his behalf.

Yes, but I was offering some extra detail, by saying there was no actual arrangement made for that evening, or in that pub, until Robert suggested this to Mike on arrival at his house. Yet they strolled down to the Saddle and Eddie turned up on cue without Mike apparently having had to relay any message to him about the time or place. It's just something more to think about - or not. Please yourself. It could imply a regular Saturday night thing, with Mike knowing Eddie was likely to put in an appearance and therefore didn't need to get a message to him when Robert suggested the Saddle that evening.

So I have to repeat: what purpose did any mention of this meeting serve?

You go on and on about things that have been said and done behind the scenes that you think should be made available to all [without knowing what, if anything, will turn out to be relevant], but the minute I post something from my behind-the-scenes correspondence with Robert, you reject it as having no purpose or relevance. I don't just post stuff for your benefit - or disapproval. Others may actually be interested in the finer details.

Robert talked about his meeting with Eddie in his book. You have read it, so I can't see what objection you can possibly have to my mentioning it here too, seeing that I have been heavily criticised by others who haven't read the book, for not mentioning stuff contained in it.

Have you been sucking lemons?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

For anyone who is interested, there has been a similar discussion about acquiring a Victorian diary here:

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?p=335218#post335218

Enjoy!

Or not.

Love,

Caz
X