One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Hi Ike.

I don't have the time, nor the inclination, to get into this at the moment, but as a demonstration of how little we have progressed over the past 15 years, let me reprint a post of mine on this topic dating to 18 June 2005. Please study it closely and see what points are raised.

* * * *

Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2005 - 1:27 pm:

---

Caz-- After checking, I've been unable to find anything in the pubic domain to support [your] statement:

"At some point it's agreed that the Barretts will produce a typed transcript of the diary (fact)."

Indeed, all the evidence suggests that this was not the "fact."

Of course I do not question your claim that Keith Skinner (and others) received a document purporting to be a typescript of the Maybrick Diary in June, 1992.

What I do wonder about is whether we have any credible evidence to indicate when and for what reason that typescript was created. Here's why.

On Nov., 1993 Shirley Harrison & Kenneth Rendell had a joint appearance on the Larry King Show. Rendell stated that there had been a sinister development, that the police, armed with a warrant, found a word processor in Barrett's home with the Diary on it. (Harrison, pocket books paperback, p. 272)

Harrison responds: "The police did not have a warrant. The WP was hardly "found" it was on the dining room table." (Ibid. p,272) (Remember this, because we'll be coming back to it eventually).

A few months later, Nick Warren, writing to Doreen Montgomery mentions the unusual discovery on Mr. Barrett's W.P. [2021 note: wasn't this actually on a 3" floppy disk? RP]

Montgomery writes to Warren on 8 May, 1994:

"Of course we know what the SFS found--a transcript of the Diary! There's nothing sinister in that. "Right from the word go, everyone knew that Mike had bought a WP precisely to transcribe the Diary, in order to study its contents more easily."

(SFS=Serious Fraud Unit)

Now hold the phone. Multiple Questions.

If the argument is currently running (see Caz's statement above) that this transcript was typed up at the request or "agreement" of Doreen Montgomery and the ladies at Crew Literary Agency, why on earth didn't Montgomery say this? Why didn't she say something like, "Why Mr. Warren, of course Mike had a transcript of the Diary!..it was agreed that he and his wife would create a typescript for our benefit." The contractual agreement (Crew was a professional business) could then have been produced showing this. But clearly, this wasn't the understanding of why the typescript was produced as of May, 1994.

Enter Paul Begg.

Author: Paul Begg Casebook Message Boards Archives
Thursday, 12 April 2001 - 06:03 pm

"Hi Martin
Your understanding is pretty much the same as mine. I likewise thought or probably more right I assumed it to be a copy made at the request of Doreen Montgomery, and only later did I understand it to have been a copy made by Mike."

So independently, we have two sources with the seeming belief that this "typescript" actually preceded Barrett's arrival at Crew, and at no time was it made at the request of Doreen Montgomery... It was made by Barrett, for Barrett. Doreen's own statement suggests this.

It should also be noted that Barrett's claim (implicit in Doreen's statement of May 8, 1994) was demonstrably false. Barrett did not buy the word processor precisely to transcribe the diary. Research by private detective Alan Gray revealed that in fact the Barretts bought the Amstrad in 1986..roughly five years before showing up at Crew. Remember that this inexplicable (?) lie by Mr. Barrett was long before he allegedly began making false confessions, currently dismissed by some as solely due to psychological pressures of his marital breakdown... This is back when Mr. Barrett was still stating the Diary was too legit to quit. Those who believe Mr. Barrett's confession can be explained by psychological pressures need to further explain why he was already being deceptive in 1992.

But does any of this raise a troubling question?

Why is it now stated or more rightly claimed that the typescript was created by an "agreement" with Crew? Where did this idea come from? The answer, as far as I can tell, is rather surprising. Or am I missing something? It appears that its genesis can be traced to Anne Graham a number of years after the fact.

In 1995, a full year after Montgomery wrote to Nick Warren, Anne Graham was subjected to an interview. Graham, now separated from Barrett, and unable to compare notes with him, tells her version of the where the typescript came from.

The gist of this interview is recorded in the following note made by Keith Skinner, dated May 31, 1995: (this comes from a posting on the Old Casebook Archive).


"Anne said that the transcript [of the Diary] was made after they were in a 'go' situation. It was done fast. Mike's typing was hopeless so Anne had to redo it. Mike read it [i.e., from the Diary] and Anne typed it [i.e., the original transcript] checking back against original, every so often, as she believed that it should be same as original."

