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Following the Mike Barrett interview on Radio Merseyside, Anne Graham gave her own interview which was broadcast on 4 October 1995. I thought people might be interested in it so I've transcribed that one too.
Hello again, Bob Azurdia here. And in recent weeks the amazing story of the diary owned by the former Liverpool scrap metal dealer, Mike Barrett, has moved in new and increasingly sensational directions. Mike claimed that the diary came to him from a friend named Tony Devereux who died shortly afterwards without revealing where he’d found the manuscript. Mike had his story told in book form by the respected writer Shirley Harrison. The story being that the diary had been written by James Maybrick, victim of a Victorian murder in 1889 and for which his wife Florence was found guilty. The Maybricks lived at Battlecrease House, in Riversdale Road, Aigburth, adjacent to the Liverpool cricket ground. The diary, though, also was signed Jack the Ripper and detailed the horrific killings which terrorised London in 1888. So was James Maybrick also Jack the Ripper? Well the controversy has raged and the diary has been said to be a forgery but it’s passed exhaustive forensic tests as has a watch which was bought by Donald (sic) Johnson from a shop in Liscard, Wallasy, about the same time as the diary was published. This had inscribed the initials of James Maybrick as well as the scratched initials of all the Whitechapel victims plus the chilling line “I am Jack”. Well Mike Barrett claimed that pressure following the diary’s publication helped lead him to alcoholism and also divorce. His former wife, Anne, now Anne Graham, having reverted to her maiden name, has helped fuel the controversy. Just as the book was due to be published she made a sworn statement to the effect that she’s known all her adult life where the diary had been and had actually been responsible for it coming into her husband’s possession via Tony Devereux. Anne, you’ve certainly helped muddy the waters somewhat.
AG: Yes, that is correct. Um, first of all, I’d like to tell you the story from the beginning if that’s of any help. I’ll just give you a brief outline of the story. In 1968 we were moving house and I found the diary – it isn’t “diaries” by the way, it’s one journal – in a tin trunk in a cupboard which contained 20 years of junk.
BA: Who is “we” moving house at this time?
AG: My father and myself. We lived with my maternal grandmother.
BA: So this was before you were married?
AG: Yes, I was about 17, 18 at the time. Erm, I found the journal and I took it to my father and I asked-
BA: You found it?
AG: Yes, I asked him where it had come from. He said to me his stepmother had given it to him in 1950 and said his granny had left it to him. It was more than 20 years later when I seen the diary again when my father gave it to me.
BA: So you put it back then in the trunk?
AG: I give it back to my father and he put it wherever he put it I don’t know.
BA: Yes and when you found it that first time did you study it, did you read it, or did you examine it in any depth or what?
AG: I did read a little bit of it, not all of it. People say to me well what was your reaction when you found a document written by Jack the Ripper, which it is signed, but really and truly I didn’t have any great reaction because Jack the Ripper was something like Springheeled Jack, merely a bogeyman of my youth, so I just wanted to know where it came from basically.
BA: But you did read enough of it at that time to appreciate that it was written by -
AG: Yes.
BA: Or purported to be written by someone like Jack the Ripper?
AG: Yes, yes.
BA: And you were horrified? Shocked?
AG: Well I was a bit surprised which was the reason why I asked my father where it had come from.
BA: And he gave no other explanation?
AG: That was the explanation he gave and that’s what I accepted, in those days one didn’t argue with one’s father and I didn’t.
BA: No indeed, no indeed, but you had no other suspicion that there was more to it?
AG: I thought it had probably been stolen and ended up in our house by - for some reason in the past.
BA: Stolen?
AG: Well you know, pinched, just suddenly arrived, I couldn’t see what connection we could possibly have with it.
BA: But who would have stolen it?
AG: Well I don’t know-
BA: You’re not really seriously –
AG: Oh not my father, somebody in the past. I just have no idea how it got there.
BA: No. Alright. Well then it finally did come into your possession some time later.
AG: Yes, I took it home with me and I hid it. I didn’t tell anybody about it.
BA: Why?
AG: I felt uncomfortable about. I didn’t like it and I just hid it.
BA: Well, why did you keep it?
AG: Well I didn’t destroy it which I suppose was another alternative.
BA: Destroy it or put it in the bin or get rid of it…
AG: Precisely.
BA: …if you just didn’t want it.
AG: I don’t know, I just put it away and forgot about it as it had been forgotten previously.
BA: Where did you put it?
AG: I put it behind, erm, a large cupboard in the middle bedroom, it was just popped down the back.
BA: And all this time your husband, Mike, didn’t know about it.
AG: No.
BA: Not at all?
AG: No.
BA: Why didn’t you tell him?
AG: I just didn’t want to. We were not sharing a great deal at that time, perhaps, and I just didn’t tell him.
BA: Did you tell anyone?
AG: No.
BA: No girlfriend or other relation?
AG: No, I just put it away and forgot about it. I wasn’t interested in it. Didn’t want to know about it.
BA: Did you do a similar sort of thing with any other possessions of yours?
AG: Well I did use the cupboard for one or two other things, yes.
BA: That you wanted almost to forget about?
AG: Well that were my -
BA: Put out of the way?
AG: Yeah.
BA: You did?
AG: Hmmm.
BA: So this was not unique in this sense then.
AG: No, no, I think every woman has her own little hidey hole and that was mine.
BA: So why did it emerge again?
AG: Well some time after that I very much on the spur of the moment, I was going through a bad time and I decided to hand the diary to my husband via a third person in order for it to be used as a basis of a novel. Now this reasoning sounded pretty good to me at the time, I really can’t explain it. Anyway this is what I did.
BA: Why through a third person?
AG: Because I didn’t want it to be connected with me.
BA: Why not?
AG: I had my reasons. I had what I felt were very good reasons at the time.
