Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[rjpalmer]

Hi David: I haven't forgot about the copy of Alan Gray's tape with Barrett. I couldn't find it the last time I was over to the mainland, but I have a few other places to check, and will give it another go, but it may be some time in the distance. I did, however, find a 2005 reference that I wrote shortly after listening to Gray's tape, and I was still insisting that Mike states quite plainly that the Diary did not physically exist when he called Doreen Montgomery in March 1992, with the obvious caveat that this is coming from Mike and it would need to be confirmed. I will post it below. I will still try to get hold of the tape. Regards.

[rjpalmer]

I'd like to explain my obsession with Mike's alleged call to Pan Books in Feb or March 1992.

The following is from Shirley Harrison.

“So he rang Pan Books because he had some of their paperbacks at home and asked if they would like to publish his story. London publishers are not so easily enthused and advised Michael to get himself a literary agent, recommending Doreen Montgomery.” (Harrison, The Diary of Jack the Ripper(Blake), p. 10)

What struck me was Shirley's strange use of the word 'story.' Why on earth refer to a physical document as a story?

So, clear back on Sept 2005 I posed the following question.

"Throughout the discussion of Barrett peddling the document to Crew, it is always referred to as 'the Diary.' And why wouldn't it be? It was a Diary. Please refer to Shirley's book. Her account is entirely steady on this point.

Yet, in referring to Barrett's attempt to sell something to Pan Books, she suddenly refers to "a story." (A one-off instance?).

I have already considered Mr. Hacker's option. [Who had suggested that Barrett may have been peddling his personal story]. But alas, what personal story did Barrett have to offer? According to Mr. Begg, Barrett had shown no real evidence of 'research.' He had 8 or 9 triple spaced sheets of 'notes.' He had some 'story' about getting it from a bloke in a pub. But certainly none of that had any commercial value. Only the DIARY had commercial value, and that is certainly what Barrett was selling when he contacted Crew a short time later.

We do have, however, a proven record of Barrett having attempted to be a writer. We have reference to a short story called "Daniel the Dolphin Boy." We have the word of an editor who had accepted some of his articles. We have a typescript of the Diary (not exactly a facimile of the original) that was very soon after given up for the use of Crew, and was also found on Barrett's PC. We have Anne Graham saying, with much melancholia, that the Diary was "never meant to be pubished by her, that she was hoping that he [Mike] would write a story based on it." That word again---story. Finally--though this isn't public knowledge, I believe---we have Mike Barrett telling Alan Gray at one point (and yes, he told a LOT of things to Mr. Gray) that the Diary didn't even PHYSICALLY EXIST when he had first phoned Crew in March 1992, and as seeming corroboration of this fact (?) we have Barrett attempting to purchase a blank Victorian diary on or about the same day as that initial phone call.

And no, I'm not accusing Shirley of anything. I apologize if I gave that impression. I am just wondering if there is more to this 'story' (excuse the pun), such as the possibility that she chose this peculiar wording based on a letter or phone call she received from Pan when she checked out Barrett's claim...as I am sure she (or Keith) must have done at some point. For instance, was there a note saying Barrett submitted a story?"

Finis.

After 12 years, I am still curious about Shirley's use of the word "story."

Stranger yet, she seems to date Barrett's call to Pan to February, 1992, which would be before the floorboards were lifted:

"By February 1992 Michael knew he was out of his depth..." (pg. 10 again).

What on earth was this based on?

[David Orsam]

Hi David: I haven't forgot about the copy of Alan Gray's tape with Barrett. I couldn't find it the last time I was over to the mainland, but I have a few other places to check, and will give it another go, but it may be some time in the distance. I did, however, find a 2005 reference that I wrote shortly after listening to Gray's tape, and I was still insisting that Mike states quite plainly that the Diary did not physically exist when he called Doreen Montgomery in March 1992, with the obvious caveat that this is coming from Mike and it would need to be confirmed. I will post it below. I will still try to get hold of the tape. Regards.

Thank you RJ. I haven't forgotten about it either and await the results of the checking exercise with much interest.

[John G]

As you well know John, there is no evidence that anyone wrote the diary but we don't, on that basis, say that no-one wrote it. Equally there's no evidence that anyone bought the guardbook but we don't say that, therefore, no-one bought it.

