One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

Palmer can do what he likes with it. I never intended to mislead anyone, and I apologise if Palmer was misled at the time of posting. I do know that Voller had to hold the open diary up to a window in October 1995, in order to see the very faint bronzing on certain words on certain pages, and I would be interested in Palmer's source for any previous examiner claiming on record to have scoured all 63 pages, specifically looking for the faintest hint of bronzing anywhere in the diary and finding none.

Obviously I would dismiss any such claim, either made or implied by Palmer, as inaccurate, unsourced and misleading, if he can't locate a source.

One person who had as much access to the diary as he possibly wanted but who saw no signs of bronzing was none other than Robert Smith himself.

In a letter to Nick Warren in 1994, Smith was utterly unconcerned about the diary's lack of bronzing--a bizarre attitude had he noticed any in 1992 or 1993!

Melvin Harris quoted Smith's letter in a post to Keith Skinner on this forum as far back as 14 June 2000:

[rjpalmer]

Yes, I am suggesting that someone did indeed look at every line of the 63-page diary in 1992 and failed to see any bronzing. He was Dr. David Baxendale. My source is Baxendale himself, as reported by Melvin Harris in 2000.

ON THE AGE OF THE DIARY INK: By Melvin Harris.

In July 1992, Dr. David Baxendale examined the Diary handwriting line-by-line using a Zeiss binocular-microscope. At that time not the slightest trace of age-bronzing was found. Yet this phenomenon should have been present in an iron-based ink that was years old, certainly in one said to have been applied in 1888-9. Following that, in October 1992 Dr. Nicholas Eastaugh also saw no signs of age-bronzing. (Emphasis added).

The next examination of the Diary pages took place in August 1993, and was conducted by Warner Books' commissioned examiners. The members of this team were free to express their independent views. Neither Kenneth Rendell, Dr. Joe Nickell, Maureen Casey Owens or Robert Kuranz saw any signs of age-bronzing. And my own limited examination of the Diary pages, in October 1993, led to the same conclusion.

In December 1994 an examination by surgeon Nick Warren led him to write to Robert Smith and underscore the significance of this lack of age-bronzing. Smith replied; AGREED to the absence of bronzing but tried to minimise its value as evidence, saying: "Neither Dr. Eastaugh...nor Leeds University, nor Robert AH Smith Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, found a problem with the colour of the ink."
Then very ate in the day, some three and a half years late, Alec Voller saw the Diary for the first time. His scrutiny on October 30th 1995 led him to find some traces of age-bronzing and fading in the ink. From this, he wrongly concluded that the ink was old. At no time was he told by Smith or Harrison that the observable changes HAD to be recent, since they had not existed in previous years. Neither did Alec Voller realise that tests set up in 1995 with his help, would in time, invalidate his views completely.

In brief, he made up samples of the original Diamine manuscript ink and sent these to both Smith & Co. and Nick Warren, for them to experiment with. The Smith/Harrison camp seems to have done nothing. By contrast, Nick Warren sent me a letter written in the ink using both a fountain pen and a Victorian steel nibbed pen. By 1998 the fountain pen lines were showing signs of bronzing while the thinner, steel nib section was distinctly bronzed in every word. Today, the bronzing is extensive. This proves that Diamine manuscript ink will age in under three years. Equally ANY iron-gall manuscript ink, using nigrosine, can be expected to behave in a similar fashion.

Thus his sight-viewing of the Diary, some three and a half years after its arrival in London, could not lead to any useful observations touching on age. But he did state that the ink used Nigrosine, which is in line with Dr. Baxendale's tests and Dr Eastaugh's findings, but clashes directly with the Leeds report which denied the very existence of Nigrosine in its samples!

[caz]

What is all this bizarre talk about elephants?

What troublesome elephants are supposed to be in hiding in plain sight?

They are all in Palmer's room, or should that be circus tent, vying for attention while he gives it all to a hopeless liar, who didn't even date the auction to the only viable day for the April Fool's Creation theory, in spite of claiming to have retained the ticket which would supposedly have proved when his Edwardian/Victorian scrapbook was obtained.

