One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

I can’t quite determine whether that is Paul Feldman sitting next to Anne Graham or whether the producers did a dirty trick and sat her next to Melvin Harris. I think we get a shot of Melvin a little later on.

[Iconoclast]

I think it's safe to say that Anne would only have agreed to appear if she was not asked anything about the diary that she had not otherwise already gone public about.

Hi Again, Milky,

Keith Skinner was one of the historical researchers for the programme and he tells me (via email) that:

[Milchmanuk] might like to know I was one of the consultants (along with Stewart Evans) on this programme. [Caroline Brown] was at LWT on the night the programme was recorded and has her own memories. So I can confirm that Anne wanted nothing to do with the programme for which - along with everybody else - she would have been paid an appearance fee or at the very least had her expenses covered. It was Jeremy Beadle who persuaded Anne to appear, conditional on her not being closely questioned about the diary.

So Anne was assured that her appearance would not become a grilling.

Keith then continues in response to my own concerns (expressed to him) that Anne could easily have been more proactive if she were telling the truth about seeing the scrapbook in 1968:

I suspect Anne would have been in a no win situation had she displayed the passion, conviction and commitment you would have liked to have seen - for then the accusation would probably have been "the lady doth protest too much, methinks". In all the years I worked closely with Anne, she never once tried to persuade me she was telling the truth - and she was bright enough to know I was forever looking to see if I could find a chink in her armour. Her position right from the start was - this is my story, take it or leave it - I could not care less what you think. Hence what you percieve as her wishy washy and understated attitude. (I think I'm correct in saying we got the last interview she ever gave on the diary in 2003 for Inside Story.)

I asked Caroline Brown ('Caz') for her memories of Anne on the night of the LWT broadcast, and she said:

I was in the Green Room on that occasion and the oddest thing that struck me about Anne was her reaction when we were chatting and I mentioned the watch to her, seeing Albert and Val Johnson out of the corner of my eye. Curiosity got the better of me because I had assumed that having a Maybrick artefact in common, Anne would have got to know them well and swapped stories very early on. But she cut me dead and made some excuse to remove herself, leaving me with the strongest impression that she wanted to avoid both the subject and the Johnsons at all costs.

Obviously, Caroline would be the first to admit that this was purely an opinion she formed about Anne's behaviour (and, obviously, Anne may simply have not got on with the Johnsons when they had met previously), but it is interesting to note that she actively avoided an opportunity to discuss the case with the only other people in the world to have declared possession of a potential James Maybrick artefact, and it does rather add to my suspicion that Anne's story was a convenient contrivance designed to shut up her errant husband and also her errant new-found friend, Paul Feldman, whose book on the subject of the Victorian scrapbook is absolutely fundamental to any consideration of the case and no commentary should be seriously considered without having read it in full at least once.

Obviously, the impossible 'double event' of March 9, 1992, is simply too compelling to ignore, making Anne's story the contrivance I suspect it was; but - also obviously - we do not know for certain so it is only right that we continue to explore what is possible (even if other circumstances rather strongly imply it isn't plausible).

Hope this is useful, Milky.

Cheers,

Ike

[rjpalmer]

Anne's story was a convenient contrivance designed to shut up her errant husband and also her errant new-found friend, Paul Feldman

What???!?

Her story was intended to shut up Paul Feldman?

That's clearly crazy--she actively encouraged him.

Here's Feldman's account of their private meeting at the Moat House, p. 162-163. He begins by telling her all about the Whittlesey Maybricks.





"You just might have something here, Paul."

And then she tells him her father was given the diary by his granny, who knew Alice Yapp.

How is that "shutting up" Feldman?

She may have voiced skepticism of Feldman's theories to others, but it is clear that she encouraged him in private.

And from reading Feldman's own account, so did Robbie Johnson.

[Iconoclast]

Those of us who are serious posters actually read up on the whole case rather than picking out convenient quotations from books we've never actually arsed ourselves to read properly and in full and then posting contentious one-word sentences designed to look like we know what we're talking about and someone else is way off the mark. This saves us looking like idiots, fortunately for us. As keen observers of the case, most of my dear readers will already know that Paul Feldman was bothering everybody in town in July 1994 which led directly to Anne Barrett (as she still was although she was already calling herself 'Anne Graham' again) seeking to shut him up by giving him her tale about "I seen the diary in 1968". She stopped him hounding Barrett's family along with her own friends and family. That's what shutting up is, I guess.

Word to the wise, guys: if you're going to post like you're some kind of authority, check your facts before you end up looking like a complete tit.