I've explained many times that the basis of my thinking is that Mike was seeking a Victorian diary with blank pages shortly before he produced a Victorian diary of Jack the Ripper. That's it. Either that is a compelling reason to think he wrote the diary or it isn't. But I can't think of any other reason why he sought to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages so I conclude that he did so because he (or an acquaintance) wanted to forge a Victorian diary. That being so I conclude that he was probably involved in forging the Jack the Ripper diary.

One thing I keep coming back to. David, is this paragraph in Mike's 1995 affidavit:

"During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severely ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990."

Now, of course, throughout the affidavit, he gets into a terrible muddle over dates, and this paragraph is no exception: TD actually died in August 1991. Nonetheless, what is very significant is the claim that the Diary was completed before TD died, which in no way can be reconciled with a completion date in, say, March/ April 1992, 6 months after his death.

So what's going on? Could Mike simply be confused? Well, it just doesn't seem realistic to me that, as regards a completion date in relation to TD's death, he would be out by such a massive margin, especially as TD's severe illness clearly fixed the date of completion in his mind.

Could he be lying? But why lie over a relatively trivial matter, when he's confessed to the much more serious issue of being the Diary's author?

It's certainly a conundrum. However, I completely agree with your point about the red diary with the missing pages; it has always struck me as a deeply incriminating piece of evidence, right from the time when I first became interested in the case. And, of course, we now know that this item was purchased just days before the call to Doreen.

So how can these issues be reconciled? During his affidavit Mike describes a conspiracy in which he is clearly the lead player-"when I was dictating to Anne", etc. In contrast, Anne and Tony are assigned peripheral roles. But we know Mike has a long history of making grandiose claims about his achievements. So what if he was the one whose role was peripheral?

I accept this is highly speculative, but in a way it would make sense: Mike constantly proved himself to be ill-disciplined and unreliable; he was also a blabbermouth, someone who was prepared to talk to all and sundry about the Diary, although he essentially gave each person a different story!

It would therefore be reasonable to speculate that any co-conspirators would be reluctant to trust Mike with any really important task, and therefore he may have been the one who was assigned a peripheral role. In such circumstances, he might have been genuinely in the dark about the Diary's development, and therefore forced to make guesses during his affidavit.

But, of course, there's still the tricky matter of the red diary. If the Diary was completed prior to Tony's death, why was there still a requirement to seek out a basic material 6 months later?

One possibility is that Tony's death resulted in the project being put on hold, and consideration may have been given to abandoning it altogether. Eventually, a decision is made to go ahead with the hoax, but the author is unhappy with the completed diary (completed before Tony's death) and decides to redraft it, thus the requirement for a replacement diary. However, the red diary is unsuitable so they return to plan A, resulting in the phone call to Doreen and the presentation of the Diary, warts and all.

Then again, where Unreliable Mike is concerned, who really knows?

[John G]

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

That's actually not a bad effort, Caz. To be honest, I didn't think anyone would even make an attempt!

Regarding the Battlecrease story, according to Shirley Harrison an employee of a domestic alarm system business recalled Alan Davies telling him about a biscuit tin being found under the floorboards of Battlecrease, containing a leather-bound diary and a gold ring.

However, when spoken to by Shirley, Alan told a somewhat different story: " He [Davies] recalls one of them coming to the driver's window saying, 'I've found something under the floorboards. I think it could be important.'" (Harrison, 2010)

Assuming it was The Diary that was discovered, Davies doesn't say that it was, how could Mike, who I believe had financial difficulties, afford to pay for it? I mean, if there is any credence to Davies' story at all, then whatever was found was considered valuable-in fact, valuable enough to warrant the risk of effectively stealing the item.

However, if Mike obtained the Diary by trickery, for instance, by offering to get it authenticated, then as I noted before, why would he have been crazy enough to visit Eddie Lyons and accuse him of lying?

[John G]

Ive just noticed an error in post #1249. I of course meant to write "blank pages", not missing pages. This is what happens when you attempt a lengthy post whilst half a sleep and preparing for bed! Strangely enough, it first struck me that I'd made a mistske when I awoke in the early hours of the morning-must be something to do with my subconscious!