I suppose Palmer is fortunate that the elephants are all in his tent peeing out, rather than outside peeing in, but they are there all the same, trampling all over Mike's lies.

Keith Skinner, who is apparently the chief investigator of the 'Eddie Lyons stole the Diary in 1992' provenance, was quoted on this forum as recently as three weeks ago stating that"like it or not, Anne Graham's provenance still stands." In other words, in his view, there is not yet enough compelling evidence to conclusively dismiss the idea that Anne Graham had seen the diary as early as 1968/9 and had given it to Tony Devereux sometime around July 1991. All of which would render the 'Eddie did it' theory bogus and irrelevant.

Now, I personally don't believe Anne Graham, but that's not the point. I am merely questioning the strength of the evidence that Caz thinks is so wildly compelling.

If it is so strong, why does Keith seem to be unconvinced? In other words, if Caroline's laundry list of elephants--'Martin-Wright', brown paper, etc--hasn't even convince Keith Skinner to finally and conclusively dismiss Anne Graham's account, why on earth does she think this same laundry list of vague claims will somehow convince those who believe the diary is an obvious enough modern hoax?

Maybe she should expend her efforts trying to convince Keith first, and then work her way up to convincing the rest of the world.

Personally, I don't find any of it compelling, and she seems unwilling or unable to even give her source for an electrician describing "brown paper."

If Palmer's interpretation of what Keith stated is what Keith meant, then Keith has assured me via email that he would have written that. He also told me:

'The fact that I am 100% with you that the evidence we have is compelling and strongly points towards the diary coming out of Battlecrease House does not negate Anne's story or prove she is lying. Perhaps Palmer could point out where I have said I am not convinced by the strength of our evidence? But the reason Anne gave for why she did what she did remains part of the historical record until such time as it is disproved as far as I am concerned.'

Keith wonders why Palmer doesn't have the courage of his convictions and contact Anne to put his beliefs to her, which have nothing to do with our own line of investigation, which Palmer naturally dismisses, as he is free to do. But if he makes some weak and feeble excuse, that he doesn't know how to contact her, or that she wouldn't want to correspond with him anyway, he is free to do that too, if he has no serious desire to end this lengthy dispute, which Anne could do for him by telling the truth, preferably with evidence to back it up. Keith has his own reasons for not yet contacting Anne again since the last time, but then he is not claiming that she had any hand in the diary's creation. That's Palmer.

From my own point of view, what Palmer misses in all of this is that I'm not expecting to 'convince' the Barrett hoax theorists with the elephants in the room. The believers are way beyond seeing, or considering seriously, anything that is unpalatable or inconsistent with their faith.

It would be refreshing, however, if Palmer could at least try to reconcile the elephants with his diary creation theory, and not simply dismiss them all as nothing to see here, or nothing more than 'vague claims'. That, my friends, is a total cop-out, and fails to address the clear implication that Brian Rawes and Tim Martin-Wright, among several others, would have to be liars on the same scale as Mike Barrett.

Brian Rawes recalled Eddie telling him, on 17th July 1992, about his Battlecrease find. Brian gave his account to Scotland Yard in October 1993, but never had any contact with Feldman, arguably because he had only been interested, back in April 1993, in the P&R electricians who had actually worked in the house.

Arthur Rigby, who was working there on Floorboards Day, went to see Paul Dodd in the summer of 1993, to deny any involvement in theft, but also named Eddie, along with Jim Bowling, as two electricians who knew about it. That too was made known to Scotland Yard in October 1993.

With Eddie's understandable denial, and the diary by then safely in Robert Smith's hands anyway, with its ownership not being contested by Paul Dodd, there could have been no further action from Scotland Yard on the theft or fraud fronts.

Tim Martin-Wright recalls with great clarity the conversation with his employee at APS about Jack the Ripper's diary, which was found during a rewire and thought to still be up for grabs, but then turned out to have changed hands in an Anfield pub at some unspecified date. The conversation took place before Feldman became involved, and before the public was first made aware of such a diary emerging.

Palmer knows about the brown paper because I've pointed this out on several previous occasions. But he evidently sees this as a soft target, compared with the tough old elephants crowding his tent and getting in the way of his never ending search for Mike's auction ticket.

