One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

why are caz keith skinner and paul begg always on the side of those who beleive the diary is authentic? dont they all admit its a hoax? should they not be arguing against the gullible beleivers? all very odd. but i think everyone knows the reason why.

Hi Abby,

You may have missed it, but I have a clear memory of the last time I saw Paul B comment on the Maybrick Hoax. It was two years ago on the "The Diary--Old Hoax or New' thread, Post #92. You'll see why is stuck in my mind:

"To me Mike was a househusband who was doing his best, the high-spot of whose day were a few pints at lunchtime before he collected his daughter from school, who dabbled in his garden and wanted a greenhouse. I probably misread the whole thing. But, yes, of course Mike might have conceived and executed the forgery, and he probably did. But I’m far from sure that that’s a conclusion we should accept too quickly."

In the eyes of a select few, that makes Paul as potentially crazy as me, you, David B, and many others. Imagine entertaining the notion that Barrett "probably" wrote it. I've been called as crazy as a loon for believing such a thing.

It is interesting that Paul's recent post names only four possible suspects.

1. Mike
2. Anne
3. Mike & Anne.
4. Someone else--unnamed and unidentified--who was not Mike & Anne.

Is it significant that after 25 years the suspect pool is so limited? Why might that be?

But don't answer; it's a rhetorical question.

Cheers, RP

[caz]

The logic in these parts has grown too crazy for me.

We are told that that Eddie Lyons living on Fountains Road in 1992 is startling evidence of his connection to the Maybrick Hoax because Tony Devereux also lived on Fountains Road. That this is a coincidence too big to ignore.

But this comes from the same people who believe that Devereux has no actual connection to the diary, so how does this ‘coincidence’ make sense? How exactly?

The same 'people' being me, RJ. I speak, or rather I 'spitball' [thank you Ike!] only for myself. You appear to have the greatest difficulty with the concept of one person juggling more than one idea at a time - or over the course of time - based on their ongoing exploration of the ever expanding record of events, and equally with the concept of two Barrett disbelievers not adopting the same idea between them and sticking with it through thick and thin [me being thick and Ike being thin].

But that's hardly my problem.

I'll try to simplify for you the issue I personally have with Fountains Rd, but I will ask you to concentrate on what I write, and not go off piste as you usually do, to create a distraction and cause confusion where there is none.

For obvious reasons, it is common for forgers and hoaxers to use the ‘dead guy’ provenance. “Dead men tell no tales,” is how Mike Barrett put it.

And this is true. The infamous American forger Mark Hoffman used this excuse more than once, claiming to have obtained this or that document from a collector who had recently died. The art forgers who scammed an American collector a few years back by selling him several fake paintings attributed to the artist Leon Golub insisted that they had been friends of Golub’s widow who…you guessed it…had recently died and couldn't dispute their story.

For equally obvious reasons, if you can't explain where you got something from, because the bloke you got it from won't tell you, which makes you wonder if it has been nicked, you won't get far unless you can name someone else who can't be questioned. A dead Tony Devereux can tell no tales and, even better than that, he couldn't have told tales about the diary while he was alive if he knew sod all about it. Just concentrate on that detail for more than a nanosecond, before you start involving Devereux again in the planning stage of a Barrett hoax. It's quite important. Devereux was only 100% safe for Mike to use if he genuinely knew nothing when he popped his clogs and therefore couldn't have dropped any little hints to his daughters.

Even the ‘old hoax’ theorists admit this is why Mike Barrett used Tony Devereux as his provenance. He was dead. They deny there was any other connection.

So how was his address relevant?

As I say, think it through.

If you want to label me, I am a Barrett sceptic. My definition of an old hoax is therefore one that was created at any point before Mike got his paws on it.

In their version of events, Eddie Lyons, an electrician who just happened to be living on Fountains Road, found the Maybrick Hoax in Battlecrease and sold it to Mike Barrett in a pub.

Barrett quickly—almost instantly--tries to peddle the diary in London, and uses his dead pal, Tony Devereux, as the provenance.

Correct.

Is Caz honestly suggesting that having bought the diary from Eddie Lyons, who lived on Fountains Road, Mike then had to come up with someone else who lived on Fountains Road as his bogus provenance? It’s an absurdity. If anything, Mike would want to distance himself from Fountains Road as much as possible, if Eddie had been the ‘fence.’

But this is not what Caz is suggesting—I hope!—because, remember, in her version of events, Tony Devereux, who had died in 1991, had no actual connection to the diary.

Well you answered your own question then.