[James_J]

Morning all, just passing this along from KS

TO R.J.PALMER

Thank you for your post #1239 Roger. I again repeat, it was not me who brought up the subject of O&L which led to your audible groan. And I wasn’t heading in any direction. Please re-read my post #540 closely and you will note I am not expressing any opinion All I did was to provide information requested by David and supplemented it with detail we had not included in Inside Story. I explained that I could not remember why we had not included all of the information contained in the memo I received from Shirley Harrison on January 16th 1995. What I am quite sure about though is that the 3 authors of Inside Story did not spend hours in a huddle discussing the memo and deliberating what to retain and what to excise. But what worried me Roger is that in spite of you now acknowledging it was David who requested the O&L information and I did not initiate the discussion, you chose to assume I had some hidden agenda by asking me the relevance of “...posting yet again Kevin Whay’s search of the receipts at O&L?” And I don’t know why this should be Roger? It is almost like you have a preconceived idea that everything I write or say is completely anchored in an entrenched, immovable belief that the Diary is an authentic document, penned by James Maybrick, which came out of Battlecrease House on March 9th 1992 and that everything I write or say is carefully designed to lead people in that direction and persuade them over to my belief? It is completely true, as I mentioned to David, the Battlecrease provenance is my preferred option, just as a modern hoax is yours but I don’t know if I’m right. I’m only kicking it around like everybody else. It stands flatly against Anne Graham’s story of the origins of the Diary which, for all I know, still may be true.

Thank you for the clarification around your exchanges with O&L. As I read it, you enquired of O&L whether they had any records for 1990-1992 and were informed the “...the appropriate receipts had been pulped.” So I’m guessing you must have been quite specific in what records you were asking them to examine and the parameters of the search? When you say that the blame for not checking O&L records more thoroughly should be laid at Paul Feldman’s doorstep because he was supposedly holding the purse strings, are you referring to January 1995 following Mike’s sworn affidavit? And which Diary investigators do you have in mind who were remiss in not doing a more intensive search of O&L’s records because “...they were eager to explore far more wayward avenues..?”

Many thanks Roger – and I note that you hold to the position that Mike Barrett’s sworn affidavit of January 1995 has not been proven false. Do you mean all of it or just the part relating to O&L? Your P.S about not having any knowledge whether Alan Gray or Melvin Harris asked O&L to check their books is very interesting. I’m sure on one of the Gray/Barrett tapes, O&L is discussed and Gray says he will write to them. “Do things properly” I seem to hear him saying. But Melvin Harris is perhaps the more important of the two because by 1995 everything had become extremely heated between Harris and Feldman with legal action being threatened. Harris was desperate to conclusively prove the Diary was a modern hoax, as he had been proclaiming since the press launch in October 1993. Harris was in touch with Alan Gray and I would have thought Harris would have pounced on that lead into O&L? Perhaps he did?

Best Wishes
Keith

[James_J]

From KS

TO JOHN G.

John. Would just like to make a brief observation around your post #1249 where you outline a speculative solution to the origins of the Diary. I would definitely encourage you to pursue this line of thinking and see if you can find answers to your own questions and reconcile these answers to the known facts and events. The only part I would query is where you state, with reference to the red Victorian diary:-

“And, of course, we now know that this item was purchased just days before the call to Doreen.”

In Mike’s sworn affidavit of January 5th 1995, he states...

“Roughly round about January, February 1990 Anne Barrett and I finally decided to go ahead and write the Diary of Jack the Ripper. In fact Anne purchased a Diary, a red leather backed Diary for £25.00p, she made the purchase through a firm in the 1986 Writters [sic] Year Book, I cannot remember their name, she paid for the Diary by cheque in the amount of £25 which was drawn on her Lloyd’s Bank Account, Water Street Branch, Liverpool. When this Diary arrived in the post I decided it was of no use, it was very small....”

The telephone call to Rupert Crew Ltd (Doreen Montgomery) was made on March 9th 1992.

A red Victorian diary, (presumed to be the same one), was received in the post by Mike and Anne Barrett at their home address on or around March 27th or March 28th 1992. It was paid for by cheque (£25.00) by Anne Barrett on May 18th 1992.

On April 13th 1992, the Diary was taken to London by Mike Barrett and seen for the first time by Doreen Montgomery and Shirley Harrison at the offices of Rupert Crew Ltd.

It is not known precisely when Mike Barrett contacted Martin Earl of H.P.Bookfinders who placed the advertisement for a Victorian Diary with Bookdealer – and which appeared in their issue of March 19th 1992. Bookdealer confirmed with me (8.12.2004) that this particular issue went to press on March 12th 1992 and therefore the copy had to have been received by them, either via the post or by fax, some time between the 6th and 12th March, 1992. According to Bookdealer the advertisement only appeared in the issue of 12th March 1992 and was not in the issue before or afterwards.

