One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Hi Caz,

The comment on the timing was really just saying, as of the publication of Inside Story, the sample of writing pictured was the only sample on record, so it not matching isn't conspiracy or anything, it just plain didn't match. The specific date of Barrat getting Anne's private letters isn't that important, it's just after Inside Story, so it's new information to take into account.

It was just some friendly advice for Ike, which he seemed to take on board, can't say there was much more to it than that. (To be fair!)

So Anne's spontaneous handwriting, pictured in Inside Story, 'just plain didn't match' the diary, but David Barrat managed to get hold of some other spontaneous handwriting in private correspondence from Anne to Mike, which, in Kattrup's opinion, 'seems like a match' to the diary.

I'm not sure how this equates to 'new information' for Ike or anyone else to take into account, unless you personally have seen what Barrat's got, and have noted a significant, observable difference in Anne's handwriting there, that betrays an ability to write in two completely different styles - one which plain doesn't match the diary, and one that looks as though it might. The question of why she would have given Mike any such ammunition to support his accusations against her, if she really had penned the diary, doesn't appear to matter, or to have been considered by anyone. The fact that she could so easily have typed all her letters to him, or written them Inside Story style, points to it never having occurred to her that they might give her away as Mike's partner in crime.

It wasn't 'new information' when Observer expressed his opinion that the J Maybrick signature in the watch bore no resemblance to any of the genuine J Maybrick signatures recently posted alongside it; or that the truly eye-watering spelling mistakes in Mike's recently posted 'missing pages' were comparable, in any way, shape or form, to those in the diary. So why would it be new and potentially important information if Kattrup imagines there is some kind of similarity between something in the diary and in one of Anne's private letters to Mike?

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Hi Caz,

Let me clarify that the key and the bag is from unreliable online source which has now disappeared. I kept the picture. They claimed in 2003 that in the 90's the below found it's way to an Antiques Dealer in Southport.

I am not a historian nor do i have any desires on being one, so I know it's legitimacy is flaky at best. Hence why I tend to focus more on the watch and scrapbook when discussing such things, but my spidey senses can't help but believe it all came from the same place.

Regards,

Ero

Oh goodness, I remember that now, Ero!

I wonder what became of it?

Love,

Caz
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[erobitha]

Oh goodness, I remember that now, Ero!

I wonder what became of it?

Love,

Caz
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Since that reference in 2003 I have not seen nor heard anything more of it and I spent serious time hunting online. The original source I found it from has since had that post deleted. I'd love to know where it is now.

[caz]

What if the watch had belonged to Maybrick, the owners caught wind of the diary and engraved the Jack stuff?

Hi Harry,

I once wondered whether 'the Jack stuff' could have been added after the J Maybrick signature was engraved in the watch. Why not check this out for yourself by reading the watch reports available on this site, which will give you information on the order in which the various engravings were made, and which ones were made by the same or different tools?

Love,

Caz
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[Abby Normal]

Always appreciate your deep-seated thinking on these threads, Mr. Normal.

thank you mr nelson, the feeling is mutual

[caz]

Well, I'm going to drop the matter, but seriously, Caz, this is your explanation?

Looking through many different newspaper articles in America, as well as a few television scripts and book reviews, and even a crossword puzzle, I see the term in use in America from 1949 onwards. And lo, an independent ngram (that limits itself to digitized books) repeats the same pattern--abundant examples from about 1950 onward.

The phrase is even used in a punk rock song. It's used to describe Mussolini in 1950 and Khrushchev in 1960. It's used in a comic strip.

Are you suggesting that all these various writers independently came up with this same alliterative insult, rather than it being something they had heard? Is this how language works?

I can only conclude that you must also believe that before 1949 people really did "lack the wit" to ever put the two words together. And this is why we haven't yet been able to find a single solitary example?

Pardon me if I find this explanation strangely desperate, though I do understand why it would be convenient.

I merely suggest that an expression that was only 'bubbling under' for some time before reaching general usage, may only have been propelled to its relative stardom in the modern age when someone with sufficient influence and/or a large enough audience, heard it and ran with it in a highly appropriate context, and it then became popular among those who had not similarly appreciated its potential until that point.

