One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[erobitha]

Yes, understood. But that merely takes the watch back to 1992; it's not a provenance in the sense that it links the watch to Maybrick or to anyone known to Maybrick.

Further, Suzanne and Ron Murphy, who sold the watch to Johnson, insist they had inherited it from Suzanne's father, and it had been in their possession for years.

So for the 'Battlecrease' provenance to work, we have to assume they are liars who bought stolen goods, presumably from Eddie Lyons. What evidence is there for this?

I accept your point to a degree RJ.

Will those opposed completely to the Maybrick idea accept that should Eddie Lyons confirm this indeed was the case, therefore we can accept it as being the truth?

Or does such an implication that could land him and others in potential legal trouble just open more proverbial cans of worms?

Do we not then descend (as we already do) into debates of word vs word? Character vs character? Lie vs truth?

I do not feel such an admission would take us where we need to be.

Where does this all end? It has dragged on for three decades and yet, here we are.

[caz]

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.

And so the true Barrett believers beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past, where Aldridge Prior, the hopeless liar, 'confessed', so what else did anyone ever need to prove?

Mike claimed multiple different, often inconsistent or incompatible things at multiple different times, and not just for himself, but for different people. At one point he alone faked the diary; at others it was Anne, with or without Mike's help, or with or without Tony D's input, or with or without her father's financial support, depending on who Mike was trying to impress at the time, or who he had it in for, or how much he'd had to drink. He never did give a straight, credible story of the diary's inspiration, creation and chronology, from start to finish, or how and when the raw materials were obtained, with any supporting evidence that could have removed all reasonable doubt.

What Mike swore about the red diary in his affidavit was full of holes. He said nothing about the fact that he had requested and ordered it, or that this was in March 1992, around the time of his first call to Doreen. He said that Anne had purchased it by cheque [literally true but misleading] in early 1990 [completely false], implying that her intent in doing so was to use it to transfer the draft of the diary into it, but when it arrived it was too small. No mention of it being two years too late for Maybrick to have used [quelle surprise]. No mention that she didn't actually pay for the tiny 1891 diary until a month after the Maybrick diary had been seen in London. Does this sound like it was ever the intent on both Barretts' part, to create the Maybrick diary from anything Martin Earl was able to locate, leaving a perfect paper trail and account of the transaction on record? At one point, it was even suggested that Anne did this deliberately so she could put all the blame on Mike at a later date if needed. If that had been her intention, I don't see how it could have worked, and indeed it wouldn't have done - as it was her cheque and she is believed to have been in it with Mike from the word go. How could she not have been, if the diary had indeed been a Barrett creation? She knew nobody would believe it was all Mike's own work, having had to help him with anything he had written for publication. Even less chance of him embarking on a literary hoax without her knowledge.

[caz]

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

I'm thinking RJ may be getting this confused with the suggestion that Mike may have sought a bargaining tool. If he could show Eddie a recent and legitimate bill for a genuine, unused or partly used Victorian diary, he could offer him the same amount - £25 - for his tatty, damaged and partly used "old book", for which there was no evidence of it even being Victorian, never mind written by yer actual Jack the Ripper. Mike would have been taking the same chances as Doreen and co, and with no more experience of how not to fall for a fake. If Eddie had refused to part with it for £25, at least that's all Mike - or Anne as it turned out - would have lost by trying. He could have done nothing about it if Eddie had asked for much more. But actually, that's wrong. Mike could have gone to the police and told them all about this diary that Eddie was trying to flog for a fortune.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I don't follow the logic of why such a simple phrase ('freshly picked carrots') should be so utterly implausible to you, but the hard facts are that someone very much in the pre-digital world (whether that was 1888 or 1992 or any given year in between) did actually use that term in the Maybrick diary.

According to The Google Ngrams Theory, it was impossible for James Maybrick (or indeed anyone else) to ever ever ever ever ever ever ever use that three word phrase in speech, writing, or type prior to the 1948 event horizon.

You evidently subscribe to this view (judging from your comments above), but I'm not sure there'd be a long queue to agree with you.

Market stall person: "Freshly dug-up carrots. Get your lovely freshly dug-up carrots here!"

By the way, offering the OED definition of 'pick' is a tad on the patronising side for what appears to be a mainly-English-speaking audience here on the Casebook. I suspect you cited it in order to show how easy it is to preclude any possibility that fresh carrots could have been 'picked' in 1888 by clarifying its modern definition but citing the OED for a word that has been in the English language about as long as English has is probably proving very little indeed.

