One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[David Orsam]

My argument has been, from the outset, that you appeared to be cherry picking the evidence you wanted from Baxendale to help make your case for a 1992 Barrett production.

I literally don't know how you can say I am cherry picking from Baxendale bearing in mind that I haven't even mentioned the parts of his report (as summarised in Inside Story) in which he said that the ink in the Diary had not browned like most late nineteenth century inks, that the free flowing nature of the ink was unusual for the period and that the disconnected script style of the Diary only became common in the middle of the twentieth century.

Far from "cherry picking" anything, I have simply referred to his findings on solubility because he was reported in the Sunday Times in 1993 as saying that he believed, on the basis of a solubility test, that the ink had been applied to the paper 'recently' and even in his report, if you have correctly interpreted it, he says that the ink was likely to have been applied to the paper after 1945.

[David Orsam]

He only went as far as to consider it 'likely' that the diary was created more recently than 1945.

On a point of order, Baxendale doesn't actually say that "the diary" was likely to have been created more recently than 1945.

His exact words as quoted in Inside Story (with my bold) are these:

"My opinion therefore is that the ink does not date from 1880. An exact time of origin cannot be established, but I consider it likely that it has originated since 1945".

So what does Baxendale mean by "it"? The Diary? Well possibly, but are we sure he is not talking about the date of origin of the ink?

[David Orsam]

Literally correct, but skating over the underlying point. 'Since 1945' means Baxendale was allowing for the ink to have met paper as early as the late 1940s. If he subsequently tells the Sunday Times, or anyone else, 'no earlier than 1989' (that is, within the last two or three years, which is the 'expert' opinion you appeared to be relying on initially), that is a drastic moving of the goal posts, surely? Why do you suppose he was unable or unwilling to narrow the diary's creation down to the last two or three years when reporting to Robert and Shirley? They were the ones preparing to publish the thing!

If we assume that "Since 1945" is not a reference to the date of origin of the ink, as opposed to the date the ink met paper, then, as I've said above, if the ink met paper as early as the late 1940s it told Robert and Shirley that the diary wasn't written by Maybrick. That is the question they wanted the answer to and what they were paying Baxendale to establish. There wasn't any need for Baxendale to commit in writing to a date later than this.

Let me ask you this Caz. If Dr Baxendale was misquoted or misrepresented by the Sunday Times in what was a major news story that weekend in September 1993, why do you suppose he has not publicly objected to this?

[David Orsam]

We know he had fears about giving Doreen his real name, and these were put to rest before she issued an invitation to 'Mr Barrett' (no longer Mr Williams) to bring the diary to London on April 13th 1992.

Well that's not the story told in 'Inside Story' (p.2). What is said there is that after speaking to 'Mr Williams' on 10 March 1992, "Montgomery wrote to Williams, confirming that she and Harrison would look forward to meeting him and his wife...". Then it says "In a subsequent phone call to Montgomery, Michael Williams revealed that his real name was Michael Barrett". The explanation for this is that "He had decided to conceal his true identity until he was sure his story would be taken seriously."

But I have no idea what any of this has got to do with anything I've said.

[David Orsam]

I don't know how she managed to reassure him on that score or precisely when. There must have been some communication between them in the interval, during which he felt able to reveal his real name, exposing himself in the process as a liar for the first time, for having given her a false one. So if his fears extended to his acquisition of the diary (whether he had yet to obtain it from O&L and write the thing, or was given it by a friend or acquaintance, with the writing already in situ), and what Doreen's reaction might be on seeing it, she was presumably able to say all the right words in the right order to put him at his ease before he boarded the train at Lime St.

What I was asking here is why Barrett was satisfied on 13 April 1992 that Doreen would not identify the black Victorian scrapbook as a stolen diary when she first saw it.

I asked this question because you seemed to be suggesting that Barrett was so afraid that she might do so that he daren't even show her a photograph of the Diary.

Nothing you have said in your post even seems to address the point.

[David Orsam]

Well I might have done, had it not been for the fact that I have never believed that Mike or Anne had anything to do with the diary's creation, and Keith's Battlecrease documentation has done nothing to alter that belief, and plenty to support it.