And finally, outside of Tony Devereux, Anne Graham and William Graham, Mike has never mentioned the names of any co-conspirators. Possibly Mike was the one assigned a peripheral role circa 1990 and kept in the dark about the Diary’s development. Do you think this might have been reflected in the relationship between Mike, his wife and father-in-law? Was this part of the reason why Anne walked out on her husband at the beginning of 1994, taking with her their daughter and later on that year filed for divorce after Mike publicly announced he had forged the Diary?

Best Wishes
KS

[caz]

Neither, he simply said a stroke and he mentions it twice.

He could have mentioned it a million times. Would that make it any more likely to be true, DD?

As David Osram pointed out in another thread it is mentioned in "Inside Story on page 67"

"Barrett in particular had not been bearing up very well. Harold Bough, who had first contacted him back in April [1993], had seen a dramatic change, as he reported in the Liverpool Daily Post of 28 September 1993. Only forty-one, Barrett had aged visibly over the last few months and now walked with a stick, the result, he told Bough, of a stroke which left him with limited use of his right side and which blamed on the stresses and strains involved in living with the Ripper story."

It's 'Brough' actually, but the salient point is that Mike 'told' him he'd had a stroke. We were very careful to source the stroke to Mike himself, having no independent evidence for it and knowing his tendency to fantasise. Anyone can hobble about with a walking stick and pretend to have limited use of one side to gain sympathy. You should have seen my late ma-in-law pile on the agony at every opportunity. She eventually admitted to me, when she was genuinely poorly and barely mobile, that she used to "take liberties" so I'd do all her chores while she sat in her armchair all day watching Jeremy Kyle on repeat. I was not happy.

Stroke or no stroke it brings even more problems for people who claim this is anything other than a modern forgery.

No doubt about it, DD. It just seems like common sense not to assume anything where Mike was concerned.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

In February 1993 Paul Feldman apparently accepted the story that the Diary had been given to Mike Barrett by Tony Devereux. What prompted Paul Feldman, during his visit to Battlecrease House, to ask Mr Dodds if there had been any work carried out in the house in the recent past? A shot in the dark perhaps? Lateral thinking? Prior knowledge?

Regards

Observer

Hi Observer,

I'm not sure if Keith has addressed this, but presumably Feldman wanted to know where Tony Devereux could have got the diary from, and at that time Mike was saying he had no idea because Tony had refused to tell him, and Anne had yet to claim she had given it to Tony.

Considering the content of the diary, and Feldman's belief in it, it was hardly a 'shot in the dark' or 'lateral thinking' to explore the possibility that it had once been in the house where Maybrick died! No prior knowledge would have been needed either, to go to Battlecrease and ask the current owner questions like: "Have you sold any furniture recently?" Have you had a robbery in the last few years?" or "Has there been any work done recently?"

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The late summer of 1991 for the storage heaters being installed in Maybrick's bedroom is interesting though. I'm surprised it hasn't been jumped upon by the pro Battlecrease provenance devotees. It begs the question though, should anything have been found at that time, of it's whereabouts between late summer 1991, and March 1992. Are there any timesheets relating to work being done in Maybrick's bedroom in late summer 1991 I wonder? Apparently timesheets for March 1992 exist.Why not late summer 1991?

The late Colin Rhodes, who kept meticulous records going back decades, gave Keith all the time sheets he had relating to any electrical work done by his company in Battlecrease House, and no work was carried out there by Portus & Rhodes in either 1990 or 1991. A repair to an immersion heater was carried out in 1989, and it would be March 1992 before any more work was done in the house - according to those time sheets. If any other work was done between 1989 and 1992, it would have been carried out by a different company or different individual workmen.

The diary's whereabouts between late summer 1991 and April 13th 1992, when Doreen and Shirley first saw it in London, are what we would all like to know! To date there is no evidence that anyone had heard about any such diary until Mike made his first call to Doreen's office on March 9th 1992. If Mike had known about it for months by then, either as a work in progress or an unexpected gift from Tony Devereux, he seemed to keep remarkably quiet about it until that call to Doreen.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Mr Dodds by all accounts is decent chap and has always stated that there was no way that diary could have come out of battlecrease without his knowledge.

Hi pinky,

That can't be quite right, can it?

