Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[caz]

However, "I seen" isn't typically Liverpudlian...

It is, Gareth, in my experience.

As a Londoner born, the usual lower class expression down south for "I saw" is "I see".

"I see the postman yesterday, mate, fighting off next door's dog."

In Liverpool it would be "I seen the postman yesterday, la, fighting off next door's dog."

And for the umpteenth time, Maybrick is portrayed in the diary as someone who likes to think he is higher class and better educated than he is in reality - just a common little man with a murderous little plan. It's called irony. You don't think we were meant to believe the real James Maybrick had any intention of giving Queen Victoria a call, either in person or on the blower, do you? So why do you look for what you would consider realism in other areas of the text?

I'm not sure whether having Phil agree with you is an asset or a hindrance.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

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)

Hi John,

This sounds like a version of Brian Rawes's account. Brian recalls Eddie Lyons coming to his van's window in July 1992 to tell him that.

By December 1992, it's not clear which stories Alan Davies could have picked up and run with, although he learned at some point that the diary had been snapped up and was no longer up for grabs.

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.

The rumour was that the diary had been sold for £25 in an Anfield pub. Unless Doreen sent Mike the money in advance for his fare to London on April 13th, I think we have to assume he managed to scrape up the cash somehow for his return journey, so why not £25 to take the diary off Eddie's hands and do the donkey work of placing it with a literary agent, with a view to getting a much more lucrative result?

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?

Yes, that doesn't seem a very likely scenario, does it? But... if there was some sort of agreement in place for Mike to 'fence' the diary without naming who passed it on to him, and for Eddie to keep quiet about how they both came to handle it, it would make sense for Mike to have gone round to Eddie's like a bat out of hell, on hearing that he was prepared to say he stole it if the money was right, and to sell Mike down the river in the process.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

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?

Hi rj,

And do liars never confess to crimes they did not commit, due to attention-seeking behaviour, desperation or mental health problems?

Did nobody make a false confession to the ripper murders?

Was the first person to do so hanged on the basis of the arguments you employed above? And was this fatal mistake only realised when the second, third and fourth men turned up to confess to the same murders?

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

Oh of course a published journalist and proven liar couldn't possibly be involved in writing a phony historical diary.

Not to mention someone who had "a taste for quoting Latin phrases culled from a classical dictionary and a knack of collecting snippets of knowledge from the library."

[David Orsam]

Having only become aware of the ‘Diary’ in 2002 and being initially suspicious of it, I now count myself amongst the ‘apparent’ few in believing that it is the genuine article from 1888/89 and also that it was written by James Maybrick. It isn’t going to go away.

It is going to go away because it isn't possible for the diary to have been written in 1888/89. The expression "one off instance" did not exist in that time period. Hence it wasn't written by James Maybrick.

[David Orsam]

We seem to get the same question asked every few weeks by the same person in this thread: Why are you posting here if you think you know the answer? This by the person who thinks she knows the answer yet still continues to post!!

She suggests that some unidentified people think that Mike Barrett is incapable of deceiving them yet doesn’t consider whether she herself was being deceived by him pretending to be incapable of forging the diary.

Clearly the reason for so many people posting here is to counter what are perceived to be false arguments being churned out on a daily basis. And I know that I have been trying for well over a year to get someone to give me a sensible reason why Mike Barrett acquired a Victorian diary back in March 1992 and I am still waiting. That issue has nothing to do with Mike Barrett deceiving anyone because it is one of the few facts we possess that he did attempt to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages (and did acquire one) .

[David Orsam]

I see that someone is working hard to change history, now trying to claim that the absence of evidence of Mike doing any research in a library was not put forward as a reason against Mike being involved in the forgery of the diary but instead was part an argument about Mike not knowing about the diary's existence.

In fact, it was put forward directly as a reason against Mike being involved in the forgery of the diary.

For here is what was said in #755:

"I just don't like the fact that there is not a shred of evidence of Mike researching the ripper or the Maybricks prior to that day. If one allows for him doing none of the research, composing none of the text and someone else doing the handwriting, what would link him beyond all reasonable doubt to its creation?"

As this person now agrees with me that the absence of evidence in this situation is meaningless and should never have been put forward as a reason against Mike being involved in the forgery of the diary, we can treat post #755 as just more of the usual nonsense.

[David Orsam]

The fact that I don't know what evidence Mike could have produced to prove he forged the diary is, of course, not problematic for the Barrett hoax theory at all. It is only problematic for those who tell us that Mike should have produced some evidence that he forged the diary. If there wasn't any evidence that he could produce he couldn't physically produce any, could he?

[David Orsam]

I see it's one of those (all too frequent) days when only absolute nonsense is being written against the Diary being a modern hoax.

The red diary did not provide any evidence for Mike forging the diary. As I have repeatedly said - and I do mean repeatedly - the red diary was, by itself, of no danger to Anne because she could easily explain it away by saying that Mike wanted to see what a Victorian diary looked like (as she did). It was only the advertisement making clear that Mike wanted a Victorian diary with blank pages which links it to a forgery attempt.

The Sphere book is clearly not physical evidence of Mike forging the diary. It proves absolutely nothing. I love the fact that the red diary and the Sphere book are now said to be things which prove Mike forged the diary - yet when Mike refers to them in his affidavit as proof that he forged the diary they are dismissed as things which do not prove he forged the diary!!!