[rjpalmer]

Those of us who are serious posters actually read up on the whole case rather than picking out convenient quotations from books we've never actually arsed ourselves to read properly

The second book I ever read about the Whitechapel Murder case (or possibly the third--I was reading Tom Cullen's around the same time) was Paul Feldman's and this was twenty years ago. I've read it again fairly recently, though it certainly hasn't aged well.

It's strange that I've "never read his book properly" but immediately knew where to find Feldman's account of Anne Graham encouraging his barmy theories about the diary passing down through her family.

It's true that Anne initially attempted to stop Feldman and his researchers from prying into the private lives of Mike Barrett's relatives (and she got angry phone calls from her sister-in-law about it) but this in itself brings up an interesting point. Why was Mike's sister so convinced that Anne could put an end to it? Why on earth did she assume that Anne would know anything about the diary that Bongo Barrett had brought off an electrician in a pub, or would have any influence over the mad capped Feldman?

Unless she suspected...

But that's all from me for a good long while. I can see Thomas is now going to pretend that he and his fellow believers are the only ones that know anything about the diary saga. Next up Chris Jones and Daniel Dolgin will be accused of having a superficial understanding of the Maybrick case.

The duped are always the most hesitant to admit they've been duped. The psychology is not hard.

[milchmanuk]

hi ike,
yes interesting what your lady friend said about t.v. show and sitting near another artefact,
gives insight into the temperament she took towards people and all, i think.
that is interesting also why would she stick her neck out with a different story from anyone else about a book's provenance knowing full well the consciences' &consequence of investigative outcomes.
i have read earlier post why !
but at the moment i dont feel there the answer behind the women. (Not convinced myself).

[milchmanuk]

oh found the other thread about recent book i have a lot of catch-up reading what all feel and think about that book on the shelf.

[rjpalmer]

I notice that Christer Holmgren has posted a very interesting anecdote on JTR Forums. I hope he doesn't mind me reposting it here, and I'll supply a link at the bottom of this post.

It's relevance to this thread will be readily apparent to many.

"As the Missing Evidence was being shot, Edward Stow sat on information that family lore had it that Charles Lechmere was a very violent man. If I recall correctly, the source was a man called Dennis Lechmere.

"However, before Dennis Lechmere offered this information, Edward had asked him and the rest of the Lechmeres at a gathering if anybody of them could provide any stories about the carman, what he was like and how he treated people. The answer was a unanimous "no".

"Then Edward informed them that he was presuming that Charles Lechmere was actually Jack the Ripper, and having been given this information, Dennis (?) Lechmere changed his story and said that he now remembered that there had been stories about the bad and violent nature of the carman."


My only question is: was Dennis an electrician?

For those interested, the story has an interesting and relevant counterpart in Paul Feldman's The Final Chapter, p. 141-145.

Thanks again to Mr. Holmgren for this enlightening anecdote about human nature.

I should also add that, under the circumstances, Christer tells us that Dennis's claims were not passed on to the viewing audience.

Post #36

Inside Bucks Row 3rd Edition - Jack The Ripper Forums - Ripperology For The 21st Century (jtrforums.com)

[erobitha]

I notice that Christer Holmgren has posted a very interesting anecdote on JTR Forums. I hope he doesn't mind me reposting it here, and I'll supply a link at the bottom of this post.

It's relevance to this thread will be readily apparent to many.

"As the Missing Evidence was being shot, Edward Stow sat on information that family lore had it that Charles Lechmere was a very violent man. If I recall correctly, the source was a man called Dennis Lechmere.

"However, before Dennis Lechmere offered this information, Edward had asked him and the rest of the Lechmeres at a gathering if anybody of them could provide any stories about the carman, what he was like and how he treated people. The answer was a unanimous "no".

"Then Edward informed them that he was presuming that Charles Lechmere was actually Jack the Ripper, and having been given this information, Dennis (?) Lechmere changed his story and said that he now remembered that there had been stories about the bad and violent nature of the carman."


My only question is: was Dennis an electrician?

For those interested, the story has an interesting and relevant counterpart in Paul Feldman's The Final Chapter, p. 141-145.

Thanks again to Mr. Holmgren for this enlightening anecdote about human nature.

I should also add that, under the circumstances, Christer tells us that Dennis's claims were not passed on to the viewing audience.

Post #36

Inside Bucks Row 3rd Edition - Jack The Ripper Forums - Ripperology For The 21st Century (jtrforums.com)

I can only assume this is some kind of ham-fisted reference to the supposed offer of “how much is my information worth?” to Paul Feldman by one of the electricians, which prompted Paul to go running for the hills. This apparently said by an electrician who was not named by Feldman but most likely to be Eddie Lyons.