BA: Can’t you elaborate on these –
AG: I’d rather not because it is connected with my marriage and I don’t want to go into that.
BA: Well what about the name Graham because there’s a connection with the name Graham surely which is supposed to link possibly with the name of the Maybricks…
AG: Yes.
BA: …and possibly with yourself?
AG: Um, this was information that Paul Feldman found out. It is documented apparently. When Florence Maybrick came out of prison she called herself Graham. And when she died they found an address book and all the G’s had been torn out of the address book. So Paul Feldman at this point was absolutely certain that there was a connection between me and the diaries, oh the diary (laughs).
BA: Because she called herself Graham and your name was Graham.
AG: And there were other things which I can’t think of to be honest.
BA: Were there?
AG: I think so.
BA: Other possible links?
AG: Other possible links but you would have to ask Paul Feldman about that. It’s very complicated.
BA: Now what about your father in all this? Did you ever discuss it with him?
AG: Yes, a few times. What happened was when I eventually told Paul Feldman which was eight months after the separation and it was really just to get him off people’s back, he had done a very intensive research.
BA: Paul had?
AG: Yes and, you know, people who really had nothing whatsoever to do with the Diary were getting upset with the intrusion into their lives over it and I felt I had to bring it to an end. I contacted Paul and we had a long conversation, he told me about the Graham connection which I didn’t know about, and, erm, we decided to interview my father. Now my father was very ill at the time, he had cancer and he was terminally ill and the most important thing to me at that time was that the rest of his life should be happy and contented and as comfortable as possible. So I didn’t want a lot of people coming to him asking him questions and I didn’t know how he was going to react to them anyway. I did ask him would he have an interview with Paul and he said yes. So when Paul had the interview, it was during that time that my father confirmed to him that Florence Maybrick to his knowledge had had an illegitimate child, he suggested that his father was that illegitimate child and this was the first time I’d ever heard about it. I was quite surprised. That interview was taped and documented. My father then died the following November, which was last November.
BA: So that was the first time that any possible genuine link was verified? It was your father…
AG: Yes.
BA:…who actually said he believed that he was the illegitimate grandson of Florence Maybrick?
AG: Yes, he certainly seemed to believe that.
BA: He seemed to believe this, yes.
AG: Or he certainly indicated it, let’s put it that way.
BA: Yes this was his belief at the time, his feeling at the time and this is what has come through to you and this is on tape somewhere with Paul Feldman.
AG: Yes, yes, it is on tape, yes.
BA: I’d like to clear up if I can, though, Anne why did you, I believe, pass the book on to Tony Devereux?
AG: To pass on to my – that –
BA: Your husband?
AG: Yes, yes.
BA: But would it not have been just simpler to give it to him?
AG: Much simpler.
BA: Much simpler?
AG: But then I –
BA: Because you are recorded as having said that you didn’t want to give it to him because he might have felt that you, well, I use a word like patronising.
AG: Yes.
BA: …that he would be too much beholden to you for this…
AG: Yes.
BA: …which is an odd sort of situation to contemplate?
AG: It might be odd for people to understand, I just have to ask them to understand that as I said, it was part of my marriage, it was the difficulties we were going through and I don’t feel able to discuss that.
BA: Well, the difficulties of your marriage apart, the actual mechanics of what happened, you gave it to Tony Devereux who was a mutual friend of the three of yours?
AG: No, he was a friend of mine, I’d only met him about – sorry, a friend of Michael’s, I’d only met him myself about twice before.
BA: Yes, so what did you say to him? How did you present it to him?
AG: I just -
BA: What happened?
AG: I wrapped it up in brown paper and string, old brown paper I found in a drawer, and I give it to him and I asked him to pass it on to Michael and told him to tell him to do something with it, which he did.
BA: And no more than that?
AG: Very little more that, there was very quick conversation.
BA: How long after that did he pass it on?
AG: It was, it was right away, the following day I think.
BA: Did he say anything to you subsequently?
AG: I never seen Tony after that?
BA: Never saw him again at all?
AG: I don’t think I, I don’t think I ever seen him again after that.
BA: Because he died fairly recently or very shortly afterwards?
AG: He died, erm, I think it was in the August I’m not sure. But it was fairly soon, a matter of months afterwards. That was quite a surprise as well.
BA: And then when Mike got this into his possession and there came all the searching for where it had been hidden for many years and so on. How did you feel at this time when so many people were searching for its roots for where it had been hidden? He says he thinks it was in the building in which Maybrick had his office.
AG: I felt very guilty over it actually but at that point I didn’t think there was anything I could do about it.
BA: Now I’m not for a moment questioning or doubting your word but is there anyone else who could verify what you have to say? Have you brothers, sisters, did anybody else know about it? Aunts? Uncles?
AG: No, no, nobody knew about it.
BA: Literally nobody?
AG: Well as far as I can make out, nobody can, we have done a lot of research in that respect but we can’t get anything definite on it, no.
BA: Nobody had ever seen it other than yourself and your father as far as you knew?
AG: As far as I’m aware.
BA: And in those last statements with your father can you recall anything particularly which he said which registered especially with you which would help prove the veracity of the Diary?
AG: There was so much, I really can’t think, one of the things he did say to me or he said to, I think it was one of the researchers, Keith, erm, he said if I’d have known I had a document with perhaps a lot of money in my possession I wouldn’t have slogged my guts out in a rubber factory for thirty years. So perhaps that sums up his feelings about it.
BA: So he had retained it all the years but really hadn’t appreciated that it was of wider public interest?
AG: I don’t think – yeah, no, I don’t know what he thought about it really.
BA: Did he actually say how it had come into his possession…
AG: Yes.
BA: …I appreciate via the parents and so on.
