Diary Handwriting

[David Orsam]

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.

[David Orsam]

I’m one of those who even Forensic Document Examiners have trouble deciding if it was written by the same hand or not.

So I’m not sure you can draw any conclusions from the handwriting.

You can rest assured GUT that I'm not attempting to draw any conclusions from the handwriting.

All I'm trying to do at the moment is to establish a consensus (or create an understanding for anyone who has never considered the matter) that the writing in the Diary is not always internally consistent and that a comparison of certain words or characters in the Diary side by side could lead one to think that they were written by different people.

I'm not saying, however, that the Diary was written by different people. That's not my purpose at all.

[GUT]

I’m one of those who even Forensic Document Examiners have trouble deciding if it was written by the same hand or not.

So I’m not sure you can draw any conclusions from the handwriting.

[David Orsam]

Before we consider a comparison of the handwriting of the Diary with the handwriting of any single individual (i.e. Anne Barrett), let us look at the internal consistency of the handwriting within the Diary itself. Due to Robert Smith, quite properly, asserting his copyright over images of the Diary, I can't post any parts of the Diary or show any direct comparisons so I will be asking forum members who possess a copy of the handwritten Diary text to do some work themselves. In particular, I would like you to look at the first page of the Diary.

Look at the words "I will" at the end of the second line of the first paragraph and compare to "I will" directly beneath it, at the end of the third line. If you weren't to know they were both in the Diary and you were to put them side by side I suggest that you might well say that they were written by different people. Agreed? Perhaps a handwriting expert would know it was the same person but we're not handwriting experts so we have to do our best. Then look at the word "Will" in the fourth line. It's different again! Then different again in the sixth line. And I think one can find similar examples throughout the Diary. So this is going to be a problem because if we compare Anne's handwriting with the Diary handwriting what exactly do we compare it to?

Just to give one more example in the same paragraph. Look at the "the whore" in the penultimate line and "the whore" in the last line. They are both totally different aren’t they? Yet they are both within the same sentence.

Now, before moving on, let me make clear that I'm not suggesting that these internal differences show that the Diary was written by a forger who couldn't maintain the same handwriting. For all I know, such differences in handwriting by one individual are perfectly normal. I'm not an expert so make no point about this.

I do see certain consistencies throughout the Diary, however, even if the characters are not all formed in identical fashion.

Before doing anything else I will throw it open to the forum, should anyone wish to participate, apart, obviously, from anyone who is persona non grata, to comment on the internal consistency or otherwise of the Diary handwriting. This thread is going to be one requiring member participation because, while I am going to be posting examples of Anne's handwriting, due to the copyright issue I mentioned earlier, you are going to have to do the comparisons with the Diary yourself.