That's how I see language working and evolving into the post-Victorian, multimedia era.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

What black market scam? I simply said I don’t believe the antiques dealers wanted to admit they bought a watch off a man off the street. Who they may have known or not known. Association of theft is not good for business. Nice story about sitting in a box for 20 years and then suddenly one day deciding to clean it up and sell it. Antiques stay antiques for ages, by being virtue of being antique. Who would dare doubt the Lancaster shop story which by the way links to an unknown Liverpool man.

Yes, Ero, I too wasn't sure what was meant by a black market 'scam'.

I have never understood why anyone in the antiques/watch/jewellery trade would have put a valuable gold watch away in a drawer for years, when their livelihood depended on selling their wares at a profit as quickly as possible after shelling out for them. Assuming this was the usual practice, why was an exception made for this particular gold watch, and what prompted the decision in the Spring of 1992, to take it out, dust it off and finally get it in a saleable condition? The excuses I've heard from the usual quarters don't make a lot of sense. Did small-time jewellers routinely hold on to antique gold watches, hoping for a substantial increase in their value which might never materialise? A stranger coming in off the street to flog this handsome timepiece would have been offered a price to reflect not only its estimated value at that time, but its complete lack of any known history and the risk of it featuring the following week on Police Five or Crime Watch [no pun intended, but gratefully received]. A quick turnaround would surely have been more desirable in such circumstances. Its value could have steadily gone down, or been a big fat zero if reported stolen.

And, as usual, the fact that Dundas described a completely different watch, when stating there were no Maybrick/Jack engravings inside it, is conveniently ignored as if it simply doesn't matter. Assuming he also serviced Albert's watch around the same time, in the Spring of 1992, he didn't remember seeing a large ornate JO engraved on the back of it, so he was hardly the most reliable witness.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

I'm not a massive fan of his brown theme, or his tiny writing. And the background is an actual book cover, good lord, the man has no taste.

But it would be folly to judge a book by its cover. Or an old book by its missing pages. And shonky provenance. But I digress, if anyone is serious about delving into all things diary, Lord Orsam is a must read. You don't have to agree, or like some have an "Orsamgasm", but think about his points, be rational. Even our Ike specifically asked Lord O to read and rebutt his brilliant Societies Pillar. If your seriously in favour of Maybrick, or just his watch, read David Barrats articles. Rebutt them on merit. He's not infallible, hell, he's a New Romantic. Hence his time warp website I reckon. The fonts are crap, the content not so. Or is it? Read it, and be your own judge.

Abby put his site up earlier. I'm not going to link to it, or such.

As I'm very far from 'seriously in favour of Maybrick' [as a member of the human race or as the character calling himself 'Sir Jim'], I'm more than happy to leave David Barrat to all his assumptions and suspicions. He never gave the impression here on the casebook of being an authority on the characters or motivations of the Barretts, nor even caring about their personal lives and ups and downs. They were merely pieces on a chess board, to be moved around and given roles which best reflected Barrat's personal vision of their world and his unsupported creation theories, based on a touching if misguided faith in the claims of an incorrigible liar, whose world imploded after his wife and daughter left him in January 1994. Never mind that Mike didn't play any of the right notes in his 5th January 1995 affidavit, much less in the right order, when claiming that the entire process took place in early 1990, two years before he took the diary to London. Mike knew what modern hoax believers had said about the difficulty of dating ink after two years on the paper, so that claim made sense, until David Barrat needed it to be a mistake, so he could fast forward the writing by a massive two years to accommodate the little 1891 diary, supposedly ordered in March 1992 to house Maybrick's thoughts from early 1888 to May 1889. Now it turns out that Mike knew exactly what he was ordering, and it would have been no use at all for that purpose. Yet nothing changes and it remains set in stone that Anne went along with this inept idiot of a husband's plans to create and market a literary hoax, and even wrote the thing herself, while their daughter looked on.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Mike was desperately trying to seek a meeting with Anne and was trying everything he could to bully her into taking one. You would know that if you reviewed the overall context of which that was written by Mike. I see the ‘confession’ as one person trying to jolt the other into giving them what they wanted. There is no communication back from Anne to confirm they wrote it together. Another Orsam red herring.

