One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Afternoon All,

It has been brought to my notice that David Barrat accused me recently of mangling something he had previously written, when I posted the following here, on 4th September:

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'.

Barrat was apparently foaming at the mouth about it, so I just wanted to set the record straight. It's an amusing episode.

Firstly, I didn't even know what Barrat had previously written, but he evidently believed I was responding directly to his words and totally misinterpreting them.

Secondly, I was in fact responding to something RJ Palmer had written, right here on this thread, on 22nd August:

As for Barrett's confessions being debunked, this is just so much hot air; a PR campaign relentlessly waged by Caroline Brown over a 20+ year period, with the blessing and cooperation of others.

So I have to wonder if Barrat would have reacted rather differently, had he had done his homework first, noticed my use of quote marks, and worked out that I was quoting RJ Palmer, who did presumably read what Barrat wrote about me and liked it so much that he adapted it for his own use.

Nothing like original thought, is there?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

And now for something completely different...

This is not an argument for or against anything in the diary, but more a question of trying to piece together the evidence for what Florie Maybrick did, and who she saw, during her week in London, towards the end of March 1989.

Bernard Ryan tells us that she wrote letters to her distant cousins, Margaret Baillie and John Baillie Knight, telling Margaret that she would like to stop with her for a few days, and asking John if he would escort her to dinner on Thursday 21st, as she would be stopping alone at Flatman's Hotel that night and disliked dining alone.

Trevor Christie also has John Knight claiming to be a distant relative of Florie's, so I'm assuming both authors were right, and Margaret and John were not merely close family friends.

So we have Florie travelling to London and staying at Flatman's for three nights from Thursday 21st to the morning of Sunday 24th, when she and her lover, Alf Brierley, check out and go their separate ways. John confirms meeting up with Florie on the Thursday, and Alf arrived on the Friday. From Sunday to Wednesday night, Florie stays with Margaret, just as her letter suggested, and then returns to Liverpool on the Thursday, in time for Friday's eventful Grand National. While Florie is staying with the 'Misses Baillie' [presumably Margaret lives with her sister?] she has dinner with Michael Maybrick and is also taken by Margaret to see her cousin's solicitors about a separation from James. Lord knows what she was expecting, but if she thought her adultery might help her get a divorce, I imagine the solicitor would have put her straight and strongly advised her not to breathe a word. She may also have been advised that grounds for divorce for a woman were severely limited, but could include physical violence, which may have tempted her into deliberately provoking Jim at the Grand National. If she then saw a second solicitor about a separation, and also discussed her concerns with Dr Hopper, the advice was presumably to stay put and try for a reconciliation, rather than risk being left on her own and penniless, considering the bills she was running up, which James apparently agreed to settle.

To cut a long story short, it's pretty clear that Florie's main purpose for her trip to London was not to stay with a sick aunt, Godmother or anyone else for, as Ryan puts it: 'a week or so during her first days of recuperation'. If Florie led James and Dr Hopper to believe she went to tend her Godmother, was this ever confirmed by the Countess herself, or by distant cousin Margaret, who had Florie staying with her? If Florie did see her Godmother while in London, which day was this, and how much time did she have to spend with her? The fact remains that whether or not she did see her Godmother at some point, she definitely stayed with distant cousin Margaret, after writing to her about her intentions, and I see no reason why she would not have mentioned any of this to James.

My mother was an only child, but she had a cousin on her father's side who was always referred to in our family as "Auntie Joan"; a cousin on her mother's side who was always referred to by us all as "Auntie Sybil"; and an uncle, whose wife was always known as "Auntie Mabs" and signed herself that way when writing to us. So who exactly was Florie's 'Aunt M' [for Margaret], if not the same distant cousin Margaret she stayed with during her week in London, who was also one of John's aunts?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

...had he had done his homework first...

Whoops, I'm getting sloppy. The above should of course read: if he had done his homework first.

One less thing for Barrat to crow about in his next update.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

...a question of trying to piece together the evidence for what Florie Maybrick did, and who she saw, during her week in London, towards the end of March 1989.

Oh lordy, I meant March 1889.

And I've had a closer look at my mother's family tree [as compiled by my father] and found my dear old "Auntie Katie" from Tooting, who was in fact another of my mother's cousins, and my first cousin once removed. I remember her daughter, who is actually my second cousin, getting married in the 1960s and it was the first wedding I ever attended.

Of course, Auntie Katie was no more my real aunt than Auntie Joan and Auntie Sybil were, so I suppose in Orsam World she would always have been referred to as "First Cousin Once Removed Katie".

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

If - and I do mean if - Florie referred to Margaret Baillie as "Aunt Margaret", because "Distant Cousin Margaret" would have been too silly for words [and I had at least three "Aunties" who were actually my Mum's cousins], then it would appear that Florie did indeed plan to visit her aunt, and stayed with her between 24th and 28th March, following her dirty weekend with Alf. She could also have spent some time with her Godmother, who was understood to have gone under the knife - ahem.

If Florie's plans included seeing both these women, the confusion could merely have been over which one she said was in need of some TLC, her aunt or her Godmother.