Of course Mike didn't have to pick another Fountains Rd resident for his provenance. But it could have suited his purposes to pick this one. My current thinking [you know, as in current, not as in three months ago, or last year, or ten years ago] is that Mike reassured Eddie early on that he had used 'a friend' who had died in the summer of 1991, to explain how he came by the "old book" [I know how you love that quaint description] and why he knew nothing more about its history. He could say he had asked this friend question after question after question, but answer came there none, and then he went and shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. I mean, what's a man to do when that happens? This basic story would have worked so well from Eddie's point of view because he wasn't taken on by Portus & Rhodes until late November 1991, so he couldn't be accused of finding it while working for the firm, as long as Mike stuck with his dead mate for the provenance.

In 1994 Eddie's bacon would have been saved a second and third time, by Mike's forgery claims and Anne's 'in the family' story, if anyone tried to make anything of the Saddle connection with Mike, which Feldman first learned about the previous year. No wonder Eddie pushed people towards Anne for the answer.

Whether Mike ever gave Eddie the full name and address of his deceased friend is another matter. I imagine the Fountains Rd address would have rung alarm bells for Eddie, but not for Mike, which currently [as in currently] makes me think the story was Mike's bright idea, not knowing who Eddie worked for or where, while Eddie was happy with it, not knowing or imagining it mattered where Mike's late mate had lived.

While Eddie would certainly have known from the diary books - if not from Mike himself back in 1992 - that the original story was that he was given the diary in 1991 by this old boy called Tony Devereux, who had then fallen asleep in The Lord, I'm far less certain that Eddie would necessarily have recognised that name, or ever met the chap. Eddie was living with his then girlfriend, near the Saddle, but if Tony had been housebound from the end of 1990 to his death in August 1991, and had previously seen Mike in the Saddle at lunchtimes, when Eddie would presumably have been working, I'm not sure how or when the two Fountains Rd residents would have bumped into each other or got on first name terms, never mind surnames or addresses.

In short, this Fountains Road double event makes no sense whatsoever, unless one is easily fooled by rhetoric. Barrett and Lyons living in the same neighborhood has already been addressed in a previous post. Lyons was simply the right push-pin in Ike's map.

So why could Devereux not simply have been the right push-pin in Mike Barrett's map in 1992, when needing someone he knew, who was beyond questioning, and who most definitely wasn't Lyons, to explain where the diary came from? I did say from the outset of this discussion that it was a genuine coincidence that Mike knew someone suitable, who had actually lived on the same road as Eddie. I didn't say that was compulsory, but it has turned out to be an unfortunate coincidence for Eddie, which he could well have done without.

If Mike had known then, that Eddie had been working in Maybrick's house of all places, on the morning of 9th March [as Eddie has indeed confirmed, independently of what Colin Rhodes told Keith some years previously] I doubt he'd have thought it such a bright idea to use another Fountains Rd resident for his provenance.

[caz]

Hi Abby,

You may have missed it, but I have a clear memory of the last time I saw Paul B comment on the Maybrick Hoax. It was two years ago on the "The Diary--Old Hoax or New' thread, Post #92. You'll see why is stuck in my mind:

"To me Mike was a househusband who was doing his best, the high-spot of whose day were a few pints at lunchtime before he collected his daughter from school, who dabbled in his garden and wanted a greenhouse. I probably misread the whole thing. But, yes, of course Mike might have conceived and executed the forgery, and he probably did. But I’m far from sure that that’s a conclusion we should accept too quickly."

In the eyes of a select few, that makes Paul as potentially crazy as me, you, David B, and many others. Imagine entertaining the notion that Barrett "probably" wrote it. I've been called as crazy as a loon for believing such a thing.

It is interesting that Paul's recent post names only four possible suspects.

1. Mike
2. Anne
3. Mike & Anne.
4. Someone else--unnamed and unidentified--who was not Mike & Anne.

Is it significant that after 25 years the suspect pool is so limited? Why might that be?

But don't answer; it's a rhetorical question.

Cheers, RP

How many make a 'nest'?

We have two young pigeons in our garden, which we have watched grow from eggs in the nest to fluffy squeakers and now almost fully grown and ready to fly off.

Mike's forgers were in a 'nest' of four, including himself, his ex wife, her father and the late Tony Devereux.

Number five, Citizen Kane, was thrown into this nest later by other hands, to account for the diary handwriting, which no more resembled that of Mike's four than it did Maybrick's.

It was never Keith's nest, but it was a nest all the same.

Anyone is free to pick another name, or names, out of a hat if they don't care for those previously mentioned.

[caz]

This is the big lie. Repeat it a thousand times and it won't be any less of one, Ike.