Picking on freshly picked carrots strikes me as really desperate stuff if it has already been established to such posters' satisfaction that the diary is not in Maybrick's handwriting, and the tiny pocket diary for 1891 demonstrates the intent by the Barretts to create 'the' diary in the early 1990s.

I wonder what that photo Gary posted was all about then, if the carrots being picked could not have been 'freshly' picked for any customer, friend or family member to pop in their pot that evening with a freshly killed and cleaned bunny rabbit? Was the photo a hoax too?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hello Ike and all in diary land,

I make a point of keeping out of diary discussions because I just don’t know enough about the subject but I have to ask one question about phrasing (actually it’s more of a point than a question.)

No one has been able to refute David Orsam’s ‘one off instance’ point. I’ve heard a few suggestions but none of them have come close to even putting a dent in the point. Robert Smith was reduced to a rather embarrassing prison-related ‘explanation’ in his book. Why doesn’t this appear to bother anyone? Why, if he’s so confident in the provenance of the diary, doesn’t he simply commission an expert in the evolution of language to provide a refutation of David’s point (which, after all, appears to be the strongest point against the genuineness of the diary.) If the diary was mine I’d want to attack the enemy’s strongest point. Doesn’t this smack of a lack of confidence?

Hi Herlock,

I suspect it's not unlike when Maggie Thatcher was meeting the Queen and wanted to know if her outfit would clash if she wore the blue - and a spokesperson for Her Majesty replied curtly to the effect that the Queen wasn't remotely interested in what Maggie would be wearing.

As far as I have gathered, Robert isn't particularly interested in David Barrat's opinions on the diary. And I do know that Barrat's opinions can often be very wide of the mark.

Not sure what you mean by a 'rather embarrassing prison-related explanation'?

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

I suspect it's not unlike when Maggie Thatcher was meeting the Queen and wanted to know if her outfit would clash if she wore the blue - and a spokesperson for Her Majesty replied curtly to the effect that the Queen wasn't remotely interested in what Maggie would be wearing.

As far as I have gathered, Robert isn't particularly interested in David Barrat's opinions on the diary. And I do know that Barrat's opinions can often be very wide of the mark.

Not sure what you mean by a 'rather embarrassing prison-related explanation'?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

If I recall correctly one ‘explanation’ Robert used in a fairly recent book was that the phrase ‘one off’ was used in the prison system as far back at the 19th century. We all know that David’s point wasn’t about ‘one off’ being used in isolation though but as a metaphor. Also we know that the prison use of the term ‘one off’ is completely unrelated to some unique occurrence. It’s completely unconnected. It’s difficult to see how that could be put down to a simple error.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Caz,

If I recall correctly one ‘explanation’ Robert used in a fairly recent book was that the phrase ‘one off’ was used in the prison system as far back at the 19th century. We all know that David’s point wasn’t about ‘one off’ being used in isolation though but as a metaphor. Also we know that the prison use of the term ‘one off’ is completely unrelated to some unique occurrence. It’s completely unconnected. It’s difficult to see how that could be put down to a simple error.

run away herlock. run!

[Herlock Sholmes]

run away herlock. run!

Good advice Abby

[caz]

Barrett stated in his confession that he was forced to go to Outhwaite & Litherland in search of a suitable diary or scrapbook because when the red diary arrived from Martin Earl, it was "very small" and thus unsuitable for the hoax.

We all KNOW that Barrett was hazy with dates. (And by the way, as shown by David B., Gray had amended Barrett’s estimate of these events from 1990 to 1991).

It was the chronology that was relevant. The red diary came first, the scrapbook came afterwards. This was in the statement that Barrett signed.

Well he would say that, wouldn't he? Mike was aiming to turn the pocket diary for 1891 - two years after Maybrick died - into a first attempt, made by the wife who had left him and was refusing to let him see his only child, to purchase a suitable vehicle for Maybrick's diary. He had to put his auction find second, and he knew it.