Love,

Caz
X

[PhiltheBear]

For some reason my attention was drawn to this never-ending thread (again) today. Having read the 50 odd pages (many of them very odd) since I last visited I was struck by the arguments still going on over who actual wrote the fake diary. As someone who actually made a living by investigating fake and forged documents might I suggest a fairly simple explanation? What about a right handed person writing with their left hand (or vice versa)? Try it yourself. There will be a marked difference. Spend a few weeks practising and you could well become quite proficient with the 'wrong' hand but your handwriting will differ from your usual handwriting. I would add that I have never seen the actual diary text but a competent Questioned Document Examiner would be able to pass a reasoned opinion on whether or not such an action had been used if presented with such text and given some time to examine it properly. Having said that it is unlikely that he would be able to identify the writer, merely that it was someone using the 'wrong' hand. Just a thought.

[rjpalmer]

For some reason my attention was drawn to this never-ending thread (again) today. Having read the 50 odd pages (many of them very odd) since I last visited I was struck by the arguments still going on over who actual wrote the fake diary. As someone who actually made a living by investigating fake and forged documents might I suggest a fairly simple explanation? What about a right handed person writing with their left hand (or vice versa)? Try it yourself. There will be a marked difference. Spend a few weeks practising and you could well become quite proficient with the 'wrong' hand but your handwriting will differ from your usual handwriting.

I can't speak for the UK, but it wasn't all that unusual in parts of the U.S., especially during the early and middle 20th Century, for left-handed students to be forced to learn to write with their right hand.

It is common enough that there are internet communities and chatrooms, etc., devoted to people who have shared this experience.

I had an aunt who was taught to write with her right-hand, and it wasn't until years later that she realized that she must have been naturally left-handed. One peculiarity of her handwriting is that she slanted it fairly dramatically to the left, which is consistent with a 'person of interest' in the diary saga. The Diary, however, if anything, slants the other direction. Whether this would seem to conform with your suggestion, I cannot say.

I'm assuming that a person taught to write with the 'wrong' hand would have a fairly easy time learning to be ambidextrous. Below is a sample of the diary's handwriting, in case you are interested. Note particularly the beginning of the fourth line down. Does this suggest anything to you?

[caz]

My better half, from his first day at primary school, in the 1960s, was made to write with his right hand, although he had been writing naturally with his left hand up until then. [Yes, bright children here in the UK can generally write before they go to school, and not just their name and address.]

Anyway, he struggled on with his right hand and lost the ability to write with his left. He only writes with his right hand now, but still thinks of himself as naturally left-handed. I've often wondered if this is why his handwriting is atrocious and barely legible.

I have no idea if his experience is typical or more of a - wait for it - one-off instance.

[Mike J. G.]

Personally, I don't know how "popular" this little book was in Liverpool in 1992; it was published in 1967. Would Smiths have even carried it? Or are you claiming Mike's was a later edition? (I don't know; I'm asking). I gathered from reading your other posts to the Poste House bloke that your position is that nearly no one in modern Liverpool had heard about the Maybrick case, so how popular could it have been if it contains two chapters on the Maybrick case? Or am I once again misunderstanding?

Poste House Bloke here.

As I've pointed out before, more than a few times, this idea that nobody in Liverpool knew about the Maybricks in Liverpool is complete and utter fiction, presumably fabricated inside the anus of a wombat that is careening through the initial stages of some kind of drug-induced episode. Many people, many of my own family included, my father one of them, owned these books, I have them sitting on a shelf next to me, Tales of Liverpool, Liverpool Oddities, and Liverpool Soundings. To suggest that nobody in Liverpool is/was aware of the Maybrick story is as much of a wild fiction as the claim that several pubs in Liverpool went by the nickname of "the Post(e) House", when none did, barring the obvious one that literally has that exact name and spelling. Now, I've been gone a while, unfortunately, I'm not fortunate enough to have enjoyed much of these lockdowns, and I continue to work, so if I've missed any startling revelations to the contrary, please, feel free to update me.

Like I've harped on about before, it was as well known a local tale as the Cameo murders, the Menlove Gardens murder, and others I've mentioned previously. One thing this city is known for is its local stories and old wives tales, and if you (not you personally, RJ, but the universal "you") honestly can believe that the so-called "trial of the century" didn't indent itself into local lore, then you can probably believe most things you hear out of our PM's mush most evenings on the idiot-box. On a school visit as a child to St. George's Hall, we were told about the trial, a story I'd already heard from my dad who once worked in the building as a painter and decorator and is very knowledgeable about said case. As Kate Colquhoun mentioned in her book on the trial, Florence became possibly the most hated woman in the country. Richard Whittington-Egan was obviously very interested in the story and wrote about it more than once, a local man who clearly never favoured Sir Jim as anything close to being a Ripper suspect. Egan wrote about the Maybricks because it's a dark, local folk tale, sewn into the fabric of the city... something echoed by the mural found in the subway at Aigburth Vale. Tom Slemen, like others before him, including Mike Barrett, is another bloke what does Dan Brown-style fictions about factual stories and histories from his hometown. Egan's earlier books were reissued in the 1980s and well-received, so let's now put this notion that nobody knew anything about the Maybricks to bed, because their home on Riversdale has been known as a local "spook house" for decades, la.

Just last year at the Royal Court, a play, The Unlikely Candidate, was apparently enjoyed by many: "The Unlikely Candidate is a fantastic blend of buffoonery and horseplay provides young Merseyside talent with the opportunity to experiment. This vaudeville musical is guaranteed to have you clapping along. Visit the Royal Court Studio to travel back in time to the 1800s and discover the real truth concerning Liverpool’s own ripper!"

