Diary Handwriting

[rjpalmer]

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.'

[caz]

Hi David,

Check out the capital A's on the first page. Second paragraph, line 4, we get a modern looking capital A for 'And why not...' [are we looking at Barry Norman?? ], then another one beginning the final paragraph: 'As usual my hands are cold...'. But sandwiched in between, just two lines down from the first example, we get a very different, old-fashioned capital A [which I can't reproduce here, but it looks more like a capital G so I'll go with that] for: 'Gll who sell their dirty wares...'.

Now this seems rather odd to me unless, as with the handwriting not remotely resembling Maybrick's, our hoaxer [for I have no doubt we are dealing with one, it's just the who, when and why we disagree about] just didn't give two hoots.

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.

Love,

Persona Non Grata
X

[Pcdunn]

Huh, very interesting. I've been trying for some time to determine if the handwriting seen in the diary resembled that of either of the Barretts, and came away with the vague idea that it doesn't match anyone's writing, including Maybrick's.

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.

[David Orsam]

And your point is duly noted and had been understood, but it doesn't alter the fact that it is in itself a particularly unexpected phenomenon. I am less alarmed about its implications for the journal and more alarmed for the implications for the human brain - how it can write such inconsistencies (in consecutive words, for goodness sake!) in the first place, and evade detection for so long in the second place.

Well we can happily leave the first question for the handwriting experts at another time. The second question is easily answered in that it is only now that I have had a close look at the handwriting. [I'm only joking!!!!!]

This thread is only going to be about spotting similarities between Anne's handwriting and the handwriting (at least at certain times) of the author of the Diary.

[Iconoclast]

Thank you Iconoclast but I want to just repeat what I am trying to achieve here which might save you a lot of work.

I'm not attempting to argue that there is anything problematic about there being internal inconsistencies in the handwriting in the Diary. In other words, I am in no way going to be saying that because "whore" is written differently on one line compared to another that this means the Diary is a fake or that there is any kind of conclusion that can be drawn from such differences.

So you don't need to be "alarmed" by any handwriting differences. That's not the point of the exercise at all.

The reason I am trying to achieve a consensus on this point is solely so that when I post some examples of Anne's handwriting which looks similar to some words or characters in the Diary, the response is not "Aha, it may look similar to something on page 3 but it's completely different to what is on page 7".

In other words, it's important that everyone recognises that just because a certain individual's normal handwriting is different from the handwriting in parts of the Diary, this doesn't by itself rule them out of being the author.

And your point is duly noted and had been understood, but it doesn't alter the fact that it is in itself a particularly unexpected phenomenon. I am less alarmed about its implications for the journal and more alarmed for the implications for the human brain - how it can write such inconsistencies (in consecutive words, for goodness sake!) in the first place, and evade detection for so long in the second place.

[David Orsam]

I don't have time for a deep dive on this one just yet, but it doesn't take a genius to spot that many words on Page 1 of the journal (we can consider the other 60+ in due course, I'm sure) are superficially similar (which would explain why the issue has not - to my knowledge - been raised before) but which are, in truth, quite alarmingly different in structure, and in ways which you would just not predict from a hoaxer attempting to hide their own hand or at least not reveal that there is fair reason to question the hand which wrote the text. It really doesn't make any sense.

Thank you Iconoclast but I want to just repeat what I am trying to achieve here which might save you a lot of work.

I'm not attempting to argue that there is anything problematic about there being internal inconsistencies in the handwriting in the Diary. In other words, I am in no way going to be saying that because "whore" is written differently on one line compared to another that this means the Diary is a fake or that there is any kind of conclusion that can be drawn from such differences.

So you don't need to be "alarmed" by any handwriting differences. That's not the point of the exercise at all.

The reason I am trying to achieve a consensus on this point is solely so that when I post some examples of Anne's handwriting which looks similar to some words or characters in the Diary, the response is not "Aha, it may look similar to something on page 3 but it's completely different to what is on page 7".