But 1991 would have been no better than 1990, would it? One date Mike was never hazy about was Monday 13th April, 1992, whenever he was asked about the day he took the diary to London. How is it possible that he recalled receiving and rejecting the red diary, then obtaining the photo album from O&L, and Anne spending the next few days copying the diary text into it, but totally forgot that this had all taken place immediately before his scheduled meeting with Doreen, to show off their freshly written hoax? Instead, he had the completed diary sitting there, presumably waiting for Tony Devereux to snuff it unexpectedly, so they would have the bones of a provenance to work with, and still did nothing with it for another seven months, until Monday 9th March 1992, when he suddenly decided it was time to contact the London literary agency, blissfully unaware of any work being done that day in Maybrick's old bedroom.

And by this juncture Keith Skinner had already obtained a receipt for the payment of the little red useless diary, dating to May 1992. It was also known that Barrett had been put down as a 'late payer,' so it should have been painfully obvious that he had ordered the red diary a few months earlier. And so, it proved to be...March 1992.

So if Barrett's confession states that he bought the scrapbook after the red diary, what was the bloody point of having O & L check their books for 1990?

I think you may be confusing KEITH with SHIRLEY. Granted the names do have three letters in common, but it was SHIRLEY who had checked with O&L in 1995, not KEITH, and SHIRLEY who checked a second time in 1997, using Mike's sworn affidavit as her guide this time. They were no more joined at the diary investigating hip during that period than Alan Gray and Melvin Harris were. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but at the time SHIRLEY checked again with O&L, she would have seen no 'bloody point' in asking about auctions held as late as March 1992, just before both the curator of 19th century manuscripts at the British Museum, and Brian Lake of Jarndyce antiquarian books, had given the diary their tentative thumbs-up. Would she have been armed by January 1997 with enough details about the red diary purchase to know that Mike had lied in his sworn statement, or at the very least been badly mistaken, about when it was obtained? If so, would that not have made it even harder for her to believe anything he claimed?

When dealing with someone like Mike, it doesn’t pay to be slavishly chained to literal interpretations. Use your noggin.

Tell me about it.

This was an opportunity missed, and I noticed this mistake some 16 or 17 years ago, and David B. independently realized it as well.

Missed because Mike didn't know the truth from a bar of soap. Don't you think Shirley would have given her eye teeth to have grabbed that opportunity with both hands, to prove that the photo album didn't come from O&L in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 or 1992, or any other year claimed by Mike, or by others on his behalf, and he was lying through his own teeth as usual?

You are clinging onto an impossible dream, if you seriously believe there was ever a record at O&L to be found. But no use crying forever over spilt milk. Might be time to get over it.

Fortunately, we can confirm that Mike’s highly suspicious purchase of the red diary did, in fact, happen, and Barrett tells us why it happened. To create a hoax

I hope that finally clarifies matters, since we've gone over this a dozen times or more.

Perfectly, thanks. Naturally you believe this part of Mike's affidavit, despite the fact that he neglected to mention that he ordered this item, which nobody in their right mind could have considered suitable for Maybrick's diary, unless the supplier had lied when describing it. Let that sink in.

Incidentally, I checked my timeline again, and I realise there were phone calls which were never recorded or described in detail, and almost certainly some written correspondence that has not survived or been passed on to Keith, but I note that the earliest entry I have, which features the name Maybrick in a diary context, is in a letter from Shirley to Doreen dated 2nd July 1992. There is nothing to suggest that Mike made good his claim at the earliest opportunity to have personally identified Jack the Ripper.

I'll leave you to decide if Mike was the sort of person to hide his light under a bushel and delay this once-in-a-lifetime revelation.

Personally, I see his order for a diary for the year 1891, and the lack of any earlier mention of Maybrick on the available record, as evidence that Mike hadn't yet identified the diary author on 9th March 1992, and had no idea that he was dead by 1889. I wonder if it was Anne who recognised the name Battlecrease, when helping Mike to transcribe the diary, and gave him the tip. He'd have hated that and done anything to make it his discovery.

[caz]

Apologies for quoting that entire post here, RJ, but I feel compelled to because it illustrates how selectively and myopically the polarised sides of this debate see the truth of the Victorian scrapbook.

You want to believe that Mike was telling the truth when he said he went to O&L because the maroon diary was too small for his purpose, and you want to believe therefore that he's just jolly well hazy about the dates he got so badly wrong which would make that tale impossible.

Here's a thought. Maybe he was more or less just making all of it up based upon things which had happened but for reasons which your myopia cannot focus on?

If you can't see how that can be easily and perfectly true, you simply aren't looking hard enough.