A tongue-in-arse-cheek thrill-ride concerning the obviously hilariously silly notion that Sir Jim of All Trades was in fact, JtR! https://writebase.co.uk/2020/02/21/t...tre-liverpool/ (ages 16+ no less!)



Hope you're all well, good to see some of you still supporting our local Liverpool yarns! Someone's got to do it! Did you know that Pete Price is a lizard, btw? True story.

Sincerely yours,

Poste House Bloke

xxx

[caz]

Good to see you back, Poste House Bloke. Or should I refer to you as our own resident Bongo, the cheeky Scouser with all the answers?

As I've pointed out before, more than a few times, this idea that nobody in Liverpool knew about the Maybricks in Liverpool is complete and utter fiction, presumably fabricated inside the anus of a wombat that is careening through the initial stages of some kind of drug-induced episode...

Well yes, I can see that this idea appears to have been fabricated inside someone's anus, because quite obviously not everyone in Liverpool was/is totally ignorant about the Maybrick story, which is covered in two brief chapters towards the end of Tales of Liverpool, and nobody to my knowledge ever claimed they were. It was in fact my own argument that this little book was popular, and on many a reasonably literate Scouser's book shelves.

To suggest that nobody in Liverpool is/was aware of the Maybrick story is as much of a wild fiction as the claim that several pubs in Liverpool went by the nickname of "the Post(e) House", when none did, barring the obvious one that literally has that exact name and spelling.

Again, the wild fiction in this case is that anyone has claimed that 'several' pubs in Liverpool went by that nickname. The Poste House in Cumberland Street is the pub's actual name, not a nickname. But it never was a coaching inn/post house, and only adopted its name in the 20th century, as a nod to the historical coaching inn/post house, which would have provided both refreshment and postal services prior to the coming of the railways:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_h...ithout%20delay.

I'm not sure why you believe that early 19th century Liverpool was too small and unimportant to have one or more of these coaching inns/post houses, but I doubt the Cumberland Street pub plucked its modern name from thin air, or chose it in honour of some unidentified old coaching inn/post house in a larger and more important city. In the early 19th century, if one talked about going to "the post house" for a pint, in towns and cities across the country, it would have been in the same way we used to talk about going to "the pub" before the latest lockdown. When an original post house evolved, to become just an inn, tavern or pub, people wouldn't have stopped saying "the post house" overnight. Old habits like that die hard.

Richard Whittington-Egan was obviously very interested in the story and wrote about it more than once, a local man who clearly never favoured Sir Jim as anything close to being a Ripper suspect.

Well he was right, wasn't he? 'Sir Jim' was/is not a legitimate ripper suspect. Nor was/is the real James Maybrick.

Egan wrote about the Maybricks because it's a dark, local folk tale, sewn into the fabric of the city... something echoed by the mural found in the subway at Aigburth Vale. Tom Slemen, like others before him, including Mike Barrett, is another bloke what does Dan Brown-style fictions about factual stories and histories from his hometown. Egan's earlier books were reissued in the 1980s and well-received, so let's now put this notion that nobody knew anything about the Maybricks to bed, because their home on Riversdale has been known as a local "spook house" for decades, la.

That's interesting, PHB, that Battlecrease became known locally as a "spook house". It does make it the ideal place for an anonymous hoaxer to plant Sir Jim's diary, don't you think?

I learned another interesting thing during your absence from the boards. The councillor involved with the murals in the subway at Aigburth Vale, who was born in Liverpool in 1976, told Keith Skinner that they date from May 2013, and before then he had never heard of Maybrick.

In case anyone got the impression from your previous posts that the whole subway is covered with a mural telling the Maybrick story, the reality is that there are ten murals and if you blink you could miss the Maybrick one, with a likeness of James and Florence. Ideas and suggestions for all the murals were solicited and collated from the Aigburth community.

Love,

Caz
X

[Mike J. G.]

Good to see you back, Poste House Bloke. Or should I refer to you as our own resident Bongo, the cheeky Scouser with all the answers?

Mike's fine!

Well yes, I can see that this idea appears to have been fabricated inside someone's anus, because quite obviously not everyone in Liverpool was/is totally ignorant about the Maybrick story, which is covered in two brief chapters towards the end of Tales of Liverpool, and nobody to my knowledge ever claimed they were. It was in fact my own argument that this little book was popular, and on many a reasonably literate Scouser's book shelves.

So why did you once imply that it wasn't a well-known story here? I seem to recall that being the case but I cannot be bothered sifting through hundreds of pages to find the quotes.

Again, the wild fiction in this case is that anyone has claimed that 'several' pubs in Liverpool went by that nickname. The Poste House in Cumberland Street is the pub's actual name, not a nickname. But it never was a coaching inn/post house, and only adopted its name in the 20th century, as a nod to the historical coaching inn/post house, which would have provided both refreshment and postal services prior to the coming of the railways:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_h...ithout%20delay.

Come on, it's been posited here in this very thread by a few people that many pubs went by that moniker, to the point that it was suggested that the "e" was mistakenly added to the end of "Post" and that the diary wasn't necessarily talking about the Poste House, but another pub that was affectionately referred to as a "Post House".