I agree with this. I've lost count of the number of letters I have read on this theme of 'blackmail', whether it was Mike saying that Anne must see him and talk to him or he'll go on claiming they faked the diary together and everyone will know the story she told Feldman was a pack of lies; or Anne telling Mike that if he ever wants to see his daughter again he has to stop this nonsense and accept her version of events. And back to Mike, insisting it won't stop until Anne agrees to see him. Mike was using the diary as a pawn, while accusing Anne of using Caroline as one. And so it went on - and on - and on, with no resolution in sight, and less and less chance of the reconciliation with Anne and Caroline, which Mike so desperately wanted.

I can't see how David Barrat would have obtained Anne's letters from Mike, so it's a minor mystery how Mike's words, apparently addressed to Anne, as quoted by Abby Normal: "we both wrote it. thats a fact" [sic] came to be in David Barrat's possession. If Mike was threatening to reveal something implicating Anne if she refused to talk to him, it would make perfect sense if this was around the time of his affidavit, in which he did indeed try to implicate her in the writing of the diary. But did he actually send such a letter to Anne, including those words, or were they written for Alan Gray's benefit?

My interpretation of the situation is that Mike and Anne both knew Tony Devereux had nothing to do with it, because the diary had arrived intact in Goldie Street in March 1992, and it was only the fact that Tony had died in August 1991 that he was chosen for the provenance. Mike saw his greatest achievement as the transcript they spent days working on, from reading each page of the diary. That was a memorable and positive experience, with Caroline as a witness to her parents working together to produce what Mike would eventually see in print in Shirley's best-selling book the following year. They both 'wrote' the transcript and that was a fact. I doubt he'd have noticed if there were any minor differences between the Barretts' version and the one used in Shirley's book. Mike knew Anne hadn't already seen the diary years before, and given it to Tony to give to him in 1991, and Anne knew Mike hadn't faked it himself, with or without her help. So when their stories changed dramatically in the summer of 1994, both knew the other was lying, and both had personal reasons for doing so, which had little to do with the truth about how or when the diary had entered their lives, and everything to do with how they were each handling the deeply private tragedy of an irretrievable breakdown of a marriage where a child was involved. By then, I don't suppose either of them gave two hoots what happened to the diary as a result of their 'to and fro' threats and remonstrations.

In the context of blackmail and Mrs Barrett, I could more easily see Walter Sickert as the ripper than the Barretts as the creators of the diary.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Afternoon All,

Just a bit of housekeeping here, to clear up a few false assumptions and suspicions...

I have not been waging a relentless 'PR campaign' over the last 20 years, either on my own or with others, with the aim of debunking Mike Barrett's various 'confessions'. I don't need to - he debunked them all by himself, by giving so many contradictory versions of how the diary was created and by whom, including impossible dates in his sworn affidavit of January 5th 1995, and being unable or unwilling to provide a single piece of solid and reliable evidence that either he, or Anne, or Tony Devereux, or Billy Graham, had the means, motive or opportunity to get involved in a literary hoax in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

Certainly, if the diary was taken away from Battlecrease House on the morning of 9th March 1992, its existence had nothing to do with Mike Barrett, who merely brought it home one day and spent the rest of his life bitterly regretting it. Not knowing where it came from or when, he used a false name initially, when calling a London literary agency, until he felt confident enough from Doreen's response to give her his real name.

If the ink in the diary was 'still damp when Baxendale examined it', as we have recently been assured, what kind of bungling buffoon would have needed to do a solubility test to ascertain whether it could have been on the paper for more than a few weeks? I consider this 'still damp' mantra to be more of an insult to Baxendale than to simply point out the fact that he failed to find the iron in the diary ink and wasn't up to speed on the history of writing inks in general.

Shirley first asked O&L to check their records on the basis of Mike's June 1994 claim about the auction and the ledger. She asked them again in January 1997, on the same day she received a copy of Mike's affidavit from January 1995 and read the 'new and improved' version of the auction story and his alleged purchases.

