Diary Handwriting

[David Orsam]

Before doing a comparison of Anne's handwriting with the Diary handwriting let us consider a couple of quotes.

This is from "Disguised Handwriting" by John J. Harris in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Volume 43, Issue 5, 1953:

"A few persons are ambidextrous and, therefore, have quite a talent for disguising handwriting."

This is from "Scientific Examination of Questioned Documents", Second Edition by Jan Seaman Kelly Brian S. Lindblom (eds), 2006:

"Disguise can be accomplished by writing with the hand opposite to that which is habitually used. This can be a very effective disguise as long as standards of wrong-handed writing are not available. Opposite-hand writing can sometimes be inferred from its relatively low degree of writing skill. Once a suspect is located, steps should be taken to obtain writings executed with both hands wherever possible. A small group of people can write with the same ease and skill using either hand. These ambidextrous writers have practiced and developed their writing to such a degree that writings produced by left and right hands do not contain features associated with disguise. In spite of a developed skill to write with both hands, writing done with the right hand differs in many ways from writing done with the left."

So if we are comparing the Diary handwriting with the handwriting of any individual we need to consider whether they might have attempted to disguise their handwriting by using their "other" hand. This could account for a different direction in the slope of such handwriting.

I understand that some 1% of the population is ambidextrous.

Given that the author of the Diary is likely to have disguised their handwriting what can we tell from an examination of any individual's handwriting?

Let's take Anne for example. There is no doubt that some of her characters are different from those in the Diary. The formation of her letter "l" for example is different. The way the Diary author writes a capital "J" cannot be found in Anne's handwriting.

Yet, at the same time, there are a number of quite interesting similarities. But I do want to say that there is no way of drawing any conclusions from these similarities. Certainly none of Anne's normal handwriting can be said to be identical to the Diary author's handwriting. All I want to say in this thread that the similarities present us with quite a coincidence in that the person identified by Mike in his January 1995 affidavit as the transcriber of the affidavit shares a number of handwriting characteristics with the author of the Diary.

Below is one example from a number of letters of Anne that I've seen - I've also seen her signature on her marriage certificate - and I will comment on individual characters in separate posts.

[caz]

The Chief Diary Defender is clearly unnerved and afraid of the possibilities revealed by an examination of Anne's handwriting and now is reduced to throwing out strange accusations.

What's interesting is to compare what was written by the Chief Diary Defender in #18 with what was written in #27, which was supposed to be a clarification of #18

This was from #18:

"We shall see in due course, but I'd have thought someone like Anne, who'd have seriously needed the skill to disguise her own hand very well, while trying to maintain the overall consistency and fluidity of someone writing naturally, would also have taken care over such details, or made it far easier on herself by not producing a whacking 63 pages of writing with so much completely avoidable repetition. That would have been asking for trouble."

And this is from #27:

"I'd have thought any forger who seriously needed the skill to disguise their own hand very well, while trying to maintain the overall consistency and fluidity of someone writing naturally, would also have taken care over such details, or made it far easier on themselves by not producing a whacking 63 pages of writing with so much completely avoidable repetition. That would have been asking for trouble."

Spot the difference? It's not difficult is it? I don't know whether to call it a classic Diary Defender sleight of hand, because the previous version was quoted, but it's not a clarification, it's a complete change of meaning, as the phrase "someone like Anne" has been airbrushed out of history. Yet, it was the very notion that we can possibly speak of, and eliminate, "someone like Anne" that I was complaining of!!!

If we simply focus on the latest so-called clarification, in respect of "any forger", it seems that the Chief Diary Defender has managed to rule out the Diary as being a forgery (old OR modern) on the basis of the inconsistent handwriting!!! Something that no handwriting expert or document examiner has so far been able to do!

And the same person has also ruled it out as having been written by Maybrick.

So let us leave that person to her dream world and continue in the real one...

I only mentioned Anne because David did, in his opening post! How hard can this be?

I also specified a forger who, like Anne or anyone else, had been in it for the money and needed to disguise their normal handwriting to have had any hope of getting away with it.

I even referred to the handwriting not resembling Maybrick's as an argument for a hoaxer [unidentifiable as any of the suspected modern forgers] who didn't give two hoots about the appearance of the handwriting if it was never meant to be taken seriously in the first place. That's hardly ruling it out as a hoax, is it??

Love,

Persona Non Grata
X

[caz]

Before we consider a comparison of the handwriting of the Diary with the handwriting of any single individual (i.e. Anne Barrett)...

