Diary Handwriting

[Iconoclast]

It makes me wonder if what one believes to be plausible--from the standpoint of human nature---is quite malleable depending on what the theorists wants to believe at any given moment.

I think this is inevitable the more one is invested in a theory. 'Plausible' then just becomes 'what I'm willing to accept regardless of likelihood of being true'.

The absurd becomes plausible, and the plausible becomes absurd--depending on what they WANT to have happened...

It's probably not quite as ingrained as, say, the arguments around the Turin Shroud, but the arguments around the Maybrick scrapbook clearly provoke levels of polemic rarely seen amongst other questioned artefacts and documents, as - apparently (I am assured) are the arguments around other candidates for Jack. But why the polemic over candidates for an unknown serial killer who barely scrapes last in the awful list of serial killers down the years?

[rjpalmer]

A little tongue-in-cheek this one, but how certain are you that this isn't a hoaxed document slipped into the public record in the style of the September 17, 1888, 'Dear Boss' letter supposedly was?

It's rather amusing to go back now and reread discussions of the 17 September letter posted around 2003/2004---ie., before the Eddy Lyons provenance became such a great cause.

Some of the same people who now believe it is entirely reasonable to think that an anonymous hoaxer would go to the trouble of creating a fake diary only to slip it under Dodd's floorboards were saying something quite different back then---wondering why on earth a hoaxer would risk slipping an anonymous hoax into the archives. What would he gain from it? they asked. What would his motivation be? Etc etc.--- as if to shrug off the idea as utterly absurd.

Do the same thoughts cross their mind now? (And yes, I realize this doesn't apply to you)

It makes me wonder if what one believes to be plausible--from the standpoint of human nature---is quite malleable depending on what the theorists wants to believe at any given moment.

The absurd becomes plausible, and the plausible becomes absurd--depending on what they WANT to have happened...

RP

[rjpalmer]

PS Check the variation in Anne's capital 'E's with that representing 'Elizabeth' in her signature. Same with her capital 'G's. Any theories about that?

I think it’s fairly common for a person’s signature to differ from their ‘normal’ handwriting.

[Iconoclast]

This is all rather interesting stuff, RJ. As it is entirely (bar the signature) in uppercase, I wonder if any other capitals can be seen replicated in the text of the scrapbook? As I said in my previous post, it would be strange if Anne's 'lapse' was solely for the fourth letter of the alphabet.

This is not me expecting you to do further work. What you've provided is the spark for further review, which Sinner and Alcaraz will presently detain me from attempting.

Good research though by your Antipodean correspondent.

A little tongue-in-cheek this one, but how certain are you that this isn't a hoaxed document slipped into the public record in the style of the September 17, 1888, 'Dear Boss' letter supposedly was?

PS Check the variation in Anne's capital 'E's with that representing 'Elizabeth' in her signature. Same with her capital 'G's. Any theories about that?

[rjpalmer]

The 'D' in England in line 4 and line 9 struck me as very distinctive. (There are further examples in Dulwich and Sydney in Line 14)

The D is unusually large--roughly 4 times bigger than the surrounding letters.

But this isn't all. The vertical bar of the D is nothing more than a small line in the middle of a large half-moon, unattached to the rest of the letter.

As Alan Gray might have said, where have I seen that letter before?



As noted in an earlier post, there is a section in the middle of the diary where the diarist begins to write the letter 'D' in a strangely similar way.



Rhetorical question. If the diarist is disguising their handwriting, did they briefly revert to a normal construction, perhaps out of fatigue or inattention?

One of the diary's supporters likes to claim that if the Barretts hoaxed the diary, they got "lucky."

But if Barrett lied when he claimed that Anne wrote the diary, did he not also get "lucky" that we can see some of the same strange letter formations in both the diary and in Anne's writings?

Would we expect to find this or is it just a strange coincidence?

The reader will have to judge for themselves.

It is fair to point out that the slant is different, but then again, slant is the first thing a person changes when disguising their handwriting.




This is not a stand-alone similarity. Others can be found earlier in this thread, such as the capital 'M' with one large, exaggerated hump.

Again, I am not stating that the handwriting in the diary is Anne's; I'm pointing out the oddity that Barrett's allegation can't be breezily dismissed.

[rjpalmer]

The following is a rare example of Anne Graham's handwriting pre-dating 1992. A correspondent found it in the National Archives in Australia, so it is a public record. This was filled out by Anne in the early 1970s after she emigrated. Unfortunately, the form is short and is filled out in all uppercase letters (as requested on Line 1) so it is of limited value.

That said, one thing immediately jumped out at me.

[Lombro2]

No it was your 88.

[John Wheat]

Let me reiterate the purpose of this thread. Those who are uncertain, can go back to the original post and catch up.

Mainly, this is not a thread about James Maybrick's handwriting. It is an exploration of Mike Barrett's allegation that his ex-wife physically wrote the diary.

I have no formal training in handwriting analysis, and I am unqualified to say whether she did or not, nor am I accusing her of having done so.

