Diary Handwriting

[David Orsam]

So we are told that when Mike spoke to the Daily Post in June 1994, "Anne was furious at this intrusion into her privacy and wrote to Feldy in July 1995, claiming to have told Mike within weeks of leaving him in the January of 1994 that she had every intention of divorcing him."

Well, of course, if Anne said this to Feldman in July 1995 it must be true because everything she told Feldman was true, such as that she first saw the Diary in the 1960s and later kept in her bedroom despite it supposedly being under the floorboards in Battlecrease House during all this time.

The difficulty I have is in seeing how Mike confessing that he forged the Diary to a Daily Post reporter is in any way an invasion of Anne's privacy. It's not clear that even Anne could answer that because, when trying to justify her comments about the Daily Post story, she remarked:

“I said the first thing that came into my head which was something like “I will fight like a tiger to protect my family” I can remember walking up the stairs thinking “What the hell did I say that for?”

What the hell did she say that for, indeed. Shirley Harrison was equally baffled. As she says in her 2003 book (p.266), when quoting Anne as saying in June 1994, "He is trying to get back at me because I have left him":

"I did not understand why forging the Diary would get back at Anne - unless of course Michael was implying that she was involved."

Let's just think about this for a moment. Anne at this time, we are told by Diary Defenders, actually believed that Mike had stolen the Diary. Scotland Yard had already been round asking questions, which must have been unnerving, and there must always have been a worry that Mike would be arrested for "fencing" this stolen item. So his story of having forged it, something which he could obviously never prove in a million years, nor could anyone else, and Anne would have known this more than anyone, was surely an ideal cover story to deflect attention away from the theft (thus protecting himself in an understandable way). Certainly, Anne wasn't mentioned in Mike's story in June 1994. He said he did everything himself and was the world's greatest forger.

Well perhaps Anne thought Mike was getting back at her by destroying the provenance of the Diary so that she wouldn't make any money out of it. But, hold on, Anne wasn't interested in the money, was she?

It's possible that I haven't been speaking English for long enough but I would have thought that when someone says: "I am afraid you left me with no choice after speaking to the newspapers" this means that if the newspapers hadn't been spoken to, there would have been a choice. And does this not in turn mean that if Mike had not spoken to the newspapers, Anne would not have filed for divorce on the day the story was published?

Which, I think, means that the filing for Divorce in June 1994 was, in her own words, a direct result of Mike saying he had forged the Diary. I can't see any other way around it, at least not if English means what I understand it to mean.

Oddly, though, she does not seem to explain to Mike in her letter just what the problem was with him speaking to the Daily Post and saying that he forged the Diary. She seems to assume he will know.

Not that any of this is of any real importance in this thread about the Diary handwriting.

[David Orsam]

I'm trying to count the ironies in the statement: "Didn't Melvin at one time state that the diary was written by someone who had been schooled in the 1930s?"

Irony number one is that Melvin Harris is not normally relied upon by this person as an authority for anything. Does she think that the rest of us worship Melvin and regard him, like the Pope, as incapable of error?

Irony number two is that this same person once told me how important it was to use the exact words of someone and not summarize. Perhaps this only applies to me when I am (correctly) summarizing Voller's words but when I consult Feldman, I find (as Director Dave has noted) that Melvin's actual words were supposed to be that the Diary was written by “by someone most likely to have been schooled in the 1930s”. The words "most likely" seem to indicate that there may be some doubt in the matter so that Harris was not, in fact, stating that the Diary was written by someone schooled in the 1930s. And it's not even clear that Feldman has quoted him accurately because later in his book he claims the words used were "schooled in the 1920s or 30s" so who knows what Harris actually said?

Irony number three is that Harris seems to have changed his mind anyway (according to Feldman, again as noted by Director Dave) and died believing that the Diary was (most likely?) written by a man or woman born in the 1950s. Harris is not the only member of this forum to have changed his (or her) mind about the Diary - and, if one looks hard enough in the archives, one will even find evidence of the world's greatest expert changing her mind a number of times, and fiercely defending her right to do so - and it must surely be important to cite someone's most recent opinion, not one that has been superseded.

Irony number five is that there is no irony number four.

Irony number six is that Harris' views on the origins of the Diary are surely irrelevant because, having died in 2004, he was never aware of the key fact of Mike Barrett's search in March 1992 for a Victorian Diary with a minimum of 20 blank pages and, having been told that O&L did not sell a scrapbook of the type identified by Mike during 1990 or 1991, might have been led to draw wrong conclusions about who was involved in the forgery and when that forgery took place.

[David Orsam]

And please note that I added an unnecessary and utterly wrong apostrophe to my last post, like a small kiss blown in the direction of lowercase caz as she's off to another wonderful weekend.

Sorry RJ but, despite your confession, I'm still reporting you to the Typo Police.

You're going down my son.

[rjpalmer]

And please note that I added an unnecessary and utterly wrong apostrophe to my last post, like a small kiss blown in the direction of lowercase caz as she's off to another wonderful weekend.

[rjpalmer]

I'm not sure now if he was giving his considered opinion, based on the handwriting style and/or content, or whether it was more a hint that he 'knew', or thought he knew, the writer's identity, and that person was the right age to have been schooled in the 1930s.

Was Melvin not quoting the opinion of one of the early document examiners? The point being that the handwriting didn't look Victorian, it looked like the work of someone schooled in the first third of the 20th Century.

Personally, I don't see how this could be anything more than a ballpark figure. A student learning to write in the 1950s could just as easily have been schooled by some old relic from the 1920s.