RJ wants readers to believe that Paul spotted a chancer and that he was right. Someone who will say whatever it is the listener wants to hear, if there could be something in it for them.

I guess this is an attempt to lay down some seeds of doubt for when Eddie may or may not come clean over the whole 9th of March 1992 affair.

If Eddie does confess, I doubt money will have very much to do with it.

[Iconoclast]

I can only assume this is some kind of ham-fisted reference to the supposed offer of “how much is my information worth?” to Paul Feldman by one of the electricians, which prompted Paul to go running for the hills. This apparently said by an electrician who was not named by Feldman but most likely to be Eddie Lyons.

RJ wants readers to believe that Paul spotted a chancer and that he was right. Someone who will say whatever it is the listener wants to hear, if there could be something in it for them.

I guess this is an attempt to lay down some seeds of doubt for when Eddie may or may not come clean over the whole 9th of March 1992 affair.

If Eddie does confess, I doubt money will have very much to do with it.

I think this is exactly what is being referred to, ero b.

"What is my confession worth?". Naturally, to the tunnel-visioned trained eye, ready to spot a forger at five hundred yards away, this must categorically be a confession that his confession would be made up in order to line his pocket - it's just obvious, isn't it?

Can anybody spot the potential flaw in this argument?

Ooh, ooh, me Sir, me!

How about the electrician in question genuinely did have something worthy of confessing but he - seeing his one-off payday coming into sight - wanted paying for the revealing of it?

And Feldman misunderstood the question? And therefore legged-it?

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Shifting this away from its original thread in an attempt to keep it on-message (and we all know you can post what you want on this, The Greatest Thread of All) ...

Dr Robert Wild: Well I'm flaming Wild. Come back, Mr Jones, when you have tried using your own aged brass tool, and I'll be happy to examine your etchings to see if they pass muster.

Hi Caz,

On the subject of Dr. Wild, what do you make of his claim (see below) that "This suggests that the particle had been embedded in the surface for some considerable time"?




I have absolutely no idea what the good doctor means when he said "In this investigation the etching process, which was continued for some 45minutes, only began to reveal zinc oxide" but I understand the King's English well enough to grasp that what this means to Dr. Wild is that this suggests that the particle has been embedded in the surface for some considerable time, to coin a phrase. I wonder what he (therefore I) meant by "some considerable time", though?

Dr. Wild's "some considerable time" was better defined (for those who might mendaciously wish to underestimate or misunderstand his ability to express time passing accurately) in the following paragraph when he famously wrote "Provided the watch has remained in a normal environment it would seem likely that the engravings were of several tens of years age".

Dr. Wild refers back to the findings of Dr. Turgoose when he notes that "in my opinion it is unlikely that anyone would have sufficient expertise to implant aged brass particles into the base of the engraving". Now, it would be easy to trip over here and - ego much bruised as you brush yourself off - start arguing that Dr. Wild was saying that someone with sufficient expertise could have implanted the brass particles deliberately recently. He is absolutely not saying that because we know that he believes the presence of the zinc oxide means that the suggestion is that the particle has been embedded for "some considerable time" and we know what he means by that). So, he's agreeing with Turgoose that a little bit of tomfoolery may have gone on with the etchings in the back of the watch, but Wild's conclusions categorically resist any argument that that could have been a recent fooling of the Tom. So best that none of us are so tomfooled, eh?

Are we not to understand from Lord Orsam and the Acolytes that the watch was a quick knock-off forgery almost certainly authored by Robbie Johnson (with or without Albert's blessing and with or without the Barretts' knowledge) which obviously would make it a very recent effort? How could Dr. Wild have been fooled by our forger's very recent creative hand which - our resident band of rogues would argue - managed to use an old, corroded instrument to embed old, corroded particles into the deepest recesses of the etchings whilst being careful to accurately capture James Maybrick's known signature so competently despite living in a pre-internet, pre-Maybrick-as-Jack-the-Spratt-McVitie world? If so, then how so?

Caz, the floor is yours, it seems ...

Ike

[rjpalmer]

A small footnote for those familiar with David Barrat's "Deep Dive" into the materials used to create the Maybrick hoax of 1992.

The diary has the following passage:



Setting aside the diarist's whimsical invocation of Irma Thomas's 1964 hit "Time is on My Side" (later covered by the Rolling Stones) the diarist unequivocally states that he cut off Kelly's nose. 'All of it.'