That, Caz, is a non sequitur.

Either there is something suspicious about Mike Barrett's extensive efforts to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages or there isn't. Your own belief that Mike or Anne had nothing to do with the diary's creation cannot possibly affect whether there is something suspicious about those efforts.

Further, I wasn't even asking you to agree that Mike or Anne had anything to do with the diary's creation bearing in mind that Mike could have been acting on behalf of an unknown third party in acquiring a blank diary.

It's a shame you couldn't bring yourself to actually answer the question. Even more of a shame that you felt the need to fall back on referring to mysterious documentation that has never been subjected to public scrutiny, in the manner of Pierre.

[David Orsam]

I won't be told by the likes of you what I may or may not post

That's the second time you have referred to "the likes" of me. Can I ask you what you mean by that?

And, of course, I wouldn't dream of telling you what you may or may not post. I was telling you how I would respond.

[David Orsam]

I know you are not accusing Anne - you wouldn't be so foolish. You sit behind a dead man and let him do all the accusing, while arguing against anyone who suggests his accusations were false.

Again you show that you fundamentally misunderstand what I am arguing here.

I place no reliance on anything said by Mike Barrett in his affidavit or anywhere else. Nor have I been "arguing against anyone who suggests his accusations were false". But I asked you at the start of this discussion to show me why his "accusations" were false and still wait for that demonstration.

What I am arguing is that Mike's attempt to acquire a Victorian Diary with blank pages in March 1992 can only be sensibly explained by the notion that he was involved in a plan to create a forged version of the Jack the Ripper Diary that he eventually produced a few weeks later. And I am saying that this notion is consistent not only with what Barrett said in his affidavit, once the chronology is adjusted to fit with the purchase of the diary, but also with the best expert evidence.

[David Orsam]

Not at all, David. You could rely on my cat to help you date the diary if you so wished. I won't be relying on anything Mike said or did from March 9th 1992 until he shuffled off, to tell me who wrote the diary, when or why.

The logical extension of this is that you wouldn't rely on Mike actually writing the diary to tell you who wrote the diary. A strange position to take indeed.

[David Orsam]

I probably didn't answer because I don't understand the question. What did you mean by 'this'? What 'grand plan'?

Seriously?

'this' means the advertising for, and purchase of, a Victorian diary. The 'grand plan' is defined in the question: "do you think this was all part of a grand plan to put future investigators onto the wrong scent?"

[David Orsam]

Still not quite what I had in mind, David. Initially it would have been Mike wondering how the diary he had acquired (or was about to fake, if you prefer) might compare to anyone else's actual diary from 1889 or thereabouts. He didn't know what Doreen was likely to make of it, did he? If he wasn't sure what a real diary from the period would look like, because he'd never seen one before, he could only guess if Doreen would be equally unsure or had seen hundreds of the things.

So are you saying that Mike thought all Victorian diaries were identical, being just like the big black Victorian guard book that he had in his possession, and he spent £25 of his wife's money in the expectation that he would be receiving a big black 1891 diary (guard book) which, simply by virtue of being big and black, would then confirm to him that his own Jack the Ripper diary was, or was likely to be, genuine?

Is that what you think was going through his mind when he instructed HP Bookfinders to purchase the 1891 diary?

And, if so, do you think he was stunned and surprised to receive a small red 1891 diary?

[David Orsam]

Mike wasn't 'due' to take the diary to Doreen until April 13th 1992. Assuming he had it when phoning her on March 9th, there was plenty of time for Anne to type the transcript from the diary after that date. Unless Anne was listening in on each call between Mike and Doreen, Mike may have told her the transcript was his idea, even if it was Doreen's or if they had both thought of it. Anne's confirmation doesn't help you pinpoint when the typing was done, but explains why the diary text was on their word processor.

Naturally you will not let go of the possibility that they were both lying about the sequence of events, and that the transcript was already typed before the call to Doreen, before the guard book was even acquired and before the text was transferred by hand into it. But good luck if you think it can ever be proved.