Some of those Catholic girl schools in Liverpool probably still have nun's older than Queen Victoria's great aunt. I recently read that the average age of a nun is now upwards of 80. Madonna and the Spice Girls wiped out a whole generation of prospects.

[DirectorDave]

Hi rj,

One more before I go off again to enjoy a nice long weekend...

Didn't Melvin at one time state that the diary was written by someone who had been schooled in the 1930s?

I'm not sure now if he was giving his considered opinion, based on the handwriting style and/or content, or whether it was more a hint that he 'knew', or thought he knew, the writer's identity, and that person was the right age to have been schooled in the 1930s.

It would certainly be good to know if Anne could have produced 63 pages of handwriting over 11 days, using the hand she didn't use when writing letters to Mike, and in a style that fooled Melvin into making that statement.

She seems to have fooled everyone else, so why should he be left out?

Love,

Caz
X

"Most likely someone schooled in the 1920's or 30's".

Which he later changed to "A man or women born in the 1950's"

So yes, they both fooled Melvin for a while.

[caz]

Anyway, I'm stepping back now, as I don't want to derail the thread, but when the time comes, I would like to reprint an observation made about the handwriting made by Melvin Harris back in January, 2004, to see what the assembled scholars think.

Hi rj,

One more before I go off again to enjoy a nice long weekend...

Didn't Melvin at one time state that the diary was written by someone who had been schooled in the 1930s?

I'm not sure now if he was giving his considered opinion, based on the handwriting style and/or content, or whether it was more a hint that he 'knew', or thought he knew, the writer's identity, and that person was the right age to have been schooled in the 1930s.

It would certainly be good to know if Anne could have produced 63 pages of handwriting over 11 days, using the hand she didn't use when writing letters to Mike, and in a style that fooled Melvin into making that statement.

She seems to have fooled everyone else, so why should he be left out?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Posting one more example of handwriting. This is a letter dated 18 July 1994 (transcribed on p.104 of Inside Story, although not with 100% accuracy) in which Anne tells Mike she wants to divorce him because "I am afraid you left me with no choice after speaking to the newspapers" (although she hasn't at this point told Mike, or anyone else, that the Diary had been in her family since at least 1950 and that she gave it to Tony Devereux to give to him).

Hi All,

Page 104 goes on to refer to the fact that this letter came into the possession of Melvin Harris [presumably via Alan Gray, who was given it by Mike], so Keith is going to check when he gets access to his main files, because neither of us can actually recall seeing a copy of the original, which could only have come from Melvin himself, presumably via Paul Feldman, so we may only have had a transcript ourselves from whichever source, to include in our book.

In case anyone is remotely interested, Anne was furious at this intrusion into her privacy and wrote to Feldy in July 1995, claiming to have told Mike within weeks of leaving him in the January of 1994 that she had every intention of divorcing him. She blamed his drinking and the physical and mental abuse she had endured over the last few years of her marriage and said, for what it's worth, that this was nothing to do with the diary.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

To me her I s look like 9s and F s look like 6s. Or lowercase gs and b s. Just like the diary.

Also, the inconsistency of the writing in the diary looks like a clumsy attempt to disguise and write differently. And the overall look of the writing looks kind of like Anne’s.


So how common is writing if that it looks like 9 and 6????? I would think not very, it seems pretty unique.

[David Orsam]

Posting one more example of handwriting. This is a letter dated 18 July 1994 (transcribed on p.104 of Inside Story, although not with 100% accuracy) in which Anne tells Mike she wants to divorce him because "I am afraid you left me with no choice after speaking to the newspapers" (although she hasn't at this point told Mike, or anyone else, that the Diary had been in her family since at least 1950 and that she gave it to Tony Devereux to give to him).

[David Orsam]

For those (and the cat) who don't have a copy of the Diary immediately at hand, a reasonable reproduction of one page can be found near the bottom of this link:

http://therivermagazine.co.uk/culture/living-with-jack-the-ripper.html

Thanks RJ, that's a great page (being page 3 of the Diary) because you can clearly see the unusual way that the word "If" is written, which can be compared with the way Anne writes those two letters, and you can also see the "f" in "fly".

[rjpalmer]

For those (and the cat) who don't have a copy of the Diary immediately at hand, a reasonable reproduction of one page can be found near the bottom of this link:

http://therivermagazine.co.uk/culture/living-with-jack-the-ripper.html

Purely my amateur opinion. But the slant (or more properly the 'slope') looks a little 'drunken' to me, rolling up and to the right, not fully sure what it wants to do. Check for instance the third line from the bottom, 'the gentlest of men he had..."

The angle looks like it shifts on the last two words. Throughout, some strokes are upright, others are slanted. It seems like the hand isn't completely at easy with these movements. Agree? Disagree?

Anyway, I'm stepping back now, as I don't want to derail the thread, but when the time comes, I would like to reprint an observation made about the handwriting made by Melvin Harris back in January, 2004, to see what the assembled scholars think.

[David Orsam]

...oh brother.

Don't get your propeller stuck in the toilet.

I'll try not to.

Incidentally, do you happen to know if Anne Graham is ambidextrous?

[Scott Nelson]

...oh brother.

Don't get your propeller stuck in the toilet.

[David Orsam]

Yes, I read it, thank you. But I asked if anybody knew if Anne Graham was a left-handed writer, not ambidextrous.

No you didn't Scott. Have you seriously already forgotten what you asked?

This was your question:

Is it safe to suggest that Anne Graham is a left-handed writer?

That is not the same as asking if anyone knows she was a left-handed writer.