[Interestingly, Barrett must have by now realized his previous error in describing the Eddowes' murder. Earlier, he had his penperson write of the Mitre Square murder, "Her nose annoyed me, so I cut it off," whereas Dr. Brown had described the actual injury thus: "the tip of the nose was all but removed by an oblique cut from the bottom of the nasal bone to where the wings of the nose join on to the face.” The real murderer had actually failed to cut off the nose, and it had only been the tip.]

Returning to Miller's Court, Barrat notes this grisly detail of Kelly's nose being cut-off was mentioned by Odell, Underwood, and Fido. (The bit about placing 'it' all over the room, meanwhile, was a dubious claim given in both Odell and Underwood, also repeated by the hoaxer, but not in Fido).

It might be recalled, however, that Dr. Bond wrote the following in his post-mortem notes of the Mary Kelly murder:





Kelly's nose was only 'partly removed.'

Again, the hoaxer got it wrong. Not just wrong, but emphatically wrong, as he insists he cut it "all of it this time."

And since Bond doesn't mention flesh hanging from picture frames, etc., in all likelihood the hoaxer repeats no less than 3 errors about the Kelly crime scene, all in handwriting that is not Maybrick's and with ink that was still not fully bonded (pun intended) to the paper fibers in 1992.

One could argue that an 'old hoaxer' was working from The Star of 10 November 1888 and also from Richard Harding Davis's interview with Inspector Henry Moore in August 1889, but he sure as hell didn't also have access to an unpublished police inventory list in the City of London Police's possession, not available to the public until 1984.

Have a good afternoon.

[The Baron]

A small footnote for those familiar with David Barrat's "Deep Dive" into the materials used to create the Maybrick hoax of 1992.

The diary has the following passage:



Setting aside the diarist's whimsical invocation of Irma Thomas's 1964 hit "Time is on My Side" (later covered by the Rolling Stones) the diarist unequivocally states that he cut off Kelly's nose. 'All of it.'

[Interestingly, Barrett must have by now realized his previous error in describing the Eddowes' murder. Earlier, he had his penperson write of the Mitre Square murder, "Her nose annoyed me, so I cut it off," whereas Dr. Brown had described the actual injury thus: "the tip of the nose was all but removed by an oblique cut from the bottom of the nasal bone to where the wings of the nose join on to the face.” The real murderer had actually failed to cut off the nose, and it had only been the tip.]

Returning to Miller's Court, Barrat notes this grisly detail of Kelly's nose being cut-off was mentioned by Odell, Underwood, and Fido. (The bit about placing 'it' all over the room, meanwhile, was a dubious claim given in both Odell and Underwood, also repeated by the hoaxer, but not in Fido).

It might be recalled, however, that Dr. Bond wrote the following in his post-mortem notes of the Mary Kelly murder:





Kelly's nose was only 'partly removed.'

Again, the hoaxer got it wrong. Not just wrong, but emphatically wrong, as he insists he cut it "all of it this time."

And since Bond doesn't mention flesh hanging from picture frames, etc., in all likelihood the hoaxer repeats no less than 3 errors about the Kelly crime scene, all in handwriting that is not Maybrick's and with ink that was still not fully bonded (pun intended) to the paper fibers in 1992.

One could argue that an 'old hoaxer' was working from The Star of 10 November 1888 and also from Richard Harding Davis's interview with Inspector Henry Moore in August 1889, but he sure as hell didn't also have access to an unpublished police inventory list in the City of London Police's possession, not available to the public until 1984.

Have a good afternoon.

Devastating!

Thank you Roger, happy that you got this, if it was a diary defender who noticed it we would have not heard of it..

And yet another bumbling error in the diary.. those buffoons just keep coming and proliferating endlessly..


TB

[rjpalmer]

I should have mentioned that R. Harding Davis's interview with Inspector Moore didn't appear in the UK until November 1889, when it appeared in the PMG and other papers.

By this time Alice Yapp had left Liverpool and moved to London and, judging by the census reports, never returned. How the old hoaxer managed to get this bit in a post-November 1889 hoax and into Yapp's hands in London so she could return it Battlecrease and into the hands of Elizabeth Formby (who she almost certainly didn't know) is anyone's guess.

[rjpalmer]

And yet another bumbling error in the diary.. those buffoons just keep coming and proliferating endlessly..

We'll have to wait and see, Baron, but I suppose we might learn that room in Miller's Court was so dark that not only did Bond fail to see the obvious 'FM' written large on the backwall, he also wasn't able to see that the nose was entirely removed, nor the breasts on the side table which he accidently identified as flaps from the abdomen, etc.