The timecards show that Eddie Lyons DID work at Battlecrease....in June 1992.

Is this the lie you meant, RJ?

I can find no record of Eddie working at Battlecrease in June 1992. But if you believe he did, without a timesheet to confirm it, what's the problem with his own insistence that he was there on 9th March, when it wasn't his job and he and JB were "just filling in", with two others, including Arthur?

We only know Eddie was next at the house for a ground floor job with the boss's son on Thursday 16th, Friday 17th, Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st July 1992. On the Friday, we know Brian Rawes had to collect the firm's van from the house, and Brian himself correctly recalled it was a Friday and the details of the job he was going to. It was the first and only time Brian went to the house, and this is when he said the brief conversation with Eddie took place, when he was told about Eddie's 'find' under the floorboards.

On Tuesday 21st, Brian was made redundant by P&R, followed on Thursday 23rd by Eddie.

[rjpalmer]

Is this the lie you meant, RJ?

I can find no record of Eddie working at Battlecrease in June 1992. But if you believe he did, without a timesheet to confirm it, what's the problem with his own insistence that he was there on 9th March, when it wasn't his job and he and JB were "just filling in", with two others, including Arthur?

Thanks, Caz.

Clever as always, but I wasn't referring to lies or claims or memories. I was referring to actual documentation. I thought the timesheet was from July, and originally even wrote July, but, not trusting my memory, I checked a discussion of Shirley's book and it stated that Rawes and Lyons had been there in June, 1992, so I used that date. (I don't have my books at hand, but the reference was to Harrison, 2003, pp. 291-292). Maybe it was a typo?

But if it was July and not June, so much the better. Thanks for your correction.

Either way, same comment. Eddie was at Battlecrease months after Barrett had already brought the diary to London, so the chronology doesn't seem to work.

Perhaps geniuses like Ike can remember where they were on any given day in 1992, but I suspect most people wouldn't have a clue, and if you asked them some years later about a job that was in July 1992 it would be exceedingly easy for them to become confused and admit that it was actually March 1992--it would depend on the context of the discussion and how the questions were posed by the interviewer.

Do you remember when Billy Graham admitted to having seen the diary in the 1960s or 70s? Was it confusion, lies, or a misinterpretation of the interview?

I am confident that you realize that it is standard procedure among historians to verify people's memories with contemporary documentation.

I am also confident that after the Billy Graham/Anne Graham fiasco, you realize why skeptical people would want see the full interview of Eddie Lyons, if, as I am led to believe, he admitted to being in Battlecrease in March 1992.

That's hardly outrageous.

All the best.

[caz]

Your memory is getting worse, RJ. We've been through all this before, but here you are, trotting out the same bilge about Eddie not being the kind of genius who could have recalled the actual dates when he worked at 7 Riversdale Rd.

As you say quite rightly, it is standard procedure to verify people's memories with contemporary documentation.

And guess what?

While Eddie [re 9th March 1992] and Brian Rawes [re 17th July 1992] naturally enough didn't reel off the actual dates concerned - that would just be weird - what they did recall about their individual roles and experiences at the house was found to correspond precisely with what their boss, Colin Rhodes, was able to provide, from his own contemporary records as well as his personal recollections of whom he sent where, when and why.

So much so, that neither Eddie nor Brian could have been remembering any other occasions, so the dates fell into place without them needing to supply them.

It's not a magic trick, and in fact it's the proper way to proceed, in order to confirm the witnesses must actually have been where they said they were, and doing what they said they did, on the relevant dates down on record.

[caz]

In Robert Smith's 25 Years... (2017), he wrote:

'I asked Barrett if he could arrange for me to meet Lyons. He could, so on Saturday, 26th June 1993, I drove up to Liverpool to stay with the Barretts at 12, Goldie Street. I suggested meeting Lyons that evening in The Saddle. We strolled from the house to the pub, and at about 10.00pm Lyons came in and sat down with us. He told me that he had found a book under some floorboards at Battlecrease and had "thrown it into a skip".'

Eddie Lyons has subsequently denied, on two occasions, that any such meeting ever took place.

So somebody is lying.

One wonders why Eddie would have felt the need to say anything at all, if he knew the rumours were all rubbish and nothing was removed from the house while he was working there. He could hardly have been trying to make money out of a confession like that, could he?

Was he trying to suggest to Robert that all he did was to throw some tatty old book into a skip, so if this was the diary someone else must have retrieved it?

It was a ludicrous situation all round, considering Mike's continued insistence that he got the diary from Tony Devereux in Spring/Summer 1991, which was nearly a year before Eddie would first set foot in Battlecrease.

