Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[DirectorDave]

A 'diary' - singular, any size - for any year from 1880 to 1890? How was that ever likely to produce what a forger would have needed for JM's undated personal ramblings between early 1888 and May 1889? Did it not occur to Mike that anything with a printed date that was inconsistent with the narrative - especially if it appeared on every page - would not do at all?

Because personal Victorian diaries were books, not pre-printed if trying to find a pre printed one is anything to go by.

Not even Queen Victoria herself had one of these elusive Victorian Diaries with dates pre printed...her madge had to scribble that in herself.



Now that's Victorian script!

[Hunter]

Hi Caz,

My own assumption, for what it's worth, would be that anyone having lived with this project for upwards of six months, who knew what the content of the forged diary was going to be, down to the period covered and number of words, would have had plenty of time to work out exactly what to ask for, to give themselves at least a sporting chance of acquiring something that wouldn't prove 'useless for the purposes of forgery'.

While we're making assumptions here, would this not go doublely so for a Victorian/Edwardian forger?

[caz]

Considering the possibility that the diary could have been discovered at Battlecrease by the electricians. Can anyone think of a sensible explanation, or even a not very sensible explanation, of how Mike could have acquired, possibly authenticated to his satisfaction, and viewed the diary on the same day, prompting his call to Doreen?

Here's a not very sensible explanation for you, John, but I'm excluding the bit about Mike acquiring and authenticating it to his satisfaction!

If the floorboards were lifted first thing that morning, in preparation for the underfloor wiring job, and if Eddie Lyons was there, just helping out so he wouldn't be under the boss's feet back at the office, and found the diary beneath, he could have whisked it away to where he was living in Fountains Road and taken it to the Saddle to show 'Bongo', his mate Mike, who boasted connections with the publishing world. On seeing the name Jack the Ripper, and the date of 3rd May 1889 on the last page of writing, Mike could have offered to sound out a publisher, collected his daughter from her primary school opposite at around 3.15 pm, gone home and made a couple of phone calls - the first to Pan Books, the second, on their advice, to Doreen Montgomery - assuming Mike had a home phone in 1992 and he didn't use a call box.

A third phone enquiry around the same time could have been to find out how easy it would have been for anyone to obtain a diary from the right period - the 1880s - with enough blank pages to use for a prank, as Mike would surely have been wondering if the one he had seen was someone's idea of a joke.

Mike may or may not have actually acquired 'the' diary by the time he made these calls, but I suspect he'd have made them before parting with any cash. Being the impetuous sort, he may have been buoyed up and excited by Doreen's initial response and decided not to wait for any feedback from his third enquiry before getting his paws on Eddie's diary and getting stuck in.

What Anne's reaction might have been, to Mike bringing the thing home, showing it to her and then admitting he had already interested a literary agent in it, without knowing where it had been, one can only imagine.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz,

While we're making assumptions here, would this not go doublely so for a Victorian/Edwardian forger?

Well I'd presume in that case, Cris, that the guardbook would have been obtained first, and the hoax composed to be housed within. The item considered 'useless for the purposes of forgery', by both myself and David, is the little red diary Mike received in March 1992 as a result of his enquiry. I doubt a Victorian/Edwardian forger would have made the same kind of schoolboy error, but you never know.

If "Sir Jim" was referring to the ripped out pages of the guardbook, when cursing Lowry for making him rip, this was presumably an addition to the prepared text if the guardbook was only acquired at the last minute, months after the contents had been drafted. I can't see why Lowry would be blamed for making Jim rip his victims but then again who knows?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Because personal Victorian diaries were books, not pre-printed if trying to find a pre printed one is anything to go by.

Not even Queen Victoria herself had one of these elusive Victorian Diaries with dates pre printed...her madge had to scribble that in herself.

But Mike didn't ask for a 'personal' diary, and the only one he received had the words 'MEMORANDUM BOOK' and the year 1891 printed inside it.

I have no idea what he was expecting but he seems to have had little idea himself!

Love,

Caz
X

[DirectorDave]

But Mike didn't ask for a 'personal' diary, and the only one he received had the words 'MEMORANDUM BOOK' and the year 1891 printed inside it.