AG: Yeah well as I said before that’s how he said it come into his possession that his stepmother had brought it to him at the Christmas of 1950 and said that his grandmother had left it. She actually brought other stuff as well that she’d been holding for him since he came back from India. He was married, I think, in 1948 and he’d left -
BA: Your father?
AG: Yeah, he’d left, erm, papers at her home in a suitcase, stuff he’d sent back from India and the Diary turned up with that suitcase when she brought it round which was actually the year she died.
BA: So is there any possibility of any other documents or any other papers from the period?
AG: Well if there are they’re gone now.
BA: Have they?
AG: Yeah, I should think so.
BA: Everything’s all been slung?
AG: Oh yeah, years ago.
BA: I mean you don’t have access to grandparents’ old stuff still or there’s no suitcases still with stuff in?
AG: To my knowledge, no.
BA: No. Have you looked?
AG: Well there’s nowhere to look really, my father’s gone now, that was the last bastion, we’ve spoken to an old aunt who was still alive and she hasn’t got anything and another aunt who actually just died a few months back and she never had anything that we could find.
BA: What do you feel about it yourself now, now that you suddenly find yourself thrust into a very unusual prominence after leading, if I may say, an ordinary life…
AG: An ordinary life, yes.
BA:…and then suddenly you find that you are possibly the direct descendent of a mass murderer?
AG: Ha ha, no, well actually if it’s what we think it is, or what Paul Feldman’s researchers indicated, it’s Florence that I’m connected with and she was not a mass murderer.
BA: She might have been a one-off killer?
AG: Well she was, I think, an ordinary woman in an extraordinary situation who managed to survive. That sums up Florence I think, erm, perhaps her husband was a mass murderer, I don’t know (laughs).
BA: But do you feel different because of this?
AG: No, I feel very silly actually, erm, about it all. I feel very embarrassed. I don’t like coming to give interviews. I’m a private person and I don’t want everybody knowing my business. Um, that’s been the biggest problem of it I suppose.
BA: Nonetheless you are now involving yourself in further research.
AG: Yes because I got interested in it, mainly I got interested in the Florence Maybrick side, the Ripper leaves me cold actually (laughs).
BA: Yeah I think he left a lot of people that way (laughter).
AG: Well there are a lot of people who are very, very, interested in the Ripper I appreciate this.
BA: Yes, well so now what direction is your research taking because I know that you are working to some extent with Paul Feldman and hopefully towards a film?
AG: Erm, yes the film deal came through some time ago as far as I’m aware, I don’t really know a great deal about it. The last thing I heard was that the script was actually being written but how far they’ve got on that I don’t know.
BA: So what are you actually doing with regard to research?
AG: Erm, still carrying on with research. I help out typing up documents and stuff like that really, erm, anything more or less. Sort of really on a voluntary basis, it’s just an interest.
BA: I wondered, though, whether you are pursuing other relations or other directions?
AG: Well there are full time researchers and this is being done constantly, There are three full time researchers working on descendants, you know, birth certificates and death certificates trying to pick out descendants of different people because it’s not just my line they’re researching but the Maybrick line as well and anybody connected or anybody who might have a history of the family or know something about different people associated with it like James Maybrick’s mistress who was, erm, or mistresses I should say, there was probably quite a few of them, I mean, anybody associated with the Ripper or Florence Maybrick at all.
BA: They’re all being pursued at this time?
AG: Yes, yes.
BA: How much more do you know about the Graham link though? Have you have any idea yet as to who Florence’s Graham partner could have been?
AG: Well erm -
BA: If indeed he did exist.
AG: Yeah, if indeed he did exist. I’m not really sure, it’s all part of the research and I’m not terribly sure. There have been people brought forward. At one point we thought, we wondered whether the Baroness’ husband who was Florence’s stepfather, the Baron Von Roques, we wondered whether he perhaps could have been the father of Florence’s child, we pursued that particular line. There could be - there was quite a few people. She did have a few lovers I think over a –
BA: A few?
AG: Yeah we’re fairly certain.
BA: Not just Mr Brierley?
AG: Not just Mr Brierley, no, um, there’s some evidence to suggest that perhaps Edwin was a lover, who was James’ brother, and there was Williams who was a solicitor in London so we don’t really know how many, perhaps, before that.
BA: How much closer do you think you are towards finding out who your grandfather was then and your great grandfather?
AG: Well.
BA: Because surely that shouldn’t be too difficult to find.
AG: You’d have thought not, um, the thing is, since we’ve been investigating things like birth certificates we’ve discovered that they’re not always written to the person we thought they were written to. Things happened - in Victorian times if a girl became pregnant she had two options, one was abortion and one was adoption there was really nothing in between, and there were people –
BA: Or the workhouse?
AG: Well yes, the people would advertise to adopt children. Now, there’s a possibility that when they did this they registered it in their own name. Now, if this happened, we don’t know for certain, but it’s a possibility it could have happened to my father’s father. He was, erm, registered in the name of Graham.
BA: He was?
AG: Yes.
BA: Well what’s his first name?
AG: William.
BA: William also?
AG: Yes, and that line is a proper line for Graham, there’s nothing strange about it as far as we can see, um, so, you know, it’s all supposition, you don’t really know, erm –
BA: No, you don’t really know…
AG: No.
BA: …it’s as simple or as complicated as that. Were the Grahams all from the same area would you know?
AG: Erm, well no, again, the history of my father’s life is quite complicated by itself anyway because his mother was a widow when she married my father’s father and she had six children.
BA: Your grandmother was a widow?
AG: Right, with six children when she married William Graham who was my father’s father.
BA: Yes.
AG: They then went on to have three other children.
BA: Yes.
AG: One was my father, one died and then there’s the other auntie. She then died in 1918.
BA: Your grandmother?