To my mind, as I've stated before, the mention of that very specific Poste House was intentional by the author simply because it's a very well-known old pub. The story would've had more credence had the author mentioned the name of a pub, of which there were a very many around, whose name has since been lost to the sands of time, or wasn't as widely known as the Poste House, which along with the Roscoe Head, is one of the most well-known old Victorian pubs in the city. The Poste House being mentioned is just another glaring proclamation of the hoax, IMO.

I'm not sure why you believe that early 19th century Liverpool was too small and unimportant to have one or more of these coaching inns/post houses, but I doubt the Cumberland Street pub plucked its modern name from thin air, or chose it in honour of some unidentified old coaching inn/post house in a larger and more important city. In the early 19th century, if one talked about going to "the post house" for a pint, in towns and cities across the country, it would have been in the same way we used to talk about going to "the pub" before the latest lockdown. When an original post house evolved, to become just an inn, tavern or pub, people wouldn't have stopped saying "the post house" overnight. Old habits like that die hard.

I'm not sure what line of thinking you're taking up with this one, Caz, as I thought it pretty apparent that the issue is with it quite literally being written in the "diary" as Poste House. You're more than welcome to offer me several other pubs in the city that were known as "the Post House" with or without an "e" on the end, as you've only ever mentioned one, the Post Office Tavern, which, as far as I've been able to see, was never proven to be known as "the Post House." It's quite obvious to all and sundry that the author was talking about the actual pub with that actual name, Poste House, and any suggestion that another pub was being discussed (one which nobody seems to be able to prove even existed) and that the author mistakenly added an "e" to the end is surely one of the most awful fabrications going, Caz. Even Tom Slemen, who along with not being shy about mixing fact with fiction, is also a keen local researcher, stated that he could find no mention of a pub going by that name other than the one that literally goes by that name.

"When I read the Diary, I found myself laughing at the numerous historical errors. For example, the diarist states: 'I took refreshment in the Poste House.' During Maybrick's life, the Poste House pub off Dale Street, was not called that, and there was not a single pub in the land called the Poste House in the 1880s." http://www.slemen.com/maybrickdiary.html

I've had a good rummage for a pub sharing that name, and as of yet, I've not found one.

Well he was right, wasn't he? 'Sir Jim' was/is not a legitimate ripper suspect. Nor was/is the real James Maybrick.

These are things we know, Caz, well, some of us. As far as I can tell, he also didn't subscribe to the idea that the "diary" was an old forgery, nor the "real deal", but for some reason, some people here like to imagine it wasn't an obviously recent hoax and instead prefer to subscribe to the idea that it was penned by a mysterious ghost-writer from the past for poops and giggles. Alas, we're all welcome to our own opinions, but we're not all welcome to our own facts. For me, there's nothing in it to suggest it was older than Mike Barrett claimed.

That's interesting, PHB, that Battlecrease became known locally as a "spook house". It does make it the ideal place for an anonymous hoaxer to plant Sir Jim's diary, don't you think?

I suppose that would depend entirely on which particular provenance you subscribe to, and we've got loads of completely contradictory provenances with the diary, don't we? Dodgy provenances are staple in the history of hoaxing. If you subscribe to the nonsensical notion that it was found at Battlecreese, despite that story not even being straight, and taken to a mysterious department at an unknown branch of "Liverpool University" on-the-fly, then yeah, I guess it's an ideal place.

Most murder houses tend to have some sort of yarn-spinning attached to it in years to come, Battlecreese was just another of those to get that folkloric treatment.

That'sI learned another interesting thing during your absence from the boards. The councillor involved with the murals in the subway at Aigburth Vale, who was born in Liverpool in 1976, told Keith Skinner that they date from May 2013, and before then he had never heard of Maybrick.

I'm not sure of the relevance of this post, can you elaborate on why this is of interest? That this mystery council man had never heard of him is kind of insignificant when you consider the fact that the Maybrick mural is there at all, suggesting that someone obviously knew about it and offered it up as a subject to be painted in the first place! https://liverpoolexpress.co.uk/art-goes-underground/

In case anyone got the impression from your previous posts that the whole subway is covered with a mural telling the Maybrick story, the reality is that there are ten murals and if you blink you could miss the Maybrick one, with a likeness of James and Florence. Ideas and suggestions for all the murals were solicited and collated from the Aigburth community.

Love,

Caz
X

I'm not really sure why anyone would think that, seeing as I've never once suggested that an entire subway was devoted to artwork on the Maybricks, Caz! I'm pretty sure I've always maintained that it's simply one of many. Again, the fact that there is such a mural, though, kind of says it all about its place in the city's history. You couldn't blink and miss it, Caz, it's right there by Sutcliffe which is often frequented by many a Beatles admirer. You saying that makes me doubt if you've been to said subway at all!

Ciao.

Bongo from the Poste House.

[caz]

Come on, it's been posited here in this very thread by a few people that many pubs went by that moniker, to the point that it was suggested that the "e" was mistakenly added to the end of "Post" and that the diary wasn't necessarily talking about the Poste House, but another pub that was affectionately referred to as a "Post House".

To my mind, as I've stated before, the mention of that very specific Poste House was intentional by the author simply because it's a very well-known old pub. The story would've had more credence had the author mentioned the name of a pub, of which there were a very many around, whose name has since been lost to the sands of time, or wasn't as widely known as the Poste House, which along with the Roscoe Head, is one of the most well-known old Victorian pubs in the city. The Poste House being mentioned is just another glaring proclamation of the hoax, IMO.