I have no idea what he was expecting but he seems to have had little idea himself!

Love,

Caz
X

I agree he had no idea what he was expecting, and I'm going to give the pre-interweb master forger a bit of a pass here as it's only through the internet that I know if Mike wanted a diary with dates in he should have asked for a commercial diary, which are what they were called.

I suppose if I wanted to know what a Victorian diary was all about in 1990 pre-web, I'd probably go out and buy one at an auction or something...indeed I could kill two birds with one stone here if I wanted to forge one, just ask for one with a few spare pages.

[caz]

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

Hi Phil,

Wouldn't the same thing apply - with knobs on - to Mike's affidavit, claiming to have helped forge the diary?

There are some very obviously false claims in there, yet I presume you are among those who accept the basic story he tells as the truth?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I agree he had no idea what he was expecting, and I'm going to give the pre-interweb master forger a bit of a pass here as it's only through the internet that I know if Mike wanted a diary with dates in he should have asked for a commercial diary, which are what they were called.

But did Mike want dates in it, if the object was to use it for the prepared draft of someone's personal thoughts over the period from early 1888 to May 1889? He asked for a diary - any sort of diary - dating from 1880 to 1890.

I suppose if I wanted to know what a Victorian diary was all about in 1990 pre-web, I'd probably go out and buy one at an auction or something...indeed I could kill two birds with one stone here if I wanted to forge one, just ask for one with a few spare pages.

Which is precisely what David Orsam and others think Mike did, at the very end of March 1992, just 12 days before he took his Maybrick diary to London.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

RJ came in straight away (#541) asking me “...the relevance of posting yet again Kevin Whay’s search of the receipts at O&L?” In spite of you very kindly intervening on my behalf (#559), I don’t know why RJ asked me the question in the first place, (or even whether he accepted your explanation), which worried me because RJ seemed to have ignored the context of why I (or rather James)initially put up the post?

Hi Keith. The reason I rather audibly groaned at bringing up again Kevin Whay's search of the O & L books is that it in doing so you seemed to be headed in the direction of implying or otherwise suggesting that Whay's search tells us something conclusive about the veracity of Mike's tale of acquiring the scrapbook at an auction, as outlined in his January 1995 affidavit. But if, in fact, the records for 1992 were never checked by Whay or anyone else--and this appears to be the case--then no such conclusions can be drawn. Hence my groan. And yes, I now acknowledge that you were in fact replying to David Orsam's post, so I apologize. But as far as I can tell, Barrett's auction house story could be still be true. Orsam and other posters have already dealt with Whay's comment that Barrett's description of the tickets, etc., not matching O & L's actual procedures. And yes, I admit that I find it very frustrating that the Diary investigators didn't check the O & L books more thoroughly before they were pulped, when they were eager to explore far more wayward avenues, but I suppose Feldman held the purse strings and was the one directing the direction of the research, so I'll lay the blame at his doorstep. He seems to have quickly dismissed Barrett's claims without actually investigating them.

All O & L told me is that their records covering the appropriate time 1990-1992 no longer existed. This was around 2004. After 25 years I think it is doubtful we will find a lot description or anyone who remembers a seaman's compass without fingers, so--and this is merely my opinion--the matter remains unresolved, and Barrett's affidavit has not been proven false. Thanks for your answers. Much appreciated. What do you think of the photograph of the donkey by the grave? (Just joking! No more questions for the time being). RP

P.S. I should also add that I have no knowledge of whether or not Alan Gray or Melvin Harris or anyone else ever asked O & L to check their books. No idea.

[David Orsam]

One thing that's fairly obvious about the advertisement is that it did give Mike a sporting chance of acquiring something into which a fake JTR diary could be written. This is especially the case if Mike reasonably believed that diaries in the nineteenth century did not contain printed dates on every page (something I had to check myself online) but were normally written into blank volumes, just like the numerous examples I once posted in the Incontrovertible thread.