In other words, it's important that everyone recognises that just because a certain individual's normal handwriting is different from the handwriting in parts of the Diary, this doesn't by itself rule them out of being the author.

[Iconoclast]

I don't have time for a deep dive on this one just yet, but it doesn't take a genius to spot that many words on Page 1 of the journal (we can consider the other 60+ in due course, I'm sure) are superficially similar (which would explain why the issue has not - to my knowledge - been raised before) but which are, in truth, quite alarmingly different in structure, and in ways which you would just not predict from a hoaxer attempting to hide their own hand or at least not reveal that there is fair reason to question the hand which wrote the text; or indeed from someone actually writing it 'for real'. It really doesn't make any sense.

Obviously I concur with the 'I's, the 'will's, and the 'whore's (I don't think they are in much debate) but I am particularly further struck by the excellent example of a repeated 'that' (bottom of the first paragraph) where the constituents are extraordinarily dissimilar despite being - in written terms - straight after one another (they are actually separated by a line break). I cannot imagine why two consecutive words should be so different despite being the same.

Generally speaking, the text looks consistent. There are flourishes (like the long crossed-Ts) which repeat themselves fairly predictably, and the majority of the words appear (at least superficially) to be in the same hand (as I said above), and yet there are these rather bizarre distortions of style which even the most erratic of writers would surely find surprising in their own hand?

It's an interesting topic, and one which I'll have to come back to.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Yes, thank you Herlock, your view accords with my own.

This thread isn't going to be considering the reason for the differences, it's just important to note they are there. We are going to be comparing some of Anne Barrett's handwriting with some of the handwriting in the diary and it's important to establish that it's pretty much impossible for any single form of handwriting to match everything written in the Diary given the internal differences within that document.

As we have one True Believer in Iconoclast and as your view on the Diary, Herlock, is, I hope it's fair to say, perhaps more undecided one way or the other, it might be nice to have an out an out sceptic participating in this exercise, just for balance - so one more volunteer would be nice.

Volunteering for this exercise, incidentally, is not like volunteering for a David Copperfield stage show. No-one will get hurt!

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.

[DirectorDave]

We all agree my handwriting looks like we have multiple personality disorder.

[David Orsam]

David, ill follow your lead on this one and give you my unbiased opinion if thats ok.

Your first example, the two versions of ‘i will’ couldnt really be much more different. The first ‘i’ looks more like a ‘g’ with its added loop and the upper part of the 2nd ‘i’ is not connected (that small difference might be put down to speed of writing but as its in the next sentence.....) The two ‘will’s’ to this untrained eye and if viewed away from the context of the diary, definitely look like the writing of two different people. The looped ‘l’s’ and the fact that the ‘i’ is joined to the ‘l’s’ in the second will. And as you say the ‘will’ in the fourth line is different again, the ‘l’s’ are joined but not looped. Curiouser and curiouser in the sixth line we have version 4. Straight ‘l’s’ but with the ‘w’ joined to the ‘i’ for the first time.
The words ‘whore’ couldnt be more different. The second is barely legible. In other circumstances i might put this down to the speed it was written at or the circumstances under which it was written, but with only the words ‘and the’ separating them? Strange.

I hope this response was ok David?

Yes, thank you Herlock, your view accords with my own.

This thread isn't going to be considering the reason for the differences, it's just important to note they are there. We are going to be comparing some of Anne Barrett's handwriting with some of the handwriting in the diary and it's important to establish that it's pretty much impossible for any single form of handwriting to match everything written in the Diary given the internal differences within that document.

As we have one True Believer in Iconoclast and as your view on the Diary, Herlock, is, I hope it's fair to say, perhaps more undecided one way or the other, it might be nice to have an out an out sceptic participating in this exercise, just for balance - so one more volunteer would be nice.

Volunteering for this exercise, incidentally, is not like volunteering for a David Copperfield stage show. No-one will get hurt!