In the affidavit, Mike had dated Anne's purchase of a small red diary [no indication of its year or age] back to the beginning of 1990, followed by his auction attendance which he 'felt sure' was at the end of January 1990. The priority in January 1997 was seen as checking his story of where and when he obtained the actual book used for the Maybrick diary. I doubt Shirley would have considered a nondescript red diary more important to check out, even if she was fully aware by then that one existed and Anne had paid for it in May 1992. Mike's inclusion of it in the affidavit, his dating of its purchase to 1990, and the date of Anne's cheque, would have made no sense to anyone at that time. So the accusation that 'the Diary team' didn't 'bother' to competently check O&L's books for 'over 20 years' is almost as inappropriate as accusing Baxendale of not noticing that the ink was 'still damp' in June 1992.

The earliest possible opportunity for checking O&L's books for Mike's photo album and compass was in January 1995, two years before Shirley or Keith even knew what they were looking for. If Alan Gray tried in 1995, but was turned away, he couldn't have tried very hard, if Shirley managed to get two fruitless searches done in 1995 and 1997. Gray did know all about Mike's claim to have 'recently' given Anne the red diary, so at the very least this should have been a red flag. What was Mike giving it to Anne for at that point, if it was a rare piece of physical evidence of her participation in the hoax? And why did Gray make no attempt to retrieve it from her, or to get Mike to do so?

What did Melvin Harris make of this contrary behaviour on Mike's part? Well, he believed Mike was in a battle between his conscience and the large sums of money he could still earn from the diary, and therefore stopped short of blurting out the facts which gnawed away at him, or handing Gray the physical evidence to prove his involvement beyond doubt: the auction ticket, the right Sphere volume 2, which he'd had from new in 1989, or the red diary. I don't see it that way at all. Did Mike have a conscience over the large sums of money he had already made the previous year, when he pissed it all against the wall? What was gnawing away at him was Anne's continued refusal to see him, or to let him anywhere near their only daughter - and his inability to do anything about it. His 'confessions' were meant to provoke a response from her, and he was willing to put the diary to the sword to make that happen.

Keith first heard about the red diary on 20th July 1995, at Baker Street, during a recorded conversation with Mike, Feldman and Martin Howells. Mike mentions it at one point and nobody seems to know what he's talking about. He accuses Feldman of knowing about it and wants him to admit it. Feldman says Melvin Harris was told that Mike had a receipt proving Anne bought a Victorian diary. Feldman asks Mike why he told Melvin that the diary was bought in 1992 for £25. Feldman says it's a little diary dated 1891. He asks Mike why he implied to Melvin that the receipt for it proved Anne wrote the diary.

It would appear that Feldman got his information from Melvin Harris, who already knew the red diary was for the year 1891 and was not bought until 1992. What is no longer a mystery is why Keith was 'quizzing' Anne about this when they spoke on 22nd August 1995. There had been no mention to him of Mike's affidavit by then, or what he had claimed about the red diary and the reason for its purchase. Keith did indeed keep 'such meticulous notes' that he knows precisely when and how he first learned of its existence. But by the July, Alan Gray and Melvin Harris did have enough information between them, from the affidavit, and Mike's revised claim that the red diary was not bought in 1990, but two years later in 1992, to approach O&L with a formal written request to check their records up until April 1992, for the photo album and compass. Are they going to be accused of not 'bothering' to competently check O&L's books back in July 1995, years before they got pulped? I think we all know the answer to that one.

I don't know who alleged that Melvin had 'somehow injected trace amounts of chloroacetamide into samples of the diary's ink, in order to "prove" that the ink was Diamine', or who would have supported such a suggestion, especially if it was known that he never had access to the ink samples, because they were mailed directly to AFI. But on 12th June 1995, Melvin himself wrote to Reed Hayes, to explain that Bob Kuranz had a couple of gelatine capsules containing diary ink and had agreed to send one over for laboratory tests. Melvin writes: 'The capsule was received by me in its original state and sent unopened, taped into its polystyrene housing, to Diana Simpson, head of Analysis For Industry...'