Hi Mike,

I honestly don’t recall 'a few people' here ever claiming that many pubs in Liverpool went by the name of 'The Post House'. But if you accept the simple fact that the City of Liverpool would have had its own coaching inns/post houses in pre-railway times, any of those could have been referred to casually as "the post house", not as a nickname, but as a generic term, like "the inn" or "the pub", or "the Pawn Brokers" - or the butcher, baker or candlestick maker. The argument that no pub anywhere was actually called The Post/Poste House in 1888 therefore misses the point, because nobody to my knowledge has claimed otherwise.

But the fact is that The Poste House on Cumberland Street owes its modern name to Liverpool's General Post Office, which up until 1840 was in Old Post Office Place, just a stone's throw from Maybrick's childhood home. Next to the Post Office was a tavern dating back to at least 1797, which assumed the name of Post Office Tavern in the early 19th century and was still called this in 1888, decades after the General Post Office had moved elsewhere in the city. This is the pub where Robert Smith was directed, when he asked the then landlord of Rigby's on Dale Street where Liverpool's old post house might have been. Similarly, I was directed to Old Post Office Place by a lovely old chap [whose details I gave you via private message] who had no idea why I was asking, but understood what I was asking. The Century Dictionary of 1890 defined 'post house' as 'a post office', as did A Dictionary of the English Language in 1881. Other dictionaries from 1813 and 1850 similarly defined 'post house' as 'post office', and 'post office' as 'post house'. Back in 1666, London's General Post Office, near St Paul's Cathedral, was described by Pepys in his diary as 'the post-house'. He didn't need to be more specific than that. The Post Office Tavern is simply called The Old Post Office today, but everyone knows it as a pub, not a post office or post house. So we don't need any silly jokes about James Maybrick popping into the post office and asking for a pint with his stamps.

There are also four examples in the diary where a rogue e was added to the 'post' in 'post haste', so it's not unreasonable to suppose the author would have done the same to the 'Post' in 'Post House', although I'm perfectly happy to accept that a 20th century hoaxer could have taken both spellings from the Cumberland Street pub name, if they were not based on the old 'poste restante' signs of Maybrick's day. But it wouldn't prove it was a Barrett who did so.

I don't doubt for a moment that The Poste House is one of the most well-known old pubs in the city, but in that case you'd think that Ken Pye, who authored a book in 2015 called 'Liverpool Pubs' and is described as a born and bred Liverpudlian, and the Managing Director of The Knowledge Group, would have had no trouble getting his basic facts right when writing about the history of this tiny pub. He correctly names it The Wrexham House, known colloquially as 'The Muck Midden', in the 1880s, before its name changed when the main post office relocated to nearby Victoria Street. But he then writes on page 16 that from 1899 the pub became known as 'The New Poste House Hotel', but does not give his source for the year or the name. When I consulted the relevant directory, I found its official name to be The New Post Office Hotel.]

Hilariously, Pye goes on to claim that at the end of the 19th century 'a particular regular in The New Poste House was a wealthy Liverpool cotton-broker named James Maybrick (1838-99). This dour businessman travelled regularly between his home city of Liverpool and London, where he also had offices. He came into the pub while waiting for his train, or upon returning from a business trip to the capital. Wherever he went, Maybrick carried a small black medical bag, in which he kept a collection of surgical instruments, being a frustrated amateur surgeon...'!!

Then comes a brief passage about the diary 'found in 1992' and Pye claims that 'many people' now believe Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. Curiously he gives the correct year for his death here, writing that he was murdered by his wife Florence in 1889. Finally we get this gem:

'Maybrick used to sit in a secluded corner of the pub, which the locals have always called "The Royal Box".'

Goodness knows where Pye got this whole dog's breakfast from, but nothing like it appears in either the diary itself or the related literature, and the acknowledgements section only gives a nod to 'Jackie Friedlander and customers at The Poste House', which just goes to show how local history can differ wildly from one person to the next, depending on who you ask.

Perhaps you should have left Tom Slemen out of it too, because my better half made the mistake of buying his book from 2011 on Liverpool's haunted pubs, called 'Spirits in the Vaults', in which he struggles as much as Ken Pye with what The Poste House was called and when. He claims on page 47 that it was already called The New Post Office Hotel in 1888, several years before the city's new General Post Office, after which the pub was named, moved to Victoria Street. And on the following page Slemen claims it didn't get its current name until the 1980s, which would appear to be another mistake, but he disappointingly doesn't give the actual year or source. As it's such a well-known pub, it surely can't be that hard for your average Scouser to find out, once and for all, the date when its name changed to The Poste House. It seems you can lead authors to The Poste House, but you can't make them think.

Alas, we're all welcome to our own opinions, but we're not all welcome to our own facts. For me, there's nothing in it to suggest it was older than Mike Barrett claimed.

Tell that to Liverpool's own Ken Pye and Tom Slemen! And you are also welcome to believe any of Mike Barrett's claims which take your fancy, but few if any are established facts either. One of his claims, from 1995, was that the diary was first thought of in early 1990 and written into the scrapbook while Tony Devereux was alive. But nobody believes this today, so the writing had to be pushed forward to early April 1992, which Mike never claimed himself. His own claims were coloured by what he knew Feldman's 'enemies' believed at the time about the diary's age. Far more often he claimed to know nothing about the diary's origins or author, and in his final years he reverted to his original claim that he believed it was genuine.