[Herlock Sholmes]

David, ill follow your lead on this one and give you my unbiased opinion if thats ok.

Your first example, the two versions of ‘i will’ couldnt really be much more different. The first ‘i’ looks more like a ‘g’ with its added loop and the upper part of the 2nd ‘i’ is not connected (that small difference might be put down to speed of writing but as its in the next sentence.....) The two ‘will’s’ to this untrained eye and if viewed away from the context of the diary, definitely look like the writing of two different people. The looped ‘l’s’ and the fact that the ‘i’ is joined to the ‘l’s’ in the second will. And as you say the ‘will’ in the fourth line is different again, the ‘l’s’ are joined but not looped. Curiouser and curiouser in the sixth line we have version 4. Straight ‘l’s’ but with the ‘w’ joined to the ‘i’ for the first time.
The words ‘whore’ couldnt be more different. The second is barely legible. In other circumstances i might put this down to the speed it was written at or the circumstances under which it was written, but with only the words ‘and the’ separating them? Strange.

I hope this response was ok David?

[David Orsam]

To be honest, I took your comment "should anyone wish to participate, apart, obviously, from anyone who is persona non grata" to mean Caz but to potentially include me, but now I realise that you didn't which is a bit embarrassing for me as it shows that - amongst the hardcore knights of this site - I've been reduced to (or always been) a mere sideshow. My sad.

You? Persona non grata. Never, sir!

Anyway, I'm up for a bit of knockabout so I shall take a look at my copy of Mr Smith's recent facsimile and attempt some sort of commentary.

Excellent!

You might need to give me a day or so.

You have it/them.

[Iconoclast]

Ah, when I saw your name in this thread, Iconoclast, I thought you were going to play.

What's your own reason for not giving an opinion on the points raised in the OP?

You're not upset by the odd firm-but-fair put down in the parrying and parlaying surely?

To be honest, I took your comment "should anyone wish to participate, apart, obviously, from anyone who is persona non grata" to mean Caz but to potentially include me, but now I realise that you didn't which is a bit embarrassing for me as it shows that - amongst the hardcore knights of this site - I've been reduced to (or always been) a mere sideshow. My sad.

Anyway, I'm up for a bit of knockabout so I shall take a look at my copy of Mr Smith's recent facsimile and attempt some sort of commentary.

You might need to give me a day or so.

[David Orsam]

Seriously, Lord O..

Welcome to the world of Making-any-kind-of-a-point-on-the-Casebook.

As the Greatest Thread of All inches towards its first million views (thank you, everyone), there remain only a handful of regular contributors to it, and ever was it more or less thus.

So an awful lot of people are simply looking. 'Just browsing' I think they say in shops.

Those with whom you parry and parlay and perhaps put down are - ironically - amongst the very few who can be arsed to contribute.

Ah, when I saw your name in this thread, Iconoclast, I thought you were going to play.

What's your own reason for not giving an opinion on the points raised in the OP?

You're not upset by the odd firm-but-fair put down in the parrying and parlaying surely?

[Iconoclast]

Seriously, no-one has anything to say about this?

Is that no-one has bothered to do the comparison? Or is it that no-one agrees that the Diary handwriting is internally inconsistent in parts? Or is it that no-one has access to the reproduction of the Diary in Robert Smith's book?

It's going to be very difficult to make the points I want to make in this thread unless at least someone independent is prepared and willing to join me in doing some handwriting comparisons.

Seriously, Lord O..

Welcome to the world of Making-any-kind-of-a-point-on-the-Casebook.

As the Greatest Thread of All inches towards its first million views (thank you, everyone), there remain only a handful of regular contributors to it, and ever was it more or less thus.

So an awful lot of people are simply looking. 'Just browsing' I think they say in shops.

Those with whom you parry and parlay and perhaps put down are - ironically - amongst the very few who can be arsed to contribute.

Ike