AG: Yes, Rebecca died during the big flu epidemic and for some reason my grandfather split up the family which made the other children very bitter because they were their own brothers and sisters, only half but born to them when they were growing up and erm the three children of my father, of my grandfather, were sent to live in Hartlepool where he had initially come from and then later on my grandfather married again within about eighteen months I think and he brought the three children back and they were brought up with a stepmother.
BA: So it’s a complicated family.
AG: It’s very, very, complicated.
BA: Oh yes. But nonetheless there is still a continuing Graham thread which you can pick through as long as you go to your father and his father, his natural father…
AG: That’s right.
BA:… and look beyond if you possibly can.
AG: The other point is that my grandfather was actually thrown out of his home when he was about thirteen or fourteen and told to make his way in the world because there was no more money any more so that made us wonder: was it because whatever money had been coming in to keep him had just dried up?
BA: It is a continuing fascinating story and you tell it with great conviction but I have to ask, there are allegations that you personally wrote it or commissioned it to be written.
AG: Yes I know there are, erm, the latest one I heard was that I wrote it because I am an ardent feminist and I wanted to spotlight the feminist movement, this is as ridiculous as any of the other ones actually (laughs). But, I mean, you’re right these strange things do come up occasionally.
BA: You didn’t write it?
AG: No, I didn’t write it (laughs then coughs).
BA: Would you suspect that it was a forgery or a hoax not necessarily by your own hand but earlier on?
AG: Well there is a possibility it is a contemporary forgery, we just don’t know. All I can say is that I seen the diary in 1968.
BA: That was the first time? ’68?
AG: Hmmm, my father seen it in 1950 but before that, I mean, it’s anybody’s guess, I don’t know, it’s up to the historians to tell us, to look at the information and be guided by that and decide, you know, where did it come from.
BA: You are saying yes it might be a hoax…
AG: Absolutely.
BA:…it might be a forgery but not, certainly, subsequent to 1950.
AG: That’s correct, that’s the only thing I can say, yeah.
BA: What about the watch, do you have any knowledge of the watch?
AG: Er, a little bit, I don’t know a great deal about the watch. Erm, that came up, erm, just before the actual, the first book was published we heard about the watch and when we first heard of it I thought “Oh my god, I don’t believe it”, you know, but over a period of time the information we’ve got about it, it seems to be perfectly genuine. I mean, I was telling you before, I met Albert Johnson.
BA: Who is the gentleman who bought it?
AG: Who is the owner of the watch, he is a very nice gentleman, he is a retired – I’ve no reason to doubt his word whatsoever.
BA: No, but possibly it was planted, that’s the allegation.
AG: Well, I really don’t know because I really know very little about the watch.
BA: Well the jewellery – the jewellers say that it has been in their possession for a minimum of eight years and possibly thirteen.
AG: Yes, something like that, yeah, yeah, it was well before the diary came onto the scene apparently.
BA: And what’s next then, what happens next?
AG: Well we just carry on with the research, perhaps this programme will find us people who know something else about any of the families involved which is always helpful. Um, strange things that keep happening will probably continue to keep happening I don’t know (laughs).
BA: And what about the money side of things Anne, have you made a lot of money out of this?
AG: No, no.
BA: Have you made any money out of it?
AG: Well, very – not a great deal, the research, the expenses from the publisher, there has been an incredible lot, and really there hasn’t been much money made out of it at all.
BA: But if there’s a film made you might?
AG: Well I think most of even the advance from the film has been ate up in expenses. There has been a little bit of money but not a great deal.
BA: Almost everybody involved talks about the curse of the Ripper and how it has adversely affected them and their life. Have you felt this too?
AG: I don’t know whether things would have happened the same anyway. There are a lot of coincidences throughout, there were strange coincidences we found out in the research that really didn’t indicate anything but absolutely made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, I mean there was one I find fascinating but it doesn’t mean anything but when Florence Maybrick died, the date she - the body was found, was the 23rd of October, the doctors decided she probably died on the 22nd. I was born on the 23rd of October and my daughter was born on the 22nd now it doesn’t mean anything but it’s creepy (laughs).
BA: Yes, yes indeed, yes indeed it is creepy, the whole thing is creepy. Do you wish that it had not happened at all?
AG: Oh yes.
BA: Do you?
AG: Oh yes. I do.
BA: So you regret now giving the book to Tony Devereux?
AG: Absolutely yes.
BA: Why?
AG: I just do. I mean, I think the diary has affected a lot of people. It seems to have affected personalities, what people do and I think it was better left unread.
BA: Really?
AG: Hmmm.
BA: Perhaps it would have been better had you simply produced it and given it straight away to a professional writer saying, “Look I found this I don’t know whether it’s true, false or what have you, make of it what you will.” Would that have been better?
AG: Perhaps it would have been better. I don’t know. It would have still come out.
BA: Because we had the waters continually muddied as to where the thing actually emerged.
AG: There’s certainly been a lot of confusion over it in the past, yes.
BA: So why ultimately did you come out and say look, yes I did, I had it all the time?
AG: Well mainly because of the continual research by Paul Feldman which was interrupting peoples’ lives which was extremely annoying plus I felt very guilty that these people were being annoyed because of something I’d done and I wanted to stop it.
BA: Despite the fact that already a book had been written and…
AG: Yes.
BA: ….everything was going on?
AG: Hmmm, it was the only way I could think of stopping it.
BA: Because some people may say you thought it was a way of stopping it which…
AG: Yes, fair enough, some people would say that.
BA:…which may not necessarily have been accurate.
AG: Yes, well some people will say what they want. I mean, people will believe what they want to believe in the end. Some people, it’s not in their best interests to believe it because they have a lot tied up in the Ripper industry if you like. I don’t know because I don’t have that information to be able to say it is genuine. There’s a possibility James Maybrick wrote it but was James Maybrick the Ripper? I don’t know that.