So okay, David didn't write, in so many words, that Anne was a 'potential forger', but one wonders how anyone could possibly infer from the above that he wasn't thinking of her in those terms! Not that there's anything wrong with that, but David very obviously still gives credence to Mike's claim that Anne's handwriting is in the diary, or presumably he wouldn't have bothered starting this thread. So let's hope he soon demonstrates, with examples, exactly why he still entertains the idea that Mike may have been telling the truth about this.

Then we can all see for ourselves if this idea has legs.

Love,

Persona Non Grata
X

[David Orsam]

Nothing was said, incidentally, in the opening post about Anne being a "potential forger". She is obviously an alleged and suspected forger due to what her husband claimed in his January 1995 affidavit but what I said we were going to do in this thread is to compare her handwriting to the handwriting in the diary. That's it.

[David Orsam]

The Chief Diary Defender is clearly unnerved and afraid of the possibilities revealed by an examination of Anne's handwriting and now is reduced to throwing out strange accusations.

What's interesting is to compare what was written by the Chief Diary Defender in #18 with what was written in #27, which was supposed to be a clarification of #18

This was from #18:

"We shall see in due course, but I'd have thought someone like Anne, who'd have seriously needed the skill to disguise her own hand very well, while trying to maintain the overall consistency and fluidity of someone writing naturally, would also have taken care over such details, or made it far easier on herself by not producing a whacking 63 pages of writing with so much completely avoidable repetition. That would have been asking for trouble."

And this is from #27:

"I'd have thought any forger who seriously needed the skill to disguise their own hand very well, while trying to maintain the overall consistency and fluidity of someone writing naturally, would also have taken care over such details, or made it far easier on themselves by not producing a whacking 63 pages of writing with so much completely avoidable repetition. That would have been asking for trouble."

Spot the difference? It's not difficult is it? I don't know whether to call it a classic Diary Defender sleight of hand, because the previous version was quoted, but it's not a clarification, it's a complete change of meaning, as the phrase "someone like Anne" has been airbrushed out of history. Yet, it was the very notion that we can possibly speak of, and eliminate, "someone like Anne" that I was complaining of!!!

If we simply focus on the latest so-called clarification, in respect of "any forger", it seems that the Chief Diary Defender has managed to rule out the Diary as being a forgery (old OR modern) on the basis of the inconsistent handwriting!!! Something that no handwriting expert or document examiner has so far been able to do!

And the same person has also ruled it out as having been written by Maybrick.

So let us leave that person to her dream world and continue in the real one...

[David Orsam]

Yes, now back to Spandau Ballet, or whatever.

No Scott, not in this thread. You are, I think, gratuitously referring to another thread about a Tumblety book in which the author of that book has, for some unknown reason, been eager to talk about me and my books, rather than his own, hence providing me with a welcome opportunity to promote my most recent book about Spandau Ballet (now available on amazon.co.uk and other good online retailers!). There are plenty of other threads to discuss the Diary in general or start an argument with me (which seem to be your intention). I particularly want to keep THIS thread on topic because I'm right in the middle of discussing the diary handwriting and haven't finished yet. As for your question, I'll re-post it on the Incontrovertible thread and answer in there.

[peg&pie]

I think I would agree with Robert Smith in saying that the handwriting is unlikely to ever help deciding between forgery or genuine.

My own handwriting is a mix of cursive and print, as I'm sure many others is.
The variation in the capital A's is interesting, and repeats throughout the diary.
Could that be a defining writing style able to be pinned to a particular time?, or person?

As usual I expect an abundance of opinion and distinct lack of professional insight to follow.

[caz]

I love the way that the person who has been telling us for years that Anne Barrett wouldn't have forged the Diary in a million years (I'm paraphrasing!!!) is now able to tell us exactly how Anne WOULD have forged the Diary had she chosen to do so!

For us mere mortals it's impossible to know where such sudden insight comes from.

I repeat and stress that it's not possible to draw any conclusions about authorship from the inconsistences in the handwriting (at least not for non-experts in handwriting).

If Maybrick wrote the Diary then he did so using handwriting which was internally inconsistent.

If a forger or hoaxer wrote the Diary then he or she did so using handwriting which was internally inconsistent.

That's literally as much as we can say. Pretending to be able to understand WHY the handwriting is internally inconsistent or to identify any individuals who would not have written the Diary in such a way is obviously quite foolish. If some people think that the internal inconsistences actually eliminate Anne Barrett from being the author then they can live on in their dream world but this thread is for those who wish to remain in reality.

Hi David,

Thank you for your constructive comments.