(My emphasis is underlined).

As far as I can fathom ---and the truth is far from clear--something rather strange is going on. If it was known that typescript was created "by agreement" with Crew, why is Keith asking Anne Graham about it? One can only conclude that there was still some mystery as to when and why the typescript was created. Hence the questions put to Anne in 1995.

Yet, it certainly seems that Graham's version of events directly contradicts Barrett's earlier version as reported by Montgomery. Montgomery clearly believed Barrett bought the word processor specifically to transcribe the diary and study it; Graham was now stating that the typescript was not made until the Diary was ready "to go" to a literary agency.

Is there any reason why we should now accept Anne's revision?

* * * *

At this point, Caz reported back, after asking Shirley Harrison about her memory of these events. She stated "We certainly asked Mike to produce a transcript."

(This, unfortunately, is ambiguous. Produce it from scratch, or physically produce the one supposedly made by Mike for the purpose of 'research'?)

To which I respond:

Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 2:46 pm:

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Hi Caz-- Looking it over, I am still unable to reconcile Shirley's statement with Doreen's.

Shirley: "We certainly asked Mike to produce a transcript."

Doreen: ""Right from the word go, everyone knew that Mike had bought a WP precisely to transcribe the Diary, in order to study its contents more easily."

It seems probable to me that this apparent conflict can be reconciled if Barrett's "typescript" of the Diary was an alleged part of his original "notes."

This would make perfect sense in reference to the agreement of April 30th, 1992.

" IT IS AGREED that the Owner will make available to the Author with mutually agreed safeguards for research purposes the Diary and his own research notes...."

If there is no individual reference to the 'production' of this typescript --and one would think that there should have been--than I think it is best to conclude that the typescript was portrayed as being part of the 'research notes'., ie, that it already existed, as per Doreen's later letter to Nick Warren.

Thus, all one can logically infer is that Barrett was asked for a typescript and (at a later meeting) delivered one. It doesn't tell us whether or not he went home and typed one up, or whether he merely downloaded it off his WP. Doreen's statement suggests the latter.

This brings to the forefront Pan Books. If Barrett had indeed contacted Pan Books prior to contacting Rupert Crew, would that not qualify as a 'go' situation? You see, in my hypothesis, I don't rule out the possibility that Barrett's transcript is what he was presenting to Pan Books. Oddly, Shirley uses the phrase "story" in regards to this episode. I don't know why that is. Pan Books published, among other things, mystery novels, and Barrett mentions elsewhere owning a copy of a Colin Dexter mystery which was (I checked) published by Pan Books. Thus, his claim to get their name from a book lying around the house is at least somewhat credible. In one of Barrett's ramblings to Alan Gray he stated that the diary didn't even physically exist when he contacted Doreen. He bamboozled her. Nothing Barrett said can be accepted without evidence, of course, but it certainly does fit in with the apparent fact that Barrett ordered the maroon diary on or about the same day he called Rupert Crew. It might be worth noting that one of Barrett's 1995 affidavits stated that he got the bookdealer's address from the Writer's Yearbook. This has been proved false. But wasn't Rupert Crew advertising in the Yearbook? Barrett had muddled the two events in his mind; the two events went together. Or at least that is how I see it. Cheers RP


* * * * *

The above is slightly edited, but one can find the entire conversation here:

Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards: Where do we go from here?

I don't know where to start with this blast from the past! It's like the current obsession with Schwartz and various other Stride witnesses, where a certain poster reads all manner of sinister motives into the slightest discrepancies in time and language use.

From my timeline, which has been updated many, many times since Ripper Diary was published in 2003, I note that Doreen had received 'the typed script of the Diary' from the Barretts by 22nd April 1992, as a letter of that date makes clear. In the same letter, Doreen mentions her first conversation with Anne the previous evening, in which Anne said she had asked Mike to place the physical diary with the bank because of the risk of burglary or fire.

My hunch is that Anne was far more concerned about a knock on the door from the diary's rightful owner. Why the need to place it with the bank at all if it was their own creation? And why now, if it had been in the house since before Tony Devereux died?

Anyway, at some point, there was agreement between Anne and Mike to produce [type] the diary text, and this was subsequently produced [presented] for Doreen et al.