Hello again, Bob Azurdia here. And in recent weeks the amazing story of the diary owned by the former Liverpool scrap metal dealer, Mike Barrett, has moved in new and increasingly sensational directions. Mike claimed that the diary came to him from a friend named Tony Devereux who died shortly afterwards without revealing where he’d found the manuscript. Mike had his story told in book form by the respected writer Shirley Harrison. The story being that the diary had been written by James Maybrick, victim of a Victorian murder in 1889 and for which his wife Florence was found guilty. The Maybricks lived at Battlecrease House, in Riversdale Road, Aigburth, adjacent to the Liverpool cricket ground. The diary, though, also was signed Jack the Ripper and detailed the horrific killings which terrorised London in 1888. So was James Maybrick also Jack the Ripper? Well the controversy has raged and the diary has been said to be a forgery but it’s passed exhaustive forensic tests as has a watch which was bought by Donald (sic) Johnson from a shop in Liscard, Wallasy, about the same time as the diary was published. This had inscribed the initials of James Maybrick as well as the scratched initials of all the Whitechapel victims plus the chilling line “I am Jack”. Well Mike Barrett claimed that pressure following the diary’s publication helped lead him to alcoholism and also divorce. His former wife, Anne, now Anne Graham, having reverted to her maiden name, has helped fuel the controversy. Just as the book was due to be published she made a sworn statement to the effect that she’s known all her adult life where the diary had been and had actually been responsible for it coming into her husband’s possession via Tony Devereux. Anne, you’ve certainly helped muddy the waters somewhat.
AG: Yes, that is correct. Um, first of all, I’d like to tell you the story from the beginning if that’s of any help. I’ll just give you a brief outline of the story. In 1968 we were moving house and I found the diary – it isn’t “diaries” by the way, it’s one journal – in a tin trunk in a cupboard which contained 20 years of junk.
BA: Who is “we” moving house at this time?
AG: My father and myself. We lived with my maternal grandmother.
BA: So this was before you were married?
AG: Yes, I was about 17, 18 at the time. Erm, I found the journal and I took it to my father and I asked-
BA: You found it?
AG: Yes, I asked him where it had come from. He said to me his stepmother had given it to him in 1950 and said his granny had left it to him. It was more than 20 years later when I seen the diary again when my father gave it to me.
BA: So you put it back then in the trunk?
AG: I give it back to my father and he put it wherever he put it I don’t know.
BA: Yes and when you found it that first time did you study it, did you read it, or did you examine it in any depth or what?
AG: I did read a little bit of it, not all of it. People say to me well what was your reaction when you found a document written by Jack the Ripper, which it is signed, but really and truly I didn’t have any great reaction because Jack the Ripper was something like Springheeled Jack, merely a bogeyman of my youth, so I just wanted to know where it came from basically.
BA: But you did read enough of it at that time to appreciate that it was written by -
AG: Yes.
BA: Or purported to be written by someone like Jack the Ripper?
AG: Yes, yes.
BA: And you were horrified? Shocked?
AG: Well I was a bit surprised which was the reason why I asked my father where it had come from.
BA: And he gave no other explanation?
AG: That was the explanation he gave and that’s what I accepted, in those days one didn’t argue with one’s father and I didn’t.
BA: No indeed, no indeed, but you had no other suspicion that there was more to it?
AG: I thought it had probably been stolen and ended up in our house by - for some reason in the past.
BA: Stolen?
AG: Well you know, pinched, just suddenly arrived, I couldn’t see what connection we could possibly have with it.
BA: But who would have stolen it?
AG: Well I don’t know-
BA: You’re not really seriously –
AG: Oh not my father, somebody in the past. I just have no idea how it got there.
BA: No. Alright. Well then it finally did come into your possession some time later.
AG: Yes, I took it home with me and I hid it. I didn’t tell anybody about it.
BA: Why?
AG: I felt uncomfortable about. I didn’t like it and I just hid it.
BA: Well, why did you keep it?
AG: Well I didn’t destroy it which I suppose was another alternative.
BA: Destroy it or put it in the bin or get rid of it…
AG: Precisely.
BA: …if you just didn’t want it.
AG: I don’t know, I just put it away and forgot about it as it had been forgotten previously.
BA: Where did you put it?
AG: I put it behind, erm, a large cupboard in the middle bedroom, it was just popped down the back.
BA: And all this time your husband, Mike, didn’t know about it.
AG: No.
BA: Not at all?
AG: No.
BA: Why didn’t you tell him?
AG: I just didn’t want to. We were not sharing a great deal at that time, perhaps, and I just didn’t tell him.
BA: Did you tell anyone?
AG: No.
BA: No girlfriend or other relation?
AG: No, I just put it away and forgot about it. I wasn’t interested in it. Didn’t want to know about it.
BA: Did you do a similar sort of thing with any other possessions of yours?
AG: Well I did use the cupboard for one or two other things, yes.
BA: That you wanted almost to forget about?
AG: Well that were my -
BA: Put out of the way?
AG: Yeah.
BA: You did?
AG: Hmmm.
BA: So this was not unique in this sense then.
AG: No, no, I think every woman has her own little hidey hole and that was mine.
BA: So why did it emerge again?
AG: Well some time after that I very much on the spur of the moment, I was going through a bad time and I decided to hand the diary to my husband via a third person in order for it to be used as a basis of a novel. Now this reasoning sounded pretty good to me at the time, I really can’t explain it. Anyway this is what I did.
BA: Why through a third person?
AG: Because I didn’t want it to be connected with me.
BA: Why not?
AG: I had my reasons. I had what I felt were very good reasons at the time.
BA: Can’t you elaborate on these –
AG: I’d rather not because it is connected with my marriage and I don’t want to go into that.
