One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

I would just add that Barrett's claim that he gained "full knowledge" of the history of the Post House pub, because he once worked there as a barman, seems almost comical to me. I mean, how exactly did he come about this information? Did the brewery give him full access to the historical records? Why would that be? Or did he acquire this "full knowledge" during a series of conversations with a number of slightly, or perhaps not so slightly, inebriated regulars?

And just out of interest, is there any proof that he actually did work there?

If he had full knowledge of the history of the Cumberland Street Poste House, John, it beats me why he would have had 'Sir Jim' take his refreshment there, since he'd have discovered it had no known postal connections until around 1894, and then only in name!

According to the Boddington Pub Company, writing in September 1992 regarding the Poste House in Cumberland Street:
'As far as we are aware the premises were known as the Post House in 1937 when the property was included in the omnibus conveyance to form Higsons Brewery Ltd from the three companies - Dania Higsons, J Sykes & Co and Joseph Jones'.

The above is from a letter Boddingtons wrote to Shirley Harrison's researcher, and the extract came to me courtesy of Keith Skinner.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

It would be interesting to know the outcome of the police investigation, but that will never be publicly known. Any freedom of information request will be refused on the basis of the fact the police will say that the case is still open, despite several of the main protagonists who were interviewed are now deceased.

Hi Trev,

If you don't know the outcome of the police investigation, where do you get your information that 'the case is still open'?

From an investigative perspective there are questions which I dont have the answers but I am sure someone does, these being

Who made complaints to the police?
How were the royalty advances paid to Barrett?
How much did he receive, and from whom?
Were they paid in to his bank account or that of another?
How much was subsequently re paid?
How was it repaid?
At what point did Robert Smith become involved?
What was his involvment?
What was his financial involvement.
Did he broker the publicity deals?

I'm pretty sure you could find some, if not all the answers you seek in Ripper Diary, which you can get from Amazon for one penny. Don't worry, there would be no royalties for me squander, even if you bought up every last surviving copy.

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

Too many reasons for me to list, really. But what good would it do in any case? I could whisper 'Battlecrease evidence' in your shell-like again, David, but then you can't consider or comment on that, can you?

Whispering 'Battlecrease evidence' to me Caz would do nothing to explain why Mike and Anne could not, in theory, have forged the diary together.

What I mean by that is that even if the secret 'Battlecrease evidence' magically proves the diary is genuine that does not mean that Mike and Anne were incapable of producing a forged diary.

The fact they were capable of doing it doesn't mean they actually did it. You, however, seem to be telling me that you think they were incapable but haven't explained satisfactorily explained why.

[David Orsam]

Except I thought I saw a post in which you were considering it. Did you not suggest a scenario whereby the book may have come out of the right house, but before the diary had yet been written in it?

Once again Caz you seem to be imagining things I have said. You saw no such post from me.

[David Orsam]

One thing that never seems to worry the 'Mike said he did it, so why should we not believe him?'

That's an interesting way to categorise those with whom you disagree. Do you include me in that?

You might have noticed two points that I have made. The first has nothing to do with Mike. It is that the expression "one off instance" did not exist in 1888. So even if nothing Barrett has said is true, it still means that the diary is a modern forgery.

Secondly, it is a fact that Mike Barrett made great efforts in March 1992 to purchase a Victorian Diary with blank pages and did make such an acquisition prior to producing the Maybrick Diary to Doreen. No-one has been able to provide an innocent explanation (other than insanity) for Mike Barrett doing such a thing. It is a compelling reason to believe that Mike Barrett was involved in forging the diary as he said he did in his sworn affidavit.

So those points are not based on "Mike said he did it so why should we not believe him?"

But I will add that have noticed that many of those who believe the diary to be genuine have been way to quick to dismiss what Barrett has said about how the diary was produced (based, it seems, largely on O&L's denials of selling such a diary in 1990 and minor points about how their auctions were conducted) and laughed (literally or metaphorically) at those who have dared suggest that on this occasion Barrett might have been telling the truth. As if such a thing is impossible.