As far as I am concerned, Mike could have lived with the project for the previous five years, it wouldn’t make any difference. At some point in a project you start making serious attempts to acquire the tools you need and if that costs money you normally don't bother doing that until you are ready to spend the money. I really don’t know what he was supposed to have done in preparation for acquiring a diary, even with months or years in which to do it.

The suggestion I am making, should it not be clear, is that when he was ready to start writing the diary he attempted to acquire a Victorian diary. Just like any normal (diary forging) person would do. He may well have thought of acquiring one for the previous five years but that's as far as he could realistically ever have taken it, i.e. thinking about it. I'm not aware of an Institute for Victorian Diary Research in Liverpool that he could have visited to check on diary formats.

I would add that he managed to obtain the telephone number for Martin Earl. I'm still not sure how he did it or how long it would have taken him to get this number but it might have taken him some time and could be counted as preparation.

[David Orsam]

Is there any evidence that Mike ever "boasted of connections with the publishing world"? Or is this just fantasy on the part of Diary Defenders?

[rjpalmer]

from KS:

[I would note here that this particular Punch illustration appears in Don Rumbelow’s 1975 publication (as a quarter page plate) and in Don’s 1987 hardback edition.]

Hi Keith. From which might I conclude that this a feign on the part of Barrett and he knew quite well that the Punch illustration could be found in Rumbelow. A false question in a set of bogus research notes would be quite appropriate.

Here is a gem from the pen of Alex Chisholm, on the 'farthing' poem in the Maybrick Diary:

"Now I am fully aware of the dangerous ground I am treading here.
But while initially approaching this particular area with a view that the farthings
did not exist, on closer examination I was not convinced they could be
definitely dismissed as fiction. What can be so dismissed is the connection
of these with the rings. This is a connection made by Rumbelow, who
includes rings and farthings among the items found at Chapman's feet. But
we know the rings were definitely missing, so such a connection is
undoubtedly a myth. Yet it is precisely the connection our diarist makes.
"One ring, two rings - a farthing, one and two, - Along with M ha ha - will
catch clever Jim - its true" is a statement I fully concur with, as this
rhyme again indicates our diarist has been informed not by experience but by
ephemera."

He seems to have a pretty good argument that the source is, once again, Rumbelow (1975).

[David Orsam]

If Mike was trying to establish how easy it would have been for possible forgers - of the JTR diary he had supposedly been shown on 9th March - to obtain such a diary, he really didn't do a very good job. With over 60 blank pages necessary to complete that diary, how would a diary with 30 blank pages have told him how easy it was to find such an item? Perhaps there were millions of Victorian diaries in existence with 30 blank pages but none with more than 40. Searching for a diary with any less than 63 blank pages - or a minimum of 20 blank pages - must have been a complete waste of time.

Not to mention that asking a second hand rare and specialist book dealer such as Martin Earl was hardly the obvious way of checking the general availability of a Victorian diary.

Not to mention that Mike had no way of knowing on 9th March that the JTR diary he had been shown was a genuine Victorian diary as opposed to one that simply looked old. So pointlessly narrowing down his search to a 10 year period in the nineteenth century meant that the result of that search would also have told him absolutely nothing.

[David Orsam]

So the diarist writes on page 43: "I am cold curse the bastard Lowry for making me rip I keep seeing blood pouring from the bitches".

We are seriously supposed to think that this means that something Lowry did or said made him tear some early pages from the diary while retaining 43 pages which contain the confessions of five murders of prostitutes in London and, apparently, one in Manchester?!!! That makes sense. Not! What could have been in the pages that Lowry caused him to rip out? Something worse than murder and mutilation? I don't think so. It's a ridiculous idea. Even Smith doesn't sink so low, interpreting it as Maybrick blaming Lowry "for making him kill women" (Smith, 2017, fn97).

[David Orsam]

So, Keith, now that the situation with RJ has presumably been resolved, can we get back to the matter in hand. Even if you can't identify the source of the information about the telephone conversations in Inside Story without your notes, are you able to say off the top of your head whether anyone ever asked Doreen about her two first telephone conversations with Mike? Surely someone raised it with her, no?