BA: Well what about the name Graham because there’s a connection with the name Graham surely which is supposed to link possibly with the name of the Maybricks…
AG: Yes.
BA: …and possibly with yourself?
AG: Um, this was information that Paul Feldman found out. It is documented apparently. When Florence Maybrick came out of prison she called herself Graham. And when she died they found an address book and all the G’s had been torn out of the address book. So Paul Feldman at this point was absolutely certain that there was a connection between me and the diaries, oh the diary (laughs).
BA: Because she called herself Graham and your name was Graham.
AG: And there were other things which I can’t think of to be honest.
BA: Were there?
AG: I think so.
BA: Other possible links?
AG: Other possible links but you would have to ask Paul Feldman about that. It’s very complicated.
BA: Now what about your father in all this? Did you ever discuss it with him?
AG: Yes, a few times. What happened was when I eventually told Paul Feldman which was eight months after the separation and it was really just to get him off people’s back, he had done a very intensive research.
BA: Paul had?
AG: Yes and, you know, people who really had nothing whatsoever to do with the Diary were getting upset with the intrusion into their lives over it and I felt I had to bring it to an end. I contacted Paul and we had a long conversation, he told me about the Graham connection which I didn’t know about, and, erm, we decided to interview my father. Now my father was very ill at the time, he had cancer and he was terminally ill and the most important thing to me at that time was that the rest of his life should be happy and contented and as comfortable as possible. So I didn’t want a lot of people coming to him asking him questions and I didn’t know how he was going to react to them anyway. I did ask him would he have an interview with Paul and he said yes. So when Paul had the interview, it was during that time that my father confirmed to him that Florence Maybrick to his knowledge had had an illegitimate child, he suggested that his father was that illegitimate child and this was the first time I’d ever heard about it. I was quite surprised. That interview was taped and documented. My father then died the following November, which was last November.
BA: So that was the first time that any possible genuine link was verified? It was your father…
AG: Yes.
BA:…who actually said he believed that he was the illegitimate grandson of Florence Maybrick?
AG: Yes, he certainly seemed to believe that.
BA: He seemed to believe this, yes.
AG: Or he certainly indicated it, let’s put it that way.
BA: Yes this was his belief at the time, his feeling at the time and this is what has come through to you and this is on tape somewhere with Paul Feldman.
AG: Yes, yes, it is on tape, yes.
BA: I’d like to clear up if I can, though, Anne why did you, I believe, pass the book on to Tony Devereux?
AG: To pass on to my – that –
BA: Your husband?
AG: Yes, yes.
BA: But would it not have been just simpler to give it to him?
AG: Much simpler.
BA: Much simpler?
AG: But then I –
BA: Because you are recorded as having said that you didn’t want to give it to him because he might have felt that you, well, I use a word like patronising.
AG: Yes.
BA: …that he would be too much beholden to you for this…
AG: Yes.
BA: …which is an odd sort of situation to contemplate?
AG: It might be odd for people to understand, I just have to ask them to understand that as I said, it was part of my marriage, it was the difficulties we were going through and I don’t feel able to discuss that.
BA: Well, the difficulties of your marriage apart, the actual mechanics of what happened, you gave it to Tony Devereux who was a mutual friend of the three of yours?
AG: No, he was a friend of mine, I’d only met him about – sorry, a friend of Michael’s, I’d only met him myself about twice before.
BA: Yes, so what did you say to him? How did you present it to him?
AG: I just -
BA: What happened?
AG: I wrapped it up in brown paper and string, old brown paper I found in a drawer, and I give it to him and I asked him to pass it on to Michael and told him to tell him to do something with it, which he did.
BA: And no more than that?
AG: Very little more that, there was very quick conversation.
BA: How long after that did he pass it on?
AG: It was, it was right away, the following day I think.
BA: Did he say anything to you subsequently?
AG: I never seen Tony after that?
BA: Never saw him again at all?
AG: I don’t think I, I don’t think I ever seen him again after that.
BA: Because he died fairly recently or very shortly afterwards?
AG: He died, erm, I think it was in the August I’m not sure. But it was fairly soon, a matter of months afterwards. That was quite a surprise as well.
BA: And then when Mike got this into his possession and there came all the searching for where it had been hidden for many years and so on. How did you feel at this time when so many people were searching for its roots for where it had been hidden? He says he thinks it was in the building in which Maybrick had his office.
AG: I felt very guilty over it actually but at that point I didn’t think there was anything I could do about it.
BA: Now I’m not for a moment questioning or doubting your word but is there anyone else who could verify what you have to say? Have you brothers, sisters, did anybody else know about it? Aunts? Uncles?
AG: No, no, nobody knew about it.
BA: Literally nobody?
AG: Well as far as I can make out, nobody can, we have done a lot of research in that respect but we can’t get anything definite on it, no.
BA: Nobody had ever seen it other than yourself and your father as far as you knew?
AG: As far as I’m aware.
BA: And in those last statements with your father can you recall anything particularly which he said which registered especially with you which would help prove the veracity of the Diary?
AG: There was so much, I really can’t think, one of the things he did say to me or he said to, I think it was one of the researchers, Keith, erm, he said if I’d have known I had a document with perhaps a lot of money in my possession I wouldn’t have slogged my guts out in a rubber factory for thirty years. So perhaps that sums up his feelings about it.
BA: So he had retained it all the years but really hadn’t appreciated that it was of wider public interest?
AG: I don’t think – yeah, no, I don’t know what he thought about it really.
BA: Did he actually say how it had come into his possession…
AG: Yes.
BA: …I appreciate via the parents and so on.