Why could Eddie not leave well alone?

[caz]

Hi Abe,

I'm sure I'll take your advice and park the notion, not necessarily because it isn't plausible but more because I was only doing what my dear American readers call 'spitballing' (you may have heard of it?).

The difficulty with balling the spit on this part of the Casebook, of course, is that you will inevitably be taken literally either immediately or indeed much later when the context of the original thought is long lost. So, at some point, maybe seven years down the line, some anal retentive will trawl through your posts far enough back until they find something vaguely contradictory to some other spit you've just recently balled and shout 'Fake!' in their loudest Times New Roman font.

Et cetera.

It is, of course, as I'm sure you were yourself thinking, far more likely that Mike had been warned-off citing Eddie for his provenance story and therefore far more likely that Mike would have sat in 12 Goldie Street on the evening of March 9, 1992 thinking "Right, if I can persuade Fast Eddie in The Saddle to fence me the dodgy dossier, but I'm not to mention his name, I'll need some other story for how I got my mitts on what could be a blockbuster. Hmmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmmmmm. Hmmmmmm. Wait a minute - It's been staring me in the ****ing face! I'll say I got it from the drummer of the Stone Roses!".

Later, when Mike realised that David Baddiel was planning to do that gag far better than he could in a few years time, he'd have further mused, "Okay, the drummer of the Stone Roses is out. How about someone I actually know who is somewhat more brown bread now than when I knew them? Who do I know who has recently gone up to the great bakery in the sky? Hmmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmmmmm. Hmmmmmm. Wait a minute - It's been staring me in the ****ing face! I'll say I got it from that local bloke who pegged it not that long ago. Used to have a pint in The Saddle. What was his name? Stony Roserose? Stony Darederose? Stony Neverdo? That's it - Stony Devereux!".

And by this means the Stony Devereux story passed into Ripperology folklore.

Now, try quoting me on that theory in seven years time!

Ike

Love it, Ike.

Diary World is a funny old place. If you ever frequent the Lechmere, Stride or Kate's bloody Apron threads, you will find posters happily spitballing all over the shop, proposing different scenarios almost on a daily basis, to see which might better explain the same old evidence that has hardly altered since Queen Victoria finally got off the throne.

You won't find RJ hanging around anywhere else on the boards, laughing and pointing at the individual poster who does this, then changes their mind, often within hours, in favour of some other idea. It's very much par for the course.

But here, where the information isn't static, and some of the players are still alive and have been adding to the record from 9th March 1992 to this day, RJ will waste his and everyone else's time, over and over again, by dredging up old spitballing posts on the diary and watch, and saying "Gotcha!" where he perceives the merest change in a poster's thinking today, from what they may have written years ago.

RJ is a smart chap, so why he does it is anyone's guess.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Thank you kindly.

When I calculated the proportion of my puns that got picked up on by the average true Barrett believer, I found that no pun in ten did.

Love,

Caz
X

Caz,

That was so clever, I've only just spotted it!!!!!!!!!!!

Doh!

Ike

[StevenOwl]

Your memory is getting worse, RJ. We've been through all this before, but here you are, trotting out the same bilge about Eddie not being the kind of genius who could have recalled the actual dates when he worked at 7 Riversdale Rd.

As you say quite rightly, it is standard procedure to verify people's memories with contemporary documentation.

And guess what?

While Eddie [re 9th March 1992] and Brian Rawes [re 17th July 1992] naturally enough didn't reel off the actual dates concerned - that would just be weird - what they did recall about their individual roles and experiences at the house was found to correspond precisely with what their boss, Colin Rhodes, was able to provide, from his own contemporary records as well as his personal recollections of whom he sent where, when and why.

So much so, that neither Eddie nor Brian could have been remembering any other occasions, so the dates fell into place without them needing to supply them.

It's not a magic trick, and in fact it's the proper way to proceed, in order to confirm the witnesses must actually have been where they said they were, and doing what they said they did, on the relevant dates down on record.

I really don't get why anyone would struggle with this one - I think they're being deliberately obtuse. I'm sure there'll come a day when Geoff Hurst won't remember if he played for England on July 30th 1966, but you can bet your life that he'll still recall the time he played for England at Wembley beating Germany 4-2 to lift the World Cup.

[Iconoclast]

I really don't get why anyone would struggle with this one - I think they're being deliberately obtuse. I'm sure there'll come a day when Geoff Hurst won't remember if he played for England on July 30th 1966, but you can bet your life that he'll still recall the time he played for England at Wembley beating Germany 4-2 to lift the World Cup.

With the most important two-goal hat-trick he ever scored!