Pinning a date on the diary's creation using Mike as your yardstick is not particularly useful. Even worse is pinning your hopes on a man who couldn't lie straight in bed, while rejecting all the accounts from the various electricians and their friends and families, who are still talking today about the "old book" found in Battlecrease, and calling it a 'nonsensical notion' because their information has not always been entirely consistent. Why would you expect it to be, while not giving two hoots about Bongo's unique inability to stick to a straight story about the diary's origins from one day to the next?

Incidentally, the Maybricks lived in Battlecrease, not Battlecreese. It seems the diary author was in good company with that rogue e.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Regarding the artwork in the Aigburth underpass, Mike, I'm surprised you didn't get the 'relevance' of my observations. You were the one who introduced the subject, when suggesting that few people born and bred in Liverpool could have been unaware of the Maybrick story. I assumed that was why you mentioned the Maybrick mural, to illustrate your point. You even wrote this in your previous post:

Egan wrote about the Maybricks because it's a dark, local folk tale, sewn into the fabric of the city... something echoed by the mural found in the subway at Aigburth Vale.

A dark, local folk tale, sewn into the fabric of the city.

Anyway, Keith Skinner was interested to learn more about this mural and I thought it worth posting that the local Councillor, Patrick Hurley, who backed the idea behind the artwork, had never heard of Maybrick before 2013, despite being born in Liverpool in 1976. If you don't find this relevant, that's fine by me. Maybe we both misunderstood the reason you mentioned the mural in the first place.

My own experience of getting mainly blank looks from people, when I've mentioned my interest in the Maybrick story in casual conversation, has admittedly been whenever I've stayed in the city centre. I'm fully aware that many more people in Aigburth are likely to have heard of the Maybricks and the real events of 1889, and even more since 1993, when the first diary book came out.

Again, the fact that there is such a mural, though, kind of says it all about its place in the city's history. You couldn't blink and miss it, Caz, it's right there by Sutcliffe which is often frequented by many a Beatles admirer. You saying that makes me doubt if you've been to said subway at all!

I don't recall you posting the link before to the 'Art goes underground' article, so many thanks for sharing it with everyone now. I haven't seen the artwork in person, but I do have photographs of the murals taken more recently. Again, you talk of the Maybrick mural's place in the city's history, but as you know the ideas were sought, unsurprisingly, from the local Aigburth community, as that's where the artwork was designed to be displayed.

As we can all see from your helpful link, the mural in question here is very upbeat, and dominated by the artist's striking depiction of RADIO CITY 96.7, with large musical notes emanating from its tower, which was built in 1969 in the heart of the city centre, and is also known as St. John's Beacon. I'm not sure how that would scream out 'the Maybricks of Aigburth' to anyone walking past, unless they took it as a cryptic nod to Michael and his Holy City. The top halves of Flo and Jim are tucked right in the top left hand corner, surrounded by pink clouds, which don't exactly echo your 'dark, local folk tale' of a 'spook house'. But each to his own.

Also dwarfed by the Radio City Tower, Aigburth Cricket Club sits below and to the left of it, so we're getting warmer, although its associations with the Maybrick story are rather weak. One possibility is that the idea came from one of the many local residents in 2013 who would have remembered The Trial of James Maybrick, which was held at the cricket club in 2007 and organised by Chris Jones, the author of The Maybrick A to Z. It could well have been someone who attended this light-hearted event or read about it. As I recall there was music and dancing in the evening and a good time was had by all.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Here's that link again, courtesy of Poste House Bloke...

https://liverpoolexpress.co.uk/art-goes-underground/

[Mike J. G.]

Hi Mike,

I honestly don’t recall 'a few people' here ever claiming that many pubs in Liverpool went by the name of 'The Post House'. But if you accept the simple fact that the City of Liverpool would have had its own coaching inns/post houses in pre-railway times, any of those could have been referred to casually as "the post house", not as a nickname, but as a generic term, like "the inn" or "the pub", or "the Pawn Brokers" - or the butcher, baker or candlestick maker. The argument that no pub anywhere was actually called The Post/Poste House in 1888 therefore misses the point, because nobody to my knowledge has claimed otherwise.

I seem to recall it being claimed that the diarist wasn't necessarily discussing the literal pub, the Poste House, you yourself offered the Tavern on School lane, and someone else mentioned a pub up by the Cotton Exchange, but again, I'm not going to be sifting through to check, but the mere fact it was even a point of contention here kind of implies it was. The point again being that nobody would write "The Poste House" if they didn't, indeed, mean the Post House. If we're talking about missing the point, surely the biggest point being continually and oddly missed is that the diarist quite literally wrote "Poste House", as in the actual pub going by that name, and they wrote of that pub because it's so obviously a very well-known old pub and they couldn't be bothered coming up with anything more convincing.