No, you've completely lost sight of the point here. I was asking why Mike needed to acquire a Victorian diary to write extracts from the Jack the Ripper Diary in, to show Doreen, when he could simply have shown her a typed transcript. I said that Mike was supposed to have had this transcript prepared for Doreen in March 1992 and you asked me: "In March, or before March?"

I then gave you the evidence that, according to both Mike and Anne, the transcript was prepared in March 1992. Now you don't challenge that but tell me, bizarrely, that I "will not let go of the possibility that the transcript was typed up before the guard book was acquired." I've never said this. I've never even offered an opinion as to when the transcript was, in fact, typed up. My point was simply that if Mike had the transcript in March, or it was in the process of being typed, why was he intending to write out extracts for Doreen in a difficult to obtain and expensive Victorian diary in the same month?

[caz]

You misunderstand Caz. You asked me if anyone saw the writing in the Diary before Mike acquired it. Given that I think that Mike was involved in forging it, I must also think it's not possible for that to be true.

Fair enough, David.

So I will merely counter that by saying it's not possible for the typed transcript to have been seen by anyone before Mike acquired the guard book if I am correct in my understanding that he got it with the writing already in situ.

Our respective positions must be clear by now to one another and to anyone who has not yet lost the will to read our posts. I doubt there will be any resolution or meeting of minds anytime soon, so is it time to agree to disagree?

As I'm unashamedly diary-curious I am happy to plod along, reading and responding as and when my more and more limited time allows [my ailing mother-in-law needing me more than anyone here]. But it amazed me how people such as the late great Harris, Melvin and the mighty Omlor, John spent years of their lives on the diary (not so long on the watch), haughtily demonstrating that it was a late 20th century production with Barrett involvement. I do hope Orsam, David will not live to regret the time spent in their wake on a similar cause.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

...the blank pages at the end of another Victorian Diary (of any size or colour) acquired at great effort and expense...

I'm glad you have referred again to the 'great effort and expense' it took the Barretts (Mike the effort and Anne the expense) to obtain the little [about 3" x 2"] red diary for 1891, because it contrasts rather starkly with a scenario beginning with its arrival in the post around March 27th or 28th 1992 and its immediate rejection as useless.

Mike supposedly then has a brainwave and saunters into town to check out what Outhwaite & Litherland might be auctioning off and bingo! In hardly any time at all and with almost no effort he is confronted by the large black guard book, grinning evilly up at him and boasting an elegant sufficiency of juicy blank pages. Quick as a flash Mike bids for and wins his prize and tucks it under his arm, imagining how thrilled the little woman will be with him when he gets home.

And lo it came to pass that by All Fools' Day the Barretts were warming to their task and after eleven days and eleven nights the pen was put down. On Twelfth Night they did celebrate with a pint down the Saddle, and the next morning - April 13th - Anne whipped out her ink-stained hankie, wiped a tear from her eye and blew her nose (or did I get that the wrong way round?) before waving it proudly (the hankie, not her nose) at the departing figure of her hubby as the train conspired with them to get him to his appointment with Doreen on time.

Now if I believed God created the world in seven days, I might also believe the Barretts could have created the diary between rejecting the little red one in the closing days of March (after the great effort and expense to acquire it) and Mike showing off his big black one by mid-April.

But some things require too big an ask.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

No, I don’t conclude that Whay’s "never" is unreliable at all. I’m sure he is right and O&L never conducted their sales in the way that Barrett described it.

We agree then. Barrett's description cannot be trusted to reflect the truth, and doesn't tell us if he was even trying to tell the truth.

But if you substitute the word...

David, if you have to start mucking about with the words Mike chose to use for his best shot at confessing to forgery, you are on a slippery slope and a hiding to nothing. What you are in effect suggesting here is that Whay was so dim that he would have been totally incapable of reconciling Mike's description with the actual sales process O&L had always followed, with not much more than a single word change from "receipt" to "ticket". Any reasonably intelligent person would surely have said: "That's not really how we have ever operated, but it's possible he was mistaking his receipt for a ticket", instead of which Whay rejected Mike's account outright with his "never".

Love,

Caz
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