Helpful hint: I submit that Mike only said in his affidavit that he had broken the auction rules by taking the ticket with him, so that when any enquiries made at O&L for the sale of an Edwardian photo album to a Mr Williams inevitably drew a blank - for whichever month or year might be considered - he would have the perfect excuse. I also submit that Mike didn't think of using this mythical ticket as his personal proof of purchase until 1999, when he claimed to have it on him at the April Smoke & Stagger. He knew that enquiries made since 1995 must have failed to find any trace, or nobody would be asking to see the ticket when he arrived in London. It was by then just a white elephant, as the 1891 diary had been a red herring since 1995.

The brown paper package does of course have a faint whiff of Feldman about it, but nothing like the pen and ink from the other pachyderms.

Briefly, the electrician who identified Eddie Lyons and Jim Bowling to Feldman in April 1993 [six months before Shirley's book was published] and sent him in their direction, said he had been in a car with the two men and noticed a parcel wrapped in brown paper under the front passenger seat.

Feldman must have gone on to dismiss this detail as an invention, along with everything else, but there is no suggestion that he had introduced it to the electrician concerned first, or to any of his other contacts. Feldman wrote: '(Mike Barrett had always said that Tony Devereux had given him the diary wrapped in brown paper with string tied round it.)' If Feldman himself had passed on this information to any of his contacts, he could have said so, and it would have explained how one of them was able to feed it straight back to him, without having any personal knowledge of it. But I'm not sure if Feldman himself knew anything about any brown paper as early as April 1993, and I see no particular reason why anyone would have thought to tell him at that time.

What Feldman didn't appear to appreciate, when preparing his defence of the decision to ditch the electricians as liars and conmen, is that none of the electricians should have known Mike Barrett from Adam in April 1993, let alone what Mike had said about the diary coming to him from Devereux wrapped in the brown paper that would be seen in London on 13th April 1992. And if they'd known this was being claimed for 1991, they'd also have known that any 'confession' they might make would fall at the first hurdle and be worth precisely nothing when it was found that they didn't even set foot in Dodd's house until 1992.

[caz]

One person who had as much access to the diary as he possibly wanted but who saw no signs of bronzing was none other than Robert Smith himself.

In a letter to Nick Warren in 1994, Smith was utterly unconcerned about the diary's lack of bronzing--a bizarre attitude had he noticed any in 1992 or 1993!

Melvin Harris quoted Smith's letter in a post to Keith Skinner on this forum as far back as 14 June 2000:

Has Robert's actual letter to Nick Warren been posted anywhere? If not, why not?

I'm sure it would clear the matter up nicely if we could all see the whole thing, or if Palmer could post a link to it.

[caz]

Yes, I am suggesting that someone did indeed look at every line of the 63-page diary in 1992 and failed to see any bronzing. He was Dr. David Baxendale. My source is Baxendale himself, as reported by Melvin Harris in 2000.

ON THE AGE OF THE DIARY INK: By Melvin Harris.

In July 1992, Dr. David Baxendale examined the Diary handwriting line-by-line using a Zeiss binocular-microscope. At that time not the slightest trace of age-bronzing was found. Yet this phenomenon should have been present in an iron-based ink that was years old, certainly in one said to have been applied in 1888-9. Following that, in October 1992 Dr. Nicholas Eastaugh also saw no signs of age-bronzing. (Emphasis added).

The next examination of the Diary pages took place in August 1993, and was conducted by Warner Books' commissioned examiners. The members of this team were free to express their independent views. Neither Kenneth Rendell, Dr. Joe Nickell, Maureen Casey Owens or Robert Kuranz saw any signs of age-bronzing. And my own limited examination of the Diary pages, in October 1993, led to the same conclusion.

In December 1994 an examination by surgeon Nick Warren led him to write to Robert Smith and underscore the significance of this lack of age-bronzing. Smith replied; AGREED to the absence of bronzing but tried to minimise its value as evidence, saying: "Neither Dr. Eastaugh...nor Leeds University, nor Robert AH Smith Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, found a problem with the colour of the ink."
Then very ate in the day, some three and a half years late, Alec Voller saw the Diary for the first time. His scrutiny on October 30th 1995 led him to find some traces of age-bronzing and fading in the ink. From this, he wrongly concluded that the ink was old. At no time was he told by Smith or Harrison that the observable changes HAD to be recent, since they had not existed in previous years. Neither did Alec Voller realise that tests set up in 1995 with his help, would in time, invalidate his views completely.