Mike Barrett was the person who produced the diary to the world and Mike Barrett is the person who swore an affidavit telling the world that it was a forgery. You must admit that in those circumstances it is at least reasonable for the world to think it a forgery, no?

[David Orsam]

One thing that never seems to worry the 'Mike said he did it, so why should we not believe him?' crowd is the fact that not one single person - librarian, archivist, pub landlord, bookshop keeper, friend, enemy, associate, creditor, drinking companion - has ever come forward to say they saw or heard Mike, or someone resembling him, asking or phoning for information, or undertaking any research whatsoever into Maybrick or the ripper before he had called Doreen with the 'good' news that he had the diary.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

You'd better come up with an explanation pretty fast then Caz coz it's a big problem for you isn't it?

I mean, here is what Shirley Harrison says about Mike's research:

"I have Michael Barrett's 'research notes' in my possession. They were typed and collated for him by Anne, his then wife, while he was trying to make sense of the Diary before he bought it to us. Where he can't find what he wants he writes 'nothing to date'. Or 'not known'.....His research note says...'check for copy of Punch around September 1888'.

If, as you seem to be saying, he didn't do any research then how did he manage to produce these 'research notes'?

Well perhaps the 'research notes' were a forged attempt by Mike to prove to Harrison that he had genuinely done some research in a library - while he based the Diary on a few Maybrick and Ripper books.

[caz]

According to Ripper Diary: The Inside Story by Linder, Morris and Skinner (p.143), Barrett first told Martine Rooney, Feldman's assistant, on 30 September 1994 that he had discovered the source of the quotation.

There is no mention in the summary of this conversation that Barrett was speaking "excitedly". Is there a source to support your use of this word?

Hi David,

I take that as a compliment to the authors of Ripper Diary on their strict objectivity.

As for me, I chose to add a bit more colour while stating the bleedin' obvious. Mike's message for Feldman, given to his assistant, was in essence that he could use his knowledge of the quotation to claim he had put it in the diary himself – which of course was exactly what he did go on to claim. I don’t know, maybe he had been holding onto this nugget since his first painful stab at 'confessing' more than three months previously and was not remotely excited when he finally announced it. What do you think? But judging from all the tape recordings, letters and faxes from that heady period, there had been quite a visceral battle going on between the two fantasists, Barrett and Feldman (too much colour?), in the wake of Anne quitting the marriage, and Mike getting confused again, believing Feldy was about to convince the world that their daughter Caroline was descended from Jack the Ripper. Excited? Mad? Mike was furious.

The summary also does not state that Barrett found the quotation in a library. Rooney said that Barrett told her he was sitting with the book in front of him. It was Feldman who then sent people to Liverpool Central Library to see if they could find the author of the quotation.

That’s right, we don’t know where Mike was when he spoke to Martine, but he was hardly likely to tell her if he had only just found the quotation and was staring at the words, not quite believing his luck. He told Shirley, though, and with enough information to enable her to contact the library, who faxed her with the relevant pages.

Harrison later said that Barrett told her he had spent a week in Liverpool Library looking for the quotation but the next day told he had a copy of the book in his possession.

According to our book, Mike had first contacted Shirley about his library find by October 3rd - the day she alerted Keith. It was another nine days before Shirley told Keith that Mike was now saying he had owned a copy of the Sphere book all along and was using it as proof that he had forged the diary. He went on to tell her he only recalled having his own copy after finding the quotation. It's a dog's breakfast, isn't it?

That's what the book states at least. It also goes on to say that one of Barrett's friends 'corroborated his story'.

The fly in the ointment here is that this was a new girlfriend, who had recently come into his life since Anne's departure in January 1994. So what exactly could she have corroborated concerning when and how Mike had actually acquired his copy? She could not have put his ownership of it back to the magic 1992 or earlier, any more than Mike could. And it was no good first producing it as late as he did in 1994, if this was his one golden ticket to convince the world he must have had at least some inside knowledge.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

You'd better come up with an explanation pretty fast then Caz coz it's a big problem for you isn't it?