Doreen wrote to Mike on 12th May 1992, asking him to get the diary photocopied, or get the bank to arrange this, so that sample pages could be shown to publishers. 'The typescript you prepared won't do on its own.'

On 17th June 1992, Keith Skinner sent a photocopy of the typescript to Martin Fido. I don't recall Martin saying there was anything suspicious about it, despite his firm belief that the diary was a modern fake and the Barretts were involved. But then it would be argued that the original was never handed over, and a 'fake' one was created specially, to give the right impression.

The chronology suggests to me that the "go" situation referred to by Keith, after consulting Anne, was when Mike returned from London on 13th April with the diary. If the typescript Doreen received had been ready by that date, it would have made sense to take both with him. We don't know what tales Mike may have told Doreen on that day, but then neither would Anne. If Anne wasn't around to hear it when he lied to Doreen about buying a word processor for the purpose of transcribing the diary, it was his version of what happened, and his lie, not Anne's.

So much for a joint enterprise by two like-minded fraudsters. This is Mike 'Matilda' Barrett we are talking about here – a man who could tell a dozen 'inexplicable' lies before breakfast, without any thought of consulting his wife first. If he wasn't given the diary by Devereux, he lied to Doreen about that too, so of course he was already being deceptive in 1992. Doreen believed his lie about the word processor because there was no obvious reason to doubt it. He was not yet infamous in that respect. But Anne would surely have known he was a habitual liar, long before the diary disturbed their peace. "Did you nick it, Mike?"

If there was a reason behind Mike's word processor lie, and it wasn't Mike just being Mike, I suspect he said it to impress Doreen about the investment he had already made in the diary and the work he had already put in since his mate Tony had died. He may even have been fishing for an early expenses claim. But having lied, he was committed to producing [in both senses] the transcript he claimed to have bought the word processor for. Doreen naturally said "Yes please, Mike", and this was when Anne agreed to do the typing while Mike read from the diary. It was done fast – I suggest between 13th and 22nd April, while Caroline was off school for the Easter holidays – and Mike evidently saw it as a considerable achievement on his part, despite Anne doing the typing because he was "hopeless" at it – as every example I have seen from after Anne left him clearly demonstrates. They had created the transcript between them, but Mike liked to take the credit for what he saw as his creation. This was surely what he was recalling when he claimed the diary was written over 11 days.

'I told my wife Anne Barrett, I said, "Anne I'll write a best seller here, we can't fail".'

The best seller was the book which Mike went on to co-author with Shirley. He wouldn't be the only one to refer to the diary book as the diary.

'I sat in the living room by the rear lounge window in the corner with my word processor, Anne Barrett sat with her back on to me as she wrote the manuscript...'

Mike read from the diary, while Anne typed, using the word processor.

'Several days prior to our purchase of materials I had started to roughly outline the Diary on my word processor.'

How does that make any sense? Which materials and when were they purchased?

'Anne and I started to write the Diary in all it took us 11 days. I worked on the story and then I dictated it to Anne who wrote it down in the Photograph Album and thus we produced the Diary of Jack the Ripper. Much to my regret there was a witness to this, my young daughter Caroline.'

Mike read from the diary, while Anne typed it up, and Caroline was in the room, because there was no reason why she shouldn't be. The finished transcript was then sent off to Doreen, who probably received it on 21st April, and when she phoned that evening to say it had arrived safely, Anne answered. The diary itself would be safely in the bank until needed.

[rjpalmer]

Even if you could prove intention (which has not been done - just an ad was placed)

Prove intent?

I don't need to. It's not as if I'm trying to 'fit up' Mike. Barrett confessed...multiple times and in writing. He supplied the intent.

The verification for Mike's admission came later, with the confirmation of the red diary, the receipt, Martin Earl's account, and the advert in Bookdealer all showing this aspect of Mike's confession held water.

It is the Diary friendly folks who--sometimes with Anne's help--have tried to explain away Barrett's incriminating admission, reimagining his intent as something else.

But I recommend you go out and enjoy this summer afternoon or evening. That's my plan.

[Iconoclast]

Hi Icke.
If he was using a word processor he would be aware how many pages he would need for 9000 words.
500 words per page is standard, even without the benefit of the internet.