AG: Yeah well as I said before that’s how he said it come into his possession that his stepmother had brought it to him at the Christmas of 1950 and said that his grandmother had left it. She actually brought other stuff as well that she’d been holding for him since he came back from India. He was married, I think, in 1948 and he’d left -
BA: Your father?
AG: Yeah, he’d left, erm, papers at her home in a suitcase, stuff he’d sent back from India and the Diary turned up with that suitcase when she brought it round which was actually the year she died.
BA: So is there any possibility of any other documents or any other papers from the period?
AG: Well if there are they’re gone now.
BA: Have they?
AG: Yeah, I should think so.
BA: Everything’s all been slung?
AG: Oh yeah, years ago.
BA: I mean you don’t have access to grandparents’ old stuff still or there’s no suitcases still with stuff in?
AG: To my knowledge, no.
BA: No. Have you looked?
AG: Well there’s nowhere to look really, my father’s gone now, that was the last bastion, we’ve spoken to an old aunt who was still alive and she hasn’t got anything and another aunt who actually just died a few months back and she never had anything that we could find.
BA: What do you feel about it yourself now, now that you suddenly find yourself thrust into a very unusual prominence after leading, if I may say, an ordinary life…
AG: An ordinary life, yes.
BA:…and then suddenly you find that you are possibly the direct descendent of a mass murderer?
AG: Ha ha, no, well actually if it’s what we think it is, or what Paul Feldman’s researchers indicated, it’s Florence that I’m connected with and she was not a mass murderer.
BA: She might have been a one-off killer?
AG: Well she was, I think, an ordinary woman in an extraordinary situation who managed to survive. That sums up Florence I think, erm, perhaps her husband was a mass murderer, I don’t know (laughs).
BA: But do you feel different because of this?
AG: No, I feel very silly actually, erm, about it all. I feel very embarrassed. I don’t like coming to give interviews. I’m a private person and I don’t want everybody knowing my business. Um, that’s been the biggest problem of it I suppose.
BA: Nonetheless you are now involving yourself in further research.
AG: Yes because I got interested in it, mainly I got interested in the Florence Maybrick side, the Ripper leaves me cold actually (laughs).
BA: Yeah I think he left a lot of people that way (laughter).
AG: Well there are a lot of people who are very, very, interested in the Ripper I appreciate this.
BA: Yes, well so now what direction is your research taking because I know that you are working to some extent with Paul Feldman and hopefully towards a film?
AG: Erm, yes the film deal came through some time ago as far as I’m aware, I don’t really know a great deal about it. The last thing I heard was that the script was actually being written but how far they’ve got on that I don’t know.
BA: So what are you actually doing with regard to research?
AG: Erm, still carrying on with research. I help out typing up documents and stuff like that really, erm, anything more or less. Sort of really on a voluntary basis, it’s just an interest.
BA: I wondered, though, whether you are pursuing other relations or other directions?
AG: Well there are full time researchers and this is being done constantly, There are three full time researchers working on descendants, you know, birth certificates and death certificates trying to pick out descendants of different people because it’s not just my line they’re researching but the Maybrick line as well and anybody connected or anybody who might have a history of the family or know something about different people associated with it like James Maybrick’s mistress who was, erm, or mistresses I should say, there was probably quite a few of them, I mean, anybody associated with the Ripper or Florence Maybrick at all.
BA: They’re all being pursued at this time?
AG: Yes, yes.
BA: How much more do you know about the Graham link though? Have you have any idea yet as to who Florence’s Graham partner could have been?
AG: Well erm -
BA: If indeed he did exist.
AG: Yeah, if indeed he did exist. I’m not really sure, it’s all part of the research and I’m not terribly sure. There have been people brought forward. At one point we thought, we wondered whether the Baroness’ husband who was Florence’s stepfather, the Baron Von Roques, we wondered whether he perhaps could have been the father of Florence’s child, we pursued that particular line. There could be - there was quite a few people. She did have a few lovers I think over a –
BA: A few?
AG: Yeah we’re fairly certain.
BA: Not just Mr Brierley?
AG: Not just Mr Brierley, no, um, there’s some evidence to suggest that perhaps Edwin was a lover, who was James’ brother, and there was Williams who was a solicitor in London so we don’t really know how many, perhaps, before that.
BA: How much closer do you think you are towards finding out who your grandfather was then and your great grandfather?
AG: Well.
BA: Because surely that shouldn’t be too difficult to find.
AG: You’d have thought not, um, the thing is, since we’ve been investigating things like birth certificates we’ve discovered that they’re not always written to the person we thought they were written to. Things happened - in Victorian times if a girl became pregnant she had two options, one was abortion and one was adoption there was really nothing in between, and there were people –
BA: Or the workhouse?
AG: Well yes, the people would advertise to adopt children. Now, there’s a possibility that when they did this they registered it in their own name. Now, if this happened, we don’t know for certain, but it’s a possibility it could have happened to my father’s father. He was, erm, registered in the name of Graham.
BA: He was?
AG: Yes.
BA: Well what’s his first name?
AG: William.
BA: William also?
AG: Yes, and that line is a proper line for Graham, there’s nothing strange about it as far as we can see, um, so, you know, it’s all supposition, you don’t really know, erm –
BA: No, you don’t really know…
AG: No.
BA: …it’s as simple or as complicated as that. Were the Grahams all from the same area would you know?
AG: Erm, well no, again, the history of my father’s life is quite complicated by itself anyway because his mother was a widow when she married my father’s father and she had six children.
BA: Your grandmother was a widow?
AG: Right, with six children when she married William Graham who was my father’s father.
BA: Yes.
AG: They then went on to have three other children.
BA: Yes.
AG: One was my father, one died and then there’s the other auntie. She then died in 1918.
BA: Your grandmother?