Hi Ike,

I suspect the true Barrett believer is so conditioned to believe they are right, that they have lost the ability to see any possible alternative, never mind stop for a second to consider whether it might actually work better with all the available evidence.

If they could only bring themselves to imagine what the consequences might reasonably have been, if the diary had been sold on to a clueless and unsuspecting Mike Barrett in the Saddle that lunchtime, after the floorboards had been raised in Maybrick's old bedroom, turning his little world upside down overnight, they might just appreciate that everything that happened from that day onwards is what one could expect the consequences to have been, given those circumstances.

Some think they knew Mike Barrett better than anyone who actually did know him, including his ex wife, and including Mike Barrett himself.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Tony was brown bread by the time the diary arrived in Goldie Street. That's the only reason he became part of the story to begin with

Feldman, p. 143.



Little Caroline Barrett "remembered her dad pestering Tony."

How could little Caroline have remembered her dad pestering Tony about the diary, if Tony was deceased before the diary ever made it to Goldie Street?

Further, we have this:



The very book that Mike had mentioned to Martin Howells, and which supposedly gave Mike his first insight into the Diary, proven beyond all reasonable doubt to have been in Devereux's possession as far back as July 1991.

[Scott Nelson]

I wonder what else was in Devereux's possession?

[erobitha]

I wonder what else was in Devereux's possession?

I'll be "dam-med" if I know.

[Iconoclast]

Feldman, p. 143.

Little Caroline Barrett "remembered her dad pestering Tony."

How could little Caroline have remembered her dad pestering Tony about the diary, if Tony was deceased before the diary ever made it to Goldie Street?

Further, we have this:

The very book that Mike had mentioned to Martin Howells, and which supposedly gave Mike his first insight into the Diary, proven beyond all reasonable doubt to have been in Devereux's possession as far back as July 1991.

Come on, RJ, this is exactly what I meant about 'not trying hard enough'. Caz has addressed the first issue many many months and posts ago when she asked how certain young Caroline could be that she was not remembering her dad pestering someone else (for example, Eddie Lyons)? Mike may even have used Tony's name but even that's no guarantee that the young Caroline walking past or playing with her Spirograph would have digested that. She may simply have remembered her dad pestering someone and put two and two together and got five.

On the second point, I see no great drama in Mike having on his shelves what must have been a reasonably popular book in Liverpool around that time, and I see no great drama in the possibility that he loaned it to his old, ill mate Tony. In Mike's hindsight version of the world - as I also said recently - he would have twisted this reality to make a trap for fools, so the book takes centre stage and Tony's involvement in the scrapbook is linked to it. None of it needs to be true.

Cheers,

Ike

[caz]

Agreed. We absolutely do not have to accept that the red diary was purchased before the scrapbook.

But that is not the issue under consideration.

The issue was that Barrett claimed this in his confession, and Harrison, Gray, Harris, Skinner, etc., were attempting to test whether Mike's confession was credible.

As such, Barrett's chronology needed to be properly checked, but, unfortunately, it wasn't.

It's not a blame game. It's just an unfortunately reality that we are stuck with.

Don't forget, Shirley and Keith didn't actually have sight of Mike's January 5th 1995 confession until January 1997, after a version of it had already appeared on the internet. That can't have helped. They knew about other affidavits Mike had sworn since April 1993, but not the one from Jan 5th 1995, which appears to have been an oversight on someone's part. They couldn't investigate a confession they knew bugger all about, or couldn't access.

As with your incomplete set of Gray tapes, you could not be expected to know there were any missing when someone sent copies to you. And then you got rid of the ones you did have, presumably because any smoking gun had to be on a tape that your source didn't mention and didn't send you.

Gray typed up the Jan 5th affidavit for Mike, yet was still unable to get a straight enough story from him to get anywhere with O&L. How were they meant to proceed, when Mike himself had given Gray different years, different lot numbers and even different purchasers for the photo album? He didn't really want his auction story 'properly checked', did he? Ever paused long enough to ask yourself why that might have been? He could simply have shown Gray the auction ticket he claimed to have, but maybe there were a couple of ex coppers lurking nearby at the time, who spooked him.

One thing I've never really understood is what Mike's motivation would have been for giving a true confession, when he had nothing to gain and everything to lose. The money from his best seller had started to roll in nicely and the police had been and gone the previous year. His motivations for giving one false confession after another were, by contrast, many and various and all too easy to understand.