Hi Yobs,

And yet he still would be none the wiser regarding how large Victorian diaries tend to be (as determined with such effortless ease in your internet-laden world but not in his) so you might imagine he'd have been a wee bit more specific in his request - i.e., "I'll be needing a big one, mind, as I've got 9,000 words or so to cram in to those 20+ pages".

Cheers,

Ike

[Iconoclast]

If Barrett had had the internet, he could have quickly discovered that phrases like "bumbling buffoon" didn't come into popular usage until the mid-20th Century and thus avoided using them, thus saving modern diary investigators the trouble of coming up with convoluted an esoteric explanations for their appearance in a "Victorian" text.

Hi RJ,



I think you've probably nailed the diary as a fraud, mate, well done. Bit of an oversight, perhaps, but you didn't mention that other critical error on the part of the hoaxer - his or her inclusion of the utterly anachronistic 'freshly picked carrots' which - prior to 1948 - had clearly never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever been used in speech or writing or publications. Not in market towns all over the UK on market days, never in grocer's shops, and never in households which grew their own.

Bang to rights, there, RJ.

PS Unless there is any possibility at all that Google Ngrams is not the fount of all knowledge on these things, I guess ...

Cheers,

Ike

[Iconoclast]

But Barrett didn't have the internet, as you rightly point out, which is why he called Martin E. Earl (later of HP Bookfinder), who placed an ad in Bookdealer for a blank or nearly blank Victorian Diary, best summarized here:

Acquiring A Victorian Diary - Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums

Time does creep rather slowly, doesn't it, always circling back to Barrett's strange mechanisms?

That there is "approximately zero evidence" that the scrapbook came from a book buyer or an auction house isn't entirely true, is it? We have Earl's advertisement as circumstantial evidence that Barrett tried this route, confirmed by the receipt produced by Anne, etc.

As for Outhwaite and Litherland, Alan Gray tried to gain access to their books, but was turned away. When the firm later checked their books at the request of Shirley Harrison, they checked an illogical span of dates inconsistent with a careful analysis of Barrett's confession.

By the time anyone noticed, whatever evidence may have existed had been pulped for all eternity.

Have a nice day, Ike!

R P


¹ Hmm! Two errors in five words--rather strange for a supposedly 'memorable' phrase. Is that behavior consistent with anyone associated with the diary? Is the presence of 'Oh' instead of 'O' consistent with the text being dictated at some point?

Wow, RJ - that was like a masterclass in seeing things as narrowly as you can in order to see only one possible interpretation. Genius!

Ike

[Iconoclast]

'...a small 1891 De La Rue's Indelible Diary and Memorandum Book… 2.25" by 4", dated 1891 throughout – three or four dates to a page. Nearly all of the pages are blank and at the end of the diary are two Memoranda pages. On one of the two pages someone has written in blue biro 'EATON PLACE' and on the other 'ETON RISE'. Then there are four blank pages and on the last one is written in blue biro '19 W at 3 = 57 19 W at 4 = 76'.'

Like this monster, Caz? Big enough to possibly get 90 words in?

Cheers,

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Indeed, it's not evidence that the final product came from the same means. It clearly didn't, hence the O+L auction.

"Just an ad placed" At that time, in those circumstances, that's intent. If it's not, it's hard to dismiss.

Anyhow, I'm not getting into Maybrick stuff, more than I've just stated. I'd just like to say a welcome return to Ike, me owd humourous mucker. I'd been led to believe he'd gone off in a sulk, but I guess that was a "Major Misunderstanding".

We'll never agree on that diary, but we'll agree that Sunderland are ****. Several seasons in League one. Nuff said.

Hi Abe, me auld marra!

You shouldn't believe what you read in the gutter press, unless it is predictions from Maccums that there would be derbies in the Championship this coming season!!! Just checked the spelling (as it varies) and am delighted to find that 'maccum' is Latin for 'buffoon' - how utterly appropriate on so many levels!

Cheers,

The Ikester

[rjpalmer]

Like this monster, Caz?

Yet we're told--with a straight face, no less--that Mike thought he could trade that tiny and worthless memo book to a man in a pub for the genuine Diary of Jack the Ripper.



Maybricksplaining doesn't get any more desperate than that one!

[Iconoclast]

Yet we're told--with a straight face, no less--that Mike thought he could trade that tiny and worthless memo book to a man in a pub for the genuine Diary of Jack the Ripper.



Maybricksplaining doesn't get any more desperate than that one!