In 1993, Paul Dodd's lawyer wrote to Smith Gryphon, asking them to halt publication of the diary until the question of ownership had been resolved.

Dodd himself told the Liverpool Daily Post that 'It must certainly be possible, if not probable, that the Diary did come from the house'.

Paul Feldman claimed he then approached Dodd to ask if he was prepared to do a deal with Mike, and Dodd said yes. An offer was then made to Mike that in return for 5% of whatever he received, Dodd would not contest ownership.

So do you still maintain that Dodd's belief is that the diary could not have come out of the house without his knowledge? And what would that say about him in light of the above?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Finally, I believe Gray was hired for different reasons, but over time--and at Barrett's bidding--the affidavit was created as 'leverage' against Feldman and, perhaps, Smith.

I don't doubt that, rj. But why on earth did Mike think Gray could help with his affidavit if, as you point out, the man appeared to have little knowledge of either the ripper murders or the Maybrick case? Was it a case of the blind leading the blind?

Mike was quite simply pissed (in the American sense, Caz!) and wanted to strike a blow. And, of course, Barrett did prove inside knowledge of the Diary's origins with his account of Martin Earl and the purchase of the potential raw materials (since verified) and his remarkable citation of the Crashaw quote. RP

So what are we all still doing here?? What kind of muppet hangs around a message board where the argument is that the earth is flat?

What has since been 'verified' about the purchase of the raw materials actually used for Mike's little literary project? As David and I have observed, the little red diary proved 'useless for forgery purposes' and therefore the possibility remains that it was never intended to be used for those purposes. As for the Crashaw quote, it seems Mike was more than capable of realising it would be useful for his forgery claims to be able to produce a book containing it, and to say it had been in his home since 1989, without Gray's input.

Love,

Caz
X

[DirectorDave]

He could have mentioned it a million times. Would that make it any more likely to be true, DD?



It's 'Brough' actually, but the salient point is that Mike 'told' him he'd had a stroke. We were very careful to source the stroke to Mike himself, having no independent evidence for it and knowing his tendency to fantasise. Anyone can hobble about with a walking stick and pretend to have limited use of one side to gain sympathy. You should have seen my late ma-in-law pile on the agony at every opportunity. She eventually admitted to me, when she was genuinely poorly and barely mobile, that she used to "take liberties" so I'd do all her chores while she sat in her armchair all day watching Jeremy Kyle on repeat. I was not happy.



No doubt about it, DD. It just seems like common sense not to assume anything where Mike was concerned.

Love,

Caz
X

Fine Caz he was faking it...so Mike Barrett deliberately made himself look less competent when presenting his photo-album.

He faked it.

Case Closed. (Joke, well kinda)

[rjpalmer]

Hi Keith, in answer to your Post #1252, please refer to a private email you sent me on April 22, 2005 at 11:42 a.m. PST, which I certainly can't quote without your permission. I refer to the last sentence before "best wishes." If you don't have a copy, I can send it privately via James or Caz, but I think this will help you understand why I may come across as a bit leery. That said, if, after 25 years, you merely have a lukewarm "preference" for option A, as opposed to B, or C, then I suppose we really have very little to discuss. Which is a pity. Thanks and good luck with wherever your searches lead. RP

But why on earth did Mike think Gray could help with his affidavit if, as you point out, the man appeared to have little knowledge of either the ripper murders or the Maybrick case?

Hi Caz. That's a question you should have asked yourself over the past 15 years while you promoted the idea that Mike "specifically" hired Gray to prove he forged the Diary. A singularly poor choice for such an enterprise, no?

My belief is simple to understand. Barrett wanted to sell his confession and no one was interested. The idea that his Jan 1995 affidavit was his "best college try" at proving he forged the Diary is a myth. He was drip feeding information through Gray over a period of months. Some of it was garbage because--surprise surprise--liars lie and Bongo was in a class by himself. Do you similarly discount Ted Bundy being a murderer because his confessions were heavily steeped in horse manure? That he readily admitted to certain elements but then, for no apparent reason, denied others? The simple fact is that is utterly TYPICAL for criminals and hoaxers to include enigmatic and utterly pointless lies in their confessions. A team of psychologists can't explain the reason why. Liars lie. Fishes swim. Birds fly. Nothing unusual about their being inconsistencies or even counterproductive misinformation coming out of Mike Barrett's mouth. Why is this so difficult for the posters here to grasp? Do Ripperologist not study true crime?