If those two items do not prove that Mike forged the diary – which they clearly do not (and I have never said they do) – then Anne did not need to destroy them or fret about them (and that's if she even knew that the Sphere book – which Smith tells us Barrett did not even possess in March 1992 – was the source of the quote in the diary).

It takes us back to my original point. If physical items which would have proved that Mike created the diary (namely the auction receipt, the ink and the pens, the notes... and I can't really think of anything else) had been destroyed in or before April 1992 then there wasn't actually any easy way that Mike could prove that he was involved in the forgery of the diary.

[David Orsam]

Another classic example of doublethink today. On the one hand Mike Barrett is incapable of forging the diary but if he DID forge it then one has to explain every single word of the text because it all must have a deep and connected meaning due to Mike being so sensible and efficient as a writer!

As far as I'm concerned, the forger introduces Lowry into the diary because he or she is aware that Lowry was a clerk who worked for Maybrick and wants to show off this knowledge. Around the character is written an inexplicable and meaningless story about Lowry having infuriated Maybrick in some way in late June 1888 that could never be disproved.

If it is being suggested that the reference in the diary to "missing items" is to "missing pages", that simply does not accord with how English is spoken.

The key issue for our purposes is that the day after the incident, while still fuming about Lowry, the author, in his anger, says "I will take the first whore I encounter and show her what hell is really like". Then later, after the murder of Kelly, he curses Lowry for "making him rip". So he blames Lowry in some way for driving him to murder/mutilation. While that may not be the narrative that some people are familiar with - assuming that Florence is to blame for everything - this is what we get in the diary. Perhaps Dr Canter explains it or perhaps he ignores it, I don't know. But that is what is said.

The central point is that the author(s) of the diary did not need to re-draft the diary at the last minute to incorporate references to the diary's missing pages as some people seem to think - but, even if they did, it was hardly a difficult thing to do inside 11 days.

[David Orsam]

I see that someone is trying to pull the wool over our eyes to convince us (or "educate" us) that "I seen" is somehow unique to Liverpool. It is not. It is a wrong use of language made by people throughout the country, not identifiable to any particular area.

When I drew attention to Anne's repeated use of "I seen", I had no idea it was even in the Diary. I have now located the relevant extract.

"The whore seen her master today..."

Let's remind ourselves of what Anne said in a single telephone message in 1994:

"I think it was in 1968/69 I seen the Diary for the first time."

AND

"I never seen Tony again."

AND

"I seen Paul the other day..."

I mean, come on, it's an absolute giveaway!!!

[Phil Carter]

It is, Gareth, in my experience.

As a Londoner born, the usual lower class expression down south for "I saw" is "I see".

"I see the postman yesterday, mate, fighting off next door's dog."

In Liverpool it would be "I seen the postman yesterday, la, fighting off next door's dog."

And for the umpteenth time, Maybrick is portrayed in the diary as someone who likes to think he is higher class and better educated than he is in reality - just a common little man with a murderous little plan. It's called irony. You don't think we were meant to believe the real James Maybrick had any intention of giving Queen Victoria a call, either in person or on the blower, do you? So why do you look for what you would consider realism in other areas of the text?

I'm not sure whether having Phil agree with you is an asset or a hindrance.

Love,

Caz
X

Then you won't mind me quoting Peter Sellers in a Michael Parkinson interview describing another film actor saying 'I seen 'im, I seen 'im, in lower class accent. Not Liverpudlian please note. North London. Cyril Waterman.



Phil

[Scott Nelson]

admittedly this is probably a stupid question and its probably been brought up a million times before but...but-

if (big if of course) it did come out of battlecrease and MB got his hands on it, could MB, his wife etc., come up with the lie that they got it through her family because they were afraid if they admitted where they got it they could be accused of theft(or receiving stolen property) and not only lose out on any profit but possibly face legal trouble?

could explain a lot.

This is actually a good question. I think Caroline has answered it to the best that current knowledge can take us.

[Spider]

It is, Gareth, in my experience.

As a Londoner born, the usual lower class expression down south for "I saw" is "I see".

"I see the postman yesterday, mate, fighting off next door's dog."

In Liverpool it would be "I seen the postman yesterday, la, fighting off next door's dog."

And for the umpteenth time, Maybrick is portrayed in the diary as someone who likes to think he is higher class and better educated than he is in reality - just a common little man with a murderous little plan. It's called irony. You don't think we were meant to believe the real James Maybrick had any intention of giving Queen Victoria a call, either in person or on the blower, do you? So why do you look for what you would consider realism in other areas of the text?

I'm not sure whether having Phil agree with you is an asset or a hindrance.

Love,

Caz
X

I have frequently worked with many people over the years from North Manchester and found "I seen......" was commonly used. These people were not 'common' either!

[Sam Flynn]

You've saved me the trouble of expressing exactly the same thing. It is not 'Liverpudlian' at all. I believe it is common (as in the old class system) slang.

Indeed, Phil. I can confirm that it's very frequently used in South Wales, too, by similar people, including members of my family. My sister and I send up our late grandmother, and "I seen" was one of her catchphrases. She was, bless her, not a well educated woman.