But the fact is that The Poste House on Cumberland Street owes its modern name to Liverpool's General Post Office, which up until 1840 was in Old Post Office Place, just a stone's throw from Maybrick's childhood home. Next to the Post Office was a tavern dating back to at least 1797, which assumed the name of Post Office Tavern in the early 19th century and was still called this in 1888, decades after the General Post Office had moved elsewhere in the city. This is the pub where Robert Smith was directed, when he asked the then landlord of Rigby's on Dale Street where Liverpool's old post house might have been. Similarly, I was directed to Old Post Office Place by a lovely old chap [whose details I gave you via private message] who had no idea why I was asking, but understood what I was asking. The Century Dictionary of 1890 defined 'post house' as 'a post office', as did A Dictionary of the English Language in 1881. Other dictionaries from 1813 and 1850 similarly defined 'post house' as 'post office', and 'post office' as 'post house'. Back in 1666, London's General Post Office, near St Paul's Cathedral, was described by Pepys in his diary as 'the post-house'. He didn't need to be more specific than that. The Post Office Tavern is simply called The Old Post Office today, but everyone knows it as a pub, not a post office or post house. So we don't need any silly jokes about James Maybrick popping into the post office and asking for a pint with his stamps.

The joke regarding Maybrick going in for a pint and a few stamps is silly for a reason, Caz, and that reason is because you're still trying to fabricate ways for why many places in Liverpool were known as "Post Houses", when the obvious truth is that the writer of the diary was quite literally talking about the famed old pub, hence why he stuck an "e" on the end, unless we want to further promote the equally hilarious and silly notion that he just made a mistake due to writing too many words with an "e" on the end. Daft Sir Jim, he apparently didn't know his arsenic from his elbow!

The Post Office Tavern on School lane has never been known as "the Poste House", though, which is something I've said countless times, never once was it known by that nickname and no shred of evidence can be found to suggest that it was. So we're left with the obvious choice yet again, the Poste House, which is quite literally what is written in the diary. Making up reasons for why the diarist didn't unwittingly plant a red herring is an exercise in futility, but then again, this is a very long thread about how James Maybrick was the Ripper and wrote a tell-all diary explaining every sordid detail about the who, what, why, where and how of why he did it.

"I'm James Maybrick, and you can read all about why I did what I did in next week's News of the World. Saucy!"

The diarist wrote the title of the pub that Sir Jim supposedly took refreshment in as "the Poste House" for a reason, Caz. That reason being that he thought "what's a really old pub? Ah, yeah! The Poste House, even has an "e" on the end, that sounds proper old, that."

There are also four examples in the diary where a rogue e was added to the 'post' in 'post haste', so it's not unreasonable to suppose the author would have done the same to the 'Post' in 'Post House', although I'm perfectly happy to accept that a 20th century hoaxer could have taken both spellings from the Cumberland Street pub name, if they were not based on the old 'poste restante' signs of Maybrick's day. But it wouldn't prove it was a Barrett who did so.

There's two possibilities:

a) The diarist wasn't talking about the famed Poste House pub, and was in fact talking about a totally different place known as "the Post House" and mistakenly added an "e", yet no evidence of such a pub exists.

b) The diarist was talking about the famed pub, the Poste House, and mistakenly added the "e", without thinking, to other words because of this.

I know which one seems more likely to me.

As I said previously, had the diary mentioned a totally obscure pub name that has long-since gone, yet evidence remains of its existence, I'd have given it a bit more credence. The Poste House is so well-known as an old pub in this city that its inclusion in a faux 19th century diary is as typical as a wet fish.

I don't doubt for a moment that The Poste House is one of the most well-known old pubs in the city, but in that case you'd think that Ken Pye, who authored a book in 2015 called 'Liverpool Pubs' and is described as a born and bred Liverpudlian, and the Managing Director of The Knowledge Group, would have had no trouble getting his basic facts right when writing about the history of this tiny pub. He correctly names it The Wrexham House, known colloquially as 'The Muck Midden', in the 1880s, before its name changed when the main post office relocated to nearby Victoria Street. But he then writes on page 16 that from 1899 the pub became known as 'The New Poste House Hotel', but does not give his source for the year or the name. When I consulted the relevant directory, I found its official name to be The New Post Office Hotel.]


Hilariously, Pye goes on to claim that at the end of the 19th century 'a particular regular in The New Poste House was a wealthy Liverpool cotton-broker named James Maybrick (1838-99). This dour businessman travelled regularly between his home city of Liverpool and London, where he also had offices. He came into the pub while waiting for his train, or upon returning from a business trip to the capital. Wherever he went, Maybrick carried a small black medical bag, in which he kept a collection of surgical instruments, being a frustrated amateur surgeon...'!!

lol, well Ken Pye and Tom Slemen both have a lot in common when it comes to painting grandiose pictures of rather mundane things. They each write about many of the same stories, in fact, and some of which I can find no actual history of anywhere else! Forgive me, though, as I must say I'm not sure what relevance there is in Ken Pye being an authority on local pubs yet getting information on the Poste House incorrect. I don't know what kind of credence its supposed to lend to anything regarding the pub's inclusion in the diary.

Then comes a brief passage about the diary 'found in 1992' and Pye claims that 'many people' now believe Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. Curiously he gives the correct year for his death here, writing that he was murdered by his wife Florence in 1889. Finally we get this gem:

'Maybrick used to sit in a secluded corner of the pub, which the locals have always called "The Royal Box".'

Goodness knows where Pye got this whole dog's breakfast from, but nothing like it appears in either the diary itself or the related literature, and the acknowledgements section only gives a nod to 'Jackie Friedlander and customers at The Poste House', which just goes to show how local history can differ wildly from one person to the next, depending on who you ask.