When I wrote the following, I was merely running with your opening post, which named Anne as a potential forger. As you can see, I said nothing whatsoever about being able to eliminate her or anyone else on the basis of the internal inconsistences. I was offering a perfectly reasonable opinion, on the basis that a modern forger, with fraud in mind, presumably wanted to get away with it:

We shall see in due course, but I'd have thought someone like Anne, who'd have seriously needed the skill to disguise her own hand very well, while trying to maintain the overall consistency and fluidity of someone writing naturally, would also have taken care over such details, or made it far easier on herself by not producing a whacking 63 pages of writing with so much completely avoidable repetition. That would have been asking for trouble.

For those who didn't get my drift the first time, let me clarify:

I'd have thought any forger who seriously needed the skill to disguise their own hand very well, while trying to maintain the overall consistency and fluidity of someone writing naturally, would also have taken care over such details, or made it far easier on themselves by not producing a whacking 63 pages of writing with so much completely avoidable repetition. That would have been asking for trouble.

I really don't see why you have to come across as such a nasty piece of work. But if you think it helps please do carry on. The nastier the better.

Love and kisses,

Persona Non Grata
X

[caz]

Caz. None of my business, really, but I'd be curious to know why Keith Skinner and Anne Graham appear to have had a 'falling out.' From several posts by Die Hard Diary supporters on these message boards, I think they are wondering the same thing. The impression we used to get back around 2000-2002 (and perhaps we were all misinterpreting the situation) is that they were really quite chummy and Keith was even helping Anne research a book on 'baby farming.' He certainly wrote the forward to her book on Florence Maybrick. Fast forward 14 or 16 years and they haven't spoken in years and--by implication--Keith is now entirely willing to entertain the idea that Anne was lying through her teeth (elaborately and repeatedly) about having seen the Diary in the 1960s. It's a curious state of affairs. You can't blame people for wondering.

And with Anne not talking, and having not talked for a decade, I think we have come to the end of the line. There will be no video of the culprits in action, and no deathbed confession, and so what we now see is pretty much all we will ever get. And thus the Diary will forever remain a questioned document under a cloud of suspicion, and no self-respecting historian will touch it with a ten foot pole as 'source material.'

Hi rj,

I have a lot of sympathy with your view on this. I have very little doubt that Anne could tell us more if she so wished, but she did say, when we last interviewed her for Ripper Diary, that this was the last time she would speak about it. That was rather unfortunate because it did - and does - raise suspicions that she had something to hide. As you know, since the book was published, we had reason to look again at the old electrician rumours, which, if true, make a liar out of Anne every bit as much as if she really had authored or penned the diary. Either way, I guess she would need to have a crisis of conscience to come clean now, although it's certainly possible that she will be approached again, if she hasn't been already, and invited to respond to the suspicions voiced about her involvement with the diary.

Apologies to David for joining you off topic!

Love,

Caz
X

[Scott Nelson]

Yes, now back to Spandau Ballet, or whatever.

[David Orsam]

If possible, can we keep this thread focussed on the Diary handwriting rather than turning it into another general Diary thread?

[David Orsam]

I love the way that the person who has been telling us for years that Anne Barrett wouldn't have forged the Diary in a million years (I'm paraphrasing!!!) is now able to tell us exactly how Anne WOULD have forged the Diary had she chosen to do so!

For us mere mortals it's impossible to know where such sudden insight comes from.

I repeat and stress that it's not possible to draw any conclusions about authorship from the inconsistences in the handwriting (at least not for non-experts in handwriting).

If Maybrick wrote the Diary then he did so using handwriting which was internally inconsistent.

If a forger or hoaxer wrote the Diary then he or she did so using handwriting which was internally inconsistent.

That's literally as much as we can say. Pretending to be able to understand WHY the handwriting is internally inconsistent or to identify any individuals who would not have written the Diary in such a way is obviously quite foolish. If some people think that the internal inconsistences actually eliminate Anne Barrett from being the author then they can live on in their dream world but this thread is for those who wish to remain in reality.

[David Orsam]

.Now, at last, there is a chance to see if there is a partial resemblance! Very good, and I will check your observations against my copy of the Diary. Thank you.

Excellent, thank you Pcdunn.

[David Orsam]

Im glad to hear that your not sharpening up the knives and ironing the blindfold then.

For the record David id say that my opinion on the diary is that it’s overwhelmingly likely to be a forgery but i accept the slight possibility that it may not be. Of the arguments against i believe that your ‘one off instance’ is by far the likeliest refuting point. That said i have made no real study of the subject but i do like to play a bit of ‘devil’s advocate’ occaisionally.

Thank you for clarifying Herlock.

[Scott Nelson]

What I don't understand is why Scotland Yard supposedly investigated a possible Diary forgery after it first emerged, but then the investigation stopped without answers. They interviewed the electricians who worked in the house, Anne Graham, etc. They must have concluded that Anne Graham had no involvement or they could go no further with what she told them.