[StevenOwl]

With the most important two-goal hat-trick he ever scored!

Thank God West Ham were there to win the World Cup for us, eh?

[rjpalmer]

Your memory is getting worse, RJ.

Do you mean Shirley's memory? As I said, I was going by what she wrote about Eddie on page 292 of her book, and she writes that Rawes dated these events to June.




I suppose you could ring Shirley and give her the same right good bollocking you gave me, but that wouldn't be very nice, would it?

Kindest regards,

R P

[Iconoclast]

Thank God West Ham were there to win the World Cup for us, eh?

Yes indeed, Steven, and young Bobby would have been excused at season's end in 1967 if he'd spent the month wondering why he wasn't climbing the old Wembley steps to collect another trophy but was having to help the missus in the garden instead.

I have a huge soft spot for the Hammers - always a team set up to play attacking football. Just as long as it isn't this afternoon, though ...

Ike

[Iconoclast]

why are caz keith skinner and paul begg always on the side of those who beleive the diary is authentic? dont they all admit its a hoax? should they not be arguing against the gullible beleivers? all very odd. but i think everyone knows the reason why.

Hi Abby,

You posed the above questions recently, but I think Keith responded to essentially the same set of questions ("Do you believe the diary is an old hoax, new hoax or real deal and why?") from you back in 2018 on the Acquiring a Victorian Diary thread (#538 and #539) so I thought it was worth re-posting his thoughts as I know he doesn't post on the Casebook anymore.

Cheers,

Ike

[Originally posted on Keith's behalf by James J, by the way ...]

01-20-2018, 09:17 AM
Hi Abby, Just passing this on from Keith.

Abby Normal

Thank you for your welcome and questions. Although Im not officially on board yet and it is of course subject to the Administrators approval as to whether my application is accepted Ive asked James if he can smuggle in my response!

At the Liverpool Conference I gave my position as follows that I did not believe James Maybrick penned the Diary and neither did I believe it was physically written by Michael Barrett. I hear the arguments that JMs handwriting could have altered if internal and external influences were at work. The same observation must therefore apply to Michael Barrett. From memory I think I am correct in recalling that Mike J.G. put up a post where he argued that, although an individuals personality might dramatically change under abnormal circumstances and extreme psychological trauma and that persons handwriting have no resemblance to his normal, conventional style, nevertheless certain characteristics might remain consistent letter formation and structure spacing spelling maybe. I dont know if this is correct but Mike J.Gs post was one which chimed very much with my thinking although he expressed it far better than I could. We now have copious examples of Maybricks formal hand and in a perfect world, with funds available, I would be pushing for an expert, scientific comparison analysis of the many examples we have of Maybricks formal handwriting against the handwriting in the Diary.

Do I believe the Diary is an old hoax?
Do I believe the Diary is a new hoax?
Do I believe the Diary is the real deal?

I cannot, Im afraid, answer any of those questions. I cant get that far because the Diary is still a suspect document without a provenance. Up until circa 2004 I accepted Anne Grahams story, albeit it with reservations as there was no evidential support. But, for me, it was the only game in town. Mike Barrett had failed to conclusively prove he faked the Diary. His sworn affidavits still stand though and cannot be ignored. Moreover, Annes story, no matter how strange the circumstances and motive for her secreting the Diary to Mike via a third person who she hoped would not reveal it came from her, at least took the chain of transmission back to Tony Devereux and then back to her. That is where the trail ended for me in 2002. In 2004, Bruce Robinson commissioned me to help with the research on his book and very much as a side issue just asked me to take another look into the Diarys provenance. We discussed the stories associated with the electricians.

I had not been part of Paul Feldmans investigation into the electricians and had accepted Pauls conclusion that they were just a bunch of shysters out to fleece him for whatever money they could. But I had never fully bothered myself with the reasons why Paul had eliminated the electricians from his enquiries. It was only when I had sight of the timesheets and saw the coincidence of that March 9th 1992 date( when work, apparently involving floorboards being lifted in the room where James Maybrick died) on the same day that Michael Barrett (using a false surname of Williams) telephoned a London Literary Agent claiming he had the Diary of Jack The Ripper, did I wonder whether the two events might be connected.) That was the moment I began to seriously wonder why Paul Feldman had taken the electricians out of the frame?

Somewhat feebly I always return to Paul Beggs three key questions posited in 1992:-

Who wrote the Diary?
When was it written?
Why was it written?

Im sorry if you dont find my reply satisfactory but perhaps it will give you a glimpse into my position. I hope so.

What is your own answer to your three questions?

Best Wishes, Keith.