RJ,

It would appear that I have been away longer than I'd realised. What exactly is this argument of which I think I must be bereft of background???

Barrett wanted a genuine Victorian diary to trade the Victorian scrapbook for?

Who? What? When? Where? How?

Ike 'Unexpectedly Lost for Words' Iconoclast

[Yabs]

Hi RJ,



I think you've probably nailed the diary as a fraud, mate, well done. Bit of an oversight, perhaps, but you didn't mention that other critical error on the part of the hoaxer - his or her inclusion of the utterly anachronistic 'freshly picked carrots' which - prior to 1948 - had clearly never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever been used in speech or writing or publications. Not in market towns all over the UK on market days, never in grocer's shops, and never in households which grew their own.

Bang to rights, there, RJ.

PS Unless there is any possibility at all that Google Ngrams is not the fount of all knowledge on these things, I guess ...

Cheers,

Ike

Hi Icke

The Carrot, a root vegetable, isn’t traditionally “freshly picked” terms like dug, harvested, or pulled would be more usual.
I can’t find reference to a freshly picked potato for love nor money either.
freshly picked raspberries or strawberries, no problem.

Nevertheless, it still could have been used by Maybrick incorrectly in 1888.
That Ngram just shows he was less likely to do so

[Yabs]

My apologies, for the name misspelling, Ike.
Just noticed and can’t edit.

[rjpalmer]

Who? What? When? Where? How?

No, no, Ike. Others must explain; I'd be accused of misstating the theory.

I noticed that you have side-stepped my question. Didn't you once post extracts from Mike's 29 page typescript?

Forgive me, but I had to laugh at the typo.

Ike and Icke--what a dynamic duo that would be! Just image the lecture tour. But I reckon Icke would be more of a Michael Maybrick man, than Sir Jim, or possibly he'd be sniffing around the I.W.M.E.C.

[Iconoclast]

Hi Icke

The Carrot, a root vegetable, isn’t traditionally “freshly picked” terms like dug, harvested, or pulled would be more usual.
I can’t find reference to a freshly picked potato for love nor money either.
freshly picked raspberries or strawberries, no problem.

Nevertheless, it still could have been used by Maybrick incorrectly in 1888.
That Ngram just shows he was less likely to do so

Can you imagine a world - any world, from 0AD to 1947AD - in which the expression 'freshly picked carrots' would produce the response:

"Whatly picked carrots? Freshly whated carrots? Freshly picked whats?"

Can you imagine a world in which James Maybrick in 1888 would be turned away from his local grocers and referred immediately to a psychiatric hospital because he had apparently invented a term which would not make sense to anyone in the entire world until 1948?

This is exactly what I mean when I refer to the myopia (which RJ himself mentioned earlier) of the diary-denier. I love the (and I'm obviously paraphrasing here) "It's an established fact that carrots have never been referred to as freshly picked".

Carrots in the internet world (a corollary of it, not caused by it obviously) are no longer generally 'freshly picked' in industrialised countries with advanced manufacturing and distribution facilities, but in the pre-internet world of 1888 and in societies today which still 'grow their own', that's precisely what they would generally be. My neighbour here in Lower Whottlington on the Whottle grows his own carrots and when he picks them I imagine he thinks they're freshly picked. I wonder that his Victorian ancestors were unable to do the same?

Ike

[Iconoclast]

No, no, Ike. Others must explain; I'd be accused of misstating the theory.

I noticed that you have side-stepped my question. Didn't you once post extracts from Mike's 29 page typescript?

Forgive me, but I had to laugh at the typo.

Ike and Icke--what a dynamic duo that would be! Just image the lecture tour. But I reckon Icke would be more of a Michael Maybrick man, than Sir Jim, or possibly he'd be sniffing around the I.W.M.E.C.

RJ,

There's no way one could mistake we two - he of the ridiculous megalomaniacal ego and his bizarre theories!

Ike

[drstrange169]

I don't usually enter Diary threads, but berries, hops and things that grow on trees and shrubs can be picked. Players for sport teams or dockers in the Victorian East End could be picked. Root vegetables, by are dug up. Any pre-digital world that "grows it own" should be fully aware of how factually silly the phrase, "freshly picked carrots" is.

Pick:
[transitive] (rather informal) to choose somebody/something from a group of people or things
O.E.D.