In brief, he made up samples of the original Diamine manuscript ink and sent these to both Smith & Co. and Nick Warren, for them to experiment with. The Smith/Harrison camp seems to have done nothing. By contrast, Nick Warren sent me a letter written in the ink using both a fountain pen and a Victorian steel nibbed pen. By 1998 the fountain pen lines were showing signs of bronzing while the thinner, steel nib section was distinctly bronzed in every word. Today, the bronzing is extensive. This proves that Diamine manuscript ink will age in under three years. Equally ANY iron-gall manuscript ink, using nigrosine, can be expected to behave in a similar fashion.

Thus his sight-viewing of the Diary, some three and a half years after its arrival in London, could not lead to any useful observations touching on age. But he did state that the ink used Nigrosine, which is in line with Dr. Baxendale's tests and Dr Eastaugh's findings, but clashes directly with the Leeds report which denied the very existence of Nigrosine in its samples!

Palmer's source here is Melvin Harris.

Where does Baxendale himself write that in July 1992, he:

'examined the Diary handwriting line-by-line using a Zeiss binocular-microscope. At that time not the slightest trace of age-bronzing was found' ?

I'm sure it would clear the matter up nicely if we could all see Baxendale speaking up for himself, if Palmer could post a link to it.

[rjpalmer]

Could I request that if Keith Skinner wishes to address me (and, of course, that's entirely up to him--he need not do so) will he please log on to this forum and do so directly, or if he prefers, contact me by email? I am not comfortable with discussing these matters through an increasingly combative third party acting as an intermediary or liaison. Such methods can only lead to mischief.

Reading the above message, it's not even clear what remarks are made by Keith and what remarks are made by Caz, and I would like to avoid confusion. I see that Keith's account is still active in the 'Membership' directory at this website, so he certainly has the ability to communicate directly if he so choses rather than speak through a firewall provided by Caz or Thomas Mitchell.

Frankly, I don't think I am saying anything that hasn't occurred to other people. If Keith is 100% convinced that the evidence shows that the diary came out of Dodd's house in March 1992, then it is bizarre in the extreme to suggest or imply that Anne Graham's 'in the family' provenance still stands. It's an obvious contradiction. Why would it still stand?

Obviously, both provenances can't be true, but they surely can both be false.

What I object to is that Keith is allowed to maintain at least a modicum of belief in Anne Graham's story even though he finds the 'Eddie Lyons' evidence convincing or compelling, but at the same time Caz Brown argues that the 'Eddie Lyons' evidence (a man who denies everything!) is so compelling that anyone who still believes the diary is a modern fake must be a dunce or a mental patient or living in denial. It's an obvious exercise in double-talk, and I don't care for double-talk.

[caz]

One person who had as much access to the diary as he possibly wanted but who saw no signs of bronzing was none other than Robert Smith himself.

In a letter to Nick Warren in 1994, Smith was utterly unconcerned about the diary's lack of bronzing--a bizarre attitude had he noticed any in 1992 or 1993!

Melvin Harris quoted Smith's letter in a post to Keith Skinner on this forum as far back as 14 June 2000:

I can't see where, in the quote above from Robert Smith's letter to Warren, he specifically says that there was no 'bronzing' in the diary at the time of writing in 1994?

Robert refers to some unspecified comment by Warren about 'browning' and says that this is not, as far as he knows, 'conclusive', but it's not clear where Warren had been going with this, and Robert goes on to mention the use of iron in Victorian inks and says that he has a large number of such documents which have not 'bronzed', some of which were examined and compared with the diary ink by Eastaugh. Robert said that no 'problem' was found with the 'colour' of the diary ink by Robert A.H. Smith at the British Library [on 13th April 1992], or Eastaugh, or Leeds.