AG: Yes, Rebecca died during the big flu epidemic and for some reason my grandfather split up the family which made the other children very bitter because they were their own brothers and sisters, only half but born to them when they were growing up and erm the three children of my father, of my grandfather, were sent to live in Hartlepool where he had initially come from and then later on my grandfather married again within about eighteen months I think and he brought the three children back and they were brought up with a stepmother.
BA: So it’s a complicated family.
AG: It’s very, very, complicated.
BA: Oh yes. But nonetheless there is still a continuing Graham thread which you can pick through as long as you go to your father and his father, his natural father…
AG: That’s right.
BA:… and look beyond if you possibly can.
AG: The other point is that my grandfather was actually thrown out of his home when he was about thirteen or fourteen and told to make his way in the world because there was no more money any more so that made us wonder: was it because whatever money had been coming in to keep him had just dried up?
BA: It is a continuing fascinating story and you tell it with great conviction but I have to ask, there are allegations that you personally wrote it or commissioned it to be written.
AG: Yes I know there are, erm, the latest one I heard was that I wrote it because I am an ardent feminist and I wanted to spotlight the feminist movement, this is as ridiculous as any of the other ones actually (laughs). But, I mean, you’re right these strange things do come up occasionally.
BA: You didn’t write it?
AG: No, I didn’t write it (laughs then coughs).
BA: Would you suspect that it was a forgery or a hoax not necessarily by your own hand but earlier on?
AG: Well there is a possibility it is a contemporary forgery, we just don’t know. All I can say is that I seen the diary in 1968.
BA: That was the first time? ’68?
AG: Hmmm, my father seen it in 1950 but before that, I mean, it’s anybody’s guess, I don’t know, it’s up to the historians to tell us, to look at the information and be guided by that and decide, you know, where did it come from.
BA: You are saying yes it might be a hoax…
AG: Absolutely.
BA:…it might be a forgery but not, certainly, subsequent to 1950.
AG: That’s correct, that’s the only thing I can say, yeah.
BA: What about the watch, do you have any knowledge of the watch?
AG: Er, a little bit, I don’t know a great deal about the watch. Erm, that came up, erm, just before the actual, the first book was published we heard about the watch and when we first heard of it I thought “Oh my god, I don’t believe it”, you know, but over a period of time the information we’ve got about it, it seems to be perfectly genuine. I mean, I was telling you before, I met Albert Johnson.
BA: Who is the gentleman who bought it?
AG: Who is the owner of the watch, he is a very nice gentleman, he is a retired – I’ve no reason to doubt his word whatsoever.
BA: No, but possibly it was planted, that’s the allegation.
AG: Well, I really don’t know because I really know very little about the watch.
BA: Well the jewellery – the jewellers say that it has been in their possession for a minimum of eight years and possibly thirteen.
AG: Yes, something like that, yeah, yeah, it was well before the diary came onto the scene apparently.
BA: And what’s next then, what happens next?
AG: Well we just carry on with the research, perhaps this programme will find us people who know something else about any of the families involved which is always helpful. Um, strange things that keep happening will probably continue to keep happening I don’t know (laughs).
BA: And what about the money side of things Anne, have you made a lot of money out of this?
AG: No, no.
BA: Have you made any money out of it?
AG: Well, very – not a great deal, the research, the expenses from the publisher, there has been an incredible lot, and really there hasn’t been much money made out of it at all.
BA: But if there’s a film made you might?
AG: Well I think most of even the advance from the film has been ate up in expenses. There has been a little bit of money but not a great deal.
BA: Almost everybody involved talks about the curse of the Ripper and how it has adversely affected them and their life. Have you felt this too?
AG: I don’t know whether things would have happened the same anyway. There are a lot of coincidences throughout, there were strange coincidences we found out in the research that really didn’t indicate anything but absolutely made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, I mean there was one I find fascinating but it doesn’t mean anything but when Florence Maybrick died, the date she - the body was found, was the 23rd of October, the doctors decided she probably died on the 22nd. I was born on the 23rd of October and my daughter was born on the 22nd now it doesn’t mean anything but it’s creepy (laughs).
BA: Yes, yes indeed, yes indeed it is creepy, the whole thing is creepy. Do you wish that it had not happened at all?
AG: Oh yes.
BA: Do you?
AG: Oh yes. I do.
BA: So you regret now giving the book to Tony Devereux?
AG: Absolutely yes.
BA: Why?
AG: I just do. I mean, I think the diary has affected a lot of people. It seems to have affected personalities, what people do and I think it was better left unread.
BA: Really?
AG: Hmmm.
BA: Perhaps it would have been better had you simply produced it and given it straight away to a professional writer saying, “Look I found this I don’t know whether it’s true, false or what have you, make of it what you will.” Would that have been better?
AG: Perhaps it would have been better. I don’t know. It would have still come out.
BA: Because we had the waters continually muddied as to where the thing actually emerged.
AG: There’s certainly been a lot of confusion over it in the past, yes.
BA: So why ultimately did you come out and say look, yes I did, I had it all the time?
AG: Well mainly because of the continual research by Paul Feldman which was interrupting peoples’ lives which was extremely annoying plus I felt very guilty that these people were being annoyed because of something I’d done and I wanted to stop it.
BA: Despite the fact that already a book had been written and…
AG: Yes.
BA: ….everything was going on?
AG: Hmmm, it was the only way I could think of stopping it.
BA: Because some people may say you thought it was a way of stopping it which…
AG: Yes, fair enough, some people would say that.
BA:…which may not necessarily have been accurate.
AG: Yes, well some people will say what they want. I mean, people will believe what they want to believe in the end. Some people, it’s not in their best interests to believe it because they have a lot tied up in the Ripper industry if you like. I don’t know because I don’t have that information to be able to say it is genuine. There’s a possibility James Maybrick wrote it but was James Maybrick the Ripper? I don’t know that.
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