Rather, the scope here is far more limited.

Commonsense would dictate that if Barrett had falsely accused Anne of being the 'penman' (which is entirely possible since he was a proven liar) it would be perfectly plausible that her handwriting would have no similarity whatsoever to the diary and might even be wildly different. For instance, if she wrote in clumsy block lettering or had an extremely distinctive handwriting like William Henry Bury, we could dismiss Barrett's accusation out of hand.

The goal here is to see if Barrett's allegations are worthy of further investigation or whether they can be debunked outright.

The smart money is on Anne having penned the Diary. Additionally Bury was known to be able to write in many different ways. Again the smart money is on Bury being the author of the chalk messages. I know this is off topic but I thought I'd mention this as you brought up Bury's handwriting RJ.

[rjpalmer]

Let me reiterate the purpose of this thread. Those who are uncertain, can go back to the original post and catch up.

Mainly, this is not a thread about James Maybrick's handwriting. It is an exploration of Mike Barrett's allegation that his ex-wife physically wrote the diary.

I have no formal training in handwriting analysis, and I am unqualified to say whether she did or not, nor am I accusing her of having done so.

Rather, the scope here is far more limited.

Commonsense would dictate that if Barrett had falsely accused Anne of being the 'penman' (which is entirely possible since he was a proven liar) it would be perfectly plausible that her handwriting would have no similarity whatsoever to the diary and might even be wildly different. For instance, if she wrote in clumsy block lettering or had an extremely distinctive handwriting like William Henry Bury, we could dismiss Barrett's accusation out of hand.

The goal here is to see if Barrett's allegations are worthy of further investigation or whether they can be debunked outright.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I hope Sholmes won’t change the subject again, to things like the text and the age of the diary, like he is wont to do.

That was Ike with his post #87 followed by your #89. I just replied. Have you ever got anything right?

[rjpalmer]

I did not know signing was one of your talents...

Yes, I volunteer to teach signing at the Dallas/Fort Worth Mute Chorale.

[Lombro2]

Thank you RJ for bringing up this important point about disguised and/or serial killer handwriting.

I hope Sholmes won’t change the subject again, to things like the text and the age of the diary, like he is wont to do.

I’ll stop bringing up the names of my Inglorious Guys like Lombroso and posting things like this:

'Enormous insight'

Head of the Liverpool University Centre for Investigative Psychology, Professor David Canter, who hosted the conference, said psychological profiling shows it is "plausible" that the diary may have been written by Jack the Ripper.

He said: "The way it's written - the style of thinking - does reveal some components that are remarkably subtle."

"This was either produced by a very skilled author or someone with detailed knowledge of the Ripper history, or someone with enormous insight into carrying out these crimes and the person most likely to have that is the person who did carry out those crimes."

Psychology and handwriting go hand in hand. It may not be “scientific” in the elitist sense the but it’s common sense.

[Geddy2112]

We can discuss this further at a later date, but for now I've got some choirs to attend to.

I did not know signing was one of your talents...

[rjpalmer]

The principle you are describing, however, could not possibly be just restricted to uppercase 'D's. If the principle you have observed is the mark of a hoaxer who is trying their best to disguise their handwriting (and really not doing too good a job of it where the 'D's are concerned) then it must apply throughout the scrapbook for pretty much every letter both uppercase and lowercase or - at very least - for a large number of them.

It's a reasonable point, Ike, but I'm not suggesting that the variations only apply to the uppercase 'D.' That's just the example I'm concentrating on at the moment.

And the reason why I'm picking on the poor letter D will become clearer in time.

The diarist also shows variation in how they form the lowercase 'f,' for instance--there are at least two distinctly different ways.

I also refer you to Post #80 where Baxendale wrote that the "handwriting shows considerable variation in fluency and letter design, and I have noted that some of the letter designs have been altered."

One wishes he would have given examples, but he does state that the writer bounces between the 'cursive' and 'script' style, and mentions the letters A, h, k, L, N, t, T and x."

We can discuss this further at a later date, but for now I've got some choirs to attend to.

[Iconoclast]

Okay, this is interesting stuff, RJ, and you are to be commended for noting it.

The principle you are describing, however, could not possibly be just restricted to uppercase 'D's. If the principle you have observed is the mark of a hoaxer who is trying their best to disguise their handwriting (and really not doing too good a job of it where the 'D's are concerned) then it must apply throughout the scrapbook for pretty much every letter both uppercase and lowercase or - at very least - for a large number of them. If it did not, the inconsistency would surely be as salient as a torch in darkness and require some attempt at correction by the hoaxer?

Do we see the principle consistently throughout the scrapbook or is it primarily restricted to the highly specific case - for example, uppercase 'D's?

And do any of our dear readers note in their own handwriting styles (ideally private notes as the scrapbook was clearly a long private note) a similar tendency with one or more letters to vary their construction in this way?

These are valid questions asked as a result of a valid proposition you have made.