If you're familiar with Tom Slemen, then Pye won't surprise you much! lol. I don't know where they get half of their stories from, but I do admit that I enjoy the stories nonetheless, mostly because I'm a Horror fanatic and much like Ramsey Campbell and Clive Barker, Tom and Ken are writing spook stories about local places that I can see and visit. Local history definitely varies, unless it's recorded and verified, folktales are much of what people like Tom and Ken write about, folk tales, as you know, are merely distorted accounts of history.

Perhaps you should have left Tom Slemen out of it too, because my better half made the mistake of buying his book from 2011 on Liverpool's haunted pubs, called 'Spirits in the Vaults', in which he struggles as much as Ken Pye with what The Poste House was called and when. He claims on page 47 that it was already called The New Post Office Hotel in 1888, several years before the city's new General Post Office, after which the pub was named, moved to Victoria Street. And on the following page Slemen claims it didn't get its current name until the 1980s, which would appear to be another mistake, but he disappointingly doesn't give the actual year or source. As it's such a well-known pub, it surely can't be that hard for your average Scouser to find out, once and for all, the date when its name changed to The Poste House. It seems you can lead authors to The Poste House, but you can't make them think.

As I mentioned above, Tom and Ken seem to get some of their information regarding "stories" from the same place, and probably from each other! What I did say about Tom, though, is that he is a keen researcher, once you separate fact from fancy, you can see that he does do a good amount of homework, but he's by no means an historian and people honestly shouldn't expect him to be. Are you sure that "1980s" isn't a typo? His books are full of them, they're published by the Bluecoat Press, and very rarely are they edited properly, lol. "1880's" would obviously make sense, and is likely what he meant.

Tell that to Liverpool's own Ken Pye and Tom Slemen! And you are also welcome to believe any of Mike Barrett's claims which take your fancy, but few if any are established facts either. One of his claims, from 1995, was that the diary was first thought of in early 1990 and written into the scrapbook while Tony Devereux was alive. But nobody believes this today, so the writing had to be pushed forward to early April 1992, which Mike never claimed himself. His own claims were coloured by what he knew Feldman's 'enemies' believed at the time about the diary's age. Far more often he claimed to know nothing about the diary's origins or author, and in his final years he reverted to his original claim that he believed it was genuine.

When dealing with hoaxes, Caz, unless someone has come out and admitted it and has shown evidence, you're rarely going to have "established facts." This is a pointless road to go down when trying to get to the truth. What Mike Barrett wouldn't do, had he come into possession of a genuinely old diary written by a famous murdered cotton merchant who was admitting to be JtR, is claim that he penned it. He wouldn't make up several silly provenances for it. When people in the world genuinely discover important artifacts, they don't usually go about making up two or three different stories about how they found it. When people create hoaxes, they generally struggle sticking to one story, especially when more than one person is involved in said hoax as it begins to become more difficult when separated to stick to one story and agree on the details. Mike Barrett was a writer, a drinker and a story-teller, that's basically all you need to know when you consider Mike Barrett as a person who supposedly came into possession of a diary written by a famed local cotton merchant who was murdered, a diary that declares him to be none other than the most famous unknown serial killer in recent memory.

That Mike Barrett couldn't stick to one story isn't at all surprising, the fact that people are still willing to give the diary the benefit of the doubt is what really blows my mind... Despite it containing several red herrings, being written in a manner that resembles obvious pulp fiction, having no credible provenance and being offered to a publisher by a former journalist who enjoyed a few scoops down the post office when he bought his stamps with which he'd send his diary off that he got from Tony Devereux, that was found in Battlecreese, where Anne's family had owned it for generations.

Pinning a date on the diary's creation using Mike as your yardstick is not particularly useful. Even worse is pinning your hopes on a man who couldn't lie straight in bed, while rejecting all the accounts from the various electricians and their friends and families, who are still talking today about the "old book" found in Battlecrease, and calling it a 'nonsensical notion' because their information has not always been entirely consistent. Why would you expect it to be, while not giving two hoots about Bongo's unique inability to stick to a straight story about the diary's origins from one day to the next?

Incidentally, the Maybricks lived in Battlecrease, not Battlecreese. It seems the diary author was in good company with that rogue e.

Love,

Caz
X

Yet you're willing to believe that Mike Barrett, former journalist, actually came into possession of a 19th century artifact that solved the greatest criminal riddle of the last two centuries and pointed the finger at a well-known cotton merchant who got famously offed by his American missus in what became known as the "trial of the century", while at the same time going to auction to find a Victorian scrapbook to apparently doodle notes in down the Saddle. A diary that supposedly had been in Anne's family for years, came out of Battlecrease and was in possession of Tony Devereux, all at the same time.

That you don't mind the equally confusing statements of a few electricians who claimed to have found a book and then just randomly rang "Liverpool University" up to apparently arrange a hastily hatched meeting with some virtual unknown professor is perplexing. The fact that the times don't add up is best ignored, as well as the fact that they offered no evidence for any of their claims.

I always spell "Battlecrease" wrong, mainly because it's not a word I use every day and also isn't a word that is written outside the house on a massive sign like the one attached to the Poste House pub, so you're welcome to that pedantic outrage, Caz, lol.