Er.... no.

I mean, here is what Shirley Harrison says about Mike's research:

"I have Michael Barrett's 'research notes' in my possession. They were typed and collated for him by Anne, his then wife, while he was trying to make sense of the Diary before he bought it to us. Where he can't find what he wants he writes 'nothing to date'. Or 'not known'.....His research note says...'check for copy of Punch around September 1888'.

If, as you seem to be saying, he didn't do any research then how did he manage to produce these 'research notes'?

When did he finally hand over these notes to anyone? Any ideas?

And I don't think I said he didn't do any research; I just observed that nobody has ever come forward as a witness to anything he might have researched prior to the day he called Doreen. I wasn't talking about notes he later gave to Shirley.

Mind you, I don't suppose it would matter to you anyway. If you think he sat down and got the thing penned in 11 days, he could have done all the research for it secretly, or wearing a false moustache, in just a few more days than that.

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

As for me, I chose to add a bit more colour while stating the bleedin' obvious. Mike's message for Feldman, given to his assistant, was in essence that he could use his knowledge of the quotation to claim he had put it in the diary himself – which of course was exactly what he did go on to claim. I don’t know, maybe he had been holding onto this nugget since his first painful stab at 'confessing' more than three months previously and was not remotely excited when he finally announced it. What do you think? But judging from all the tape recordings, letters and faxes from that heady period, there had been quite a visceral battle going on between the two fantasists, Barrett and Feldman (too much colour?), in the wake of Anne quitting the marriage, and Mike getting confused again, believing Feldy was about to convince the world that their daughter Caroline was descended from Jack the Ripper. Excited? Mad? Mike was furious.

Is another way of phrasing this paragraph that you don't know if Mike was excited or not during the telephone conversation and you were guessing?

[David Orsam]

So what exactly could she have corroborated concerning when and how Mike had actually acquired his copy?

I did no more than quote your book Caz which said that she 'corroborated his story'.

Are you asking me what your book means?

[David Orsam]

And I don't think I said he didn't do any research; I just observed that nobody has ever come forward as a witness to anything he might have researched prior to the day he called Doreen. I wasn't talking about notes he later gave to Shirley.

But what would be the point of such an observation if you weren't trying to say that no research was done?

The notes that Mike gave Shirley were supposed to be notes of his research done before he brought the diary to Doreen. If the notes are genuine that it must mean he did research that no-one witnessed. If they are fake then it means that Mike produced some fake research notes for some reason.

Either way, it's not a problem for me because I am content to rely on Melvin Harris on this point who makes clear that the Diary forger didn't need to do any 'research' because all the necessary information came from a few books.

[Henry Flower]

Sorry folks, I'm fairly uninformed on the diary. Can anyone confirm that these are some of the basic facts that are beyond doubt? -

The diary was introduced to the world by a chap called Mike Barrett
Mike Barrett confessed to having forged the diary
Mike Barrett had tried to purchase an unused Victorian diary
The diary contains at least one but perhaps three or more phrases that were almost certainly not in use till long after 1888

Is that all true?

Then what is there to debate, beyond the exact date and sources used in the forgery?

[GUT]

Sorry folks, I'm fairly uninformed on the diary. Can anyone confirm that these are some of the basic facts that are beyond doubt? -

The diary was introduced to the world by a chap called Mike Barrett
Mike Barrett confessed to having forged the diary
Mike Barrett had tried to purchase an unused Victorian diary
The diary contains at least one but perhaps three or more phrases that were almost certainly not in use till long after 1888

Is that all true?

Then what is there to debate, beyond the exact date and sources used in the forgery?

You have left out that Mike retracted his confession in very smart time.

[Henry Flower]

You have left out that Mike retracted his confession in very smart time.

There are doubtless many things "left out", but my question was, are the things I listed factual?

[David Orsam]

You have left out that Mike retracted his confession in very smart time.

And he then retracted that retraction in even smarter time!