I have absolutely no doubt this was true, and in any case it would have been useless to inject 'trace' amounts of chloroacetamide into the diary ink, imagining it would then be a perfect match with Diamine. The mystery for me is why AFI were only asked to test for the presence of chloroacetamide, and not to analyse all the main constituents and their percentages, so the diary ink could be compared directly with the Diamine supposed to have been used.

As we can see, there have been false assumptions and suspicions on all sides, which have infected the diary and watch investigations almost from day one.

Have a good weekend all.

Love,

Caz
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[miakaal4]

Makes you wonder if the damn thing is cursed.

[Scott Nelson]

The mystery for me is why AFI were only asked to test for the presence of chloroacetamide, and not to analyse all the main constituents and their percentages, so the diary ink could be compared directly with the Diamine supposed to have been used.

Caroline, I think it's because AFI just used a cheap gas chromatograph and manually injected a couple of ink samples with a syringe. This system could fit on a small table top. They should have coupled GC with a mass spectrometer, which could have detected almost all of the constituents, but it was a very expensive piece of equipment and AFI was a small company.

[PaulB]

But how do you know that MB knew the book he bought would be useless? The fact that it was from the wrong year would not automatically render it completely useless; hence why MB in fact advertised for a book from 1880-90.

MB could have thought the dates might have been cut-offable, or that the diary would contain other pages, some blank, without dates. Diaries, calendars, day planners etc. frequently contain and contained registries of useful addresses, blank pages for notes etc.

Sorry for the delay, I haven't checked out Casebook for a while. To answer your question, I don't know what Mike knew or thought he knew. Nobody does, except Mike, and he's not telling anyone anymore, so I am surmising, just like everyone else. What I meant is that a dated diary had to be within James Maybrick's lifetime to have been on any practical use to someone forging anything Maybrick was supposed to have written. It's possible that Mike could have thought the dates could have been cut-offable, or hoped it would have blank pages, and thought that advertising for a diary was better than advertising for a late Victorian notebook or late Victorian paper or anything that look less suspiciously like a diary with the dates cut off or blank pages torn from a diary. If he had the narrative already sitting on his computer and if he knew how many blank pages it would use, he was a highly optimistic soul if he hoped to find a lot of undated and unused pages in a diary, don't you think?

[Observer]

If he had the narrative already sitting on his computer and if he knew how many blank pages it would use, he was a highly optimistic soul if he hoped to find a lot of undated and unused pages in a diary, don't you think?

Apologies in advance to Kattrup for interjecting, but what if Mike Barrett had originally intended to write the Diary as a novel? I believe he had the intelligence to compose the Diary, it's no masterpiece after all. I also believe that he was a decidedly eccentric individual. I can't see any problem with him deciding to turn the "novel" into a hoax, and naively thinking he could acquire an authentic Victorian diary with enough blank pages to accommodate his writings

[caz]

I think we have to stick to what Mike himself claimed, and either accept it or challenge it on the available evidence.

If we start imagining all kinds of other possible hoax scenarios, which Mike could have admitted to but never did, where will that get us?

Mike himself claimed that it was created as a hoax, which was all done and dusted by early 1990, presumably so the writing could rest for two years before being subjected to its first round of forensic testing.

If Mike had claimed it was originally created as a novel, and only turned into a hoax in early April 1992, after the 1891 diary was rejected and the more accommodating undated photo album was found in a subsequent auction sale, which his wife then used to copy out the text over the next 11 days, in time for Mike to take her handwork to London on 13th April 1992, I can't see anyone back in 1995 giving this any credence.

The creation process was artificially moved forward two years exclusively to accommodate Mike's request for a diary for 1880-90, with at least 20 blank pages [of an unspecified size]. It was an article of faith that Mike had no idea what had been located for him until a useless pocket diary for 1891, with impossible dates printed on its tiny pages, arrived in the post with a bill for £25. Well he did know, and he still wanted it sent to him, which should at least raise the possibility that his original request was not for the purpose of creating the Maybrick diary after all.

It was always a straw-clutching exercise at best, because if the scrapbook was not bought at auction at the very end of March 1992, as a result of the Victorian diary proving unexpectedly useless on arrival, we also know that two searches by the auctioneers, based on Mike's own claims about when and what he bought, both turned up nothing.

Love,

Caz
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