Surely what matters is whether the very faint bronzing in the diary is, or ever was, obvious or extensive, and crucially whether it was provably absent in April 1992, and had provably increased since Baxendale.

Regarding the following observation I made in a post at the end of 2017, which Palmer posted a few days ago and disputed:

Originally posted by caz View Post
Robert Smith would testify to the fact that the 'very slight', 'barely visible' bronzing in 'one or two places', as observed by Voller in 1995, was already there when he first examined it in 1992 and had not increased by 1995, or increased since then, remaining the same 'very slight' bronzing today.

I alerted Robert via email, and asked him to correct me if I had misinterpreted what he had told me privately about this, and last evening he responded:

'Re the bronzing, you are quite correct that I did say or write those words. The bronzing was not at all obvious, and given Baxendale's retraction of his first report, it would have been amazing if he had noticed it. I can say now that subsequent to Voller's observation on October 20^th 1995, to my inexpert eye there has been no progression of bronzing since 1995. It seems highly unlikely that it would have developed between 1992 and 1995 and then no further in the next 28 years.'

[caz]

Could I request that if Keith Skinner wishes to address me (and, of course, that's entirely up to him--he need not do so) will he please log on to this forum and do so directly, or if he prefers, contact me by email? I am not comfortable with discussing these matters through an increasingly combative third party acting as an intermediary or liaison. Such methods can only lead to mischief.

Reading the above message, it's not even clear what remarks are made by Keith and what remarks are made by Caz, and I would like to avoid confusion. I see that Keith's account is still active in the 'Membership' directory at this website, so he certainly has the ability to communicate directly if he so choses rather than speak through a firewall provided by Caz or Thomas Mitchell.

Frankly, I don't think I am saying anything that hasn't occurred to other people. If Keith is 100% convinced that the evidence shows that the diary came out of Dodd's house in March 1992, then it is bizarre in the extreme to suggest or imply that Anne Graham's 'in the family' provenance still stands. It's an obvious contradiction. Why would it still stand?

Obviously, both provenances can't be true, but they surely can both be false.

What I object to is that Keith is allowed to maintain at least a modicum of belief in Anne Graham's story even though he finds the 'Eddie Lyons' evidence convincing or compelling, but at the same time Caz Brown argues that the 'Eddie Lyons' evidence (a man who denies everything!) is so compelling that anyone who still believes the diary is a modern fake must be a dunce or a mental patient or living in denial. It's an obvious exercise in double-talk, and I don't care for double-talk.

What 'mischief' does Palmer have in mind?

Keith would soon let me know if I ever stepped out of line, so when Palmer writes this kind of divisive stuff, he will only succeed in implicating Keith in whatever 'mischief' he imagines I am indulging in myself.

I don't know how much direct quoting by Keith I am allowed, which is why I only use short quotes and paraphrase the rest as closely as my language skills allow.

But here's a short and sweet direct response from Keith to Palmer's request:

'No - I have no desire to address Palmer direct as he has demonstrated in post after post the inflexibilty of his thinking and that he cannot understand it is the collective evidence which is so compelling and not just EL in isolation.'

Perhaps Palmer could quit the mischief-making and quote me arguing that any modern fake believer must be 'a dunce or a mental patient or living in denial'.

Firstly, I don't think I have ever used, or would ever use, the words 'mental patient' in a perjorative sense. Secondly, I would be including myself as one, as I have repeatedly said I would be open to the diary being written at any time up to 8th March 1992, if that's what the evidence clearly dictated, but not a day later, while the evidence for a Barrett fake is so woefully inadequate compared with the wealth of evidence for a Barrett fence.

[caz]

Going back briefly to the sun lamp business, one thing Palmer and I can agree on is that the uneven fading of the ink in the diary is not a result of the Barretts using any kind of accelerated fading apparatus on the pages.

Nobody to my knowledge has claimed that the fading was not already in evidence back in April 1992, and indeed Palmer's suggestion, that a Barrett may have produced the effect by accident, by 'randomly' dipping the nib in water from time-to-time', was presumably made on that basis.

Voller said at the time of his visual examination that this fading was "quite characteristic of permanent manuscript inks of some considerable age".

But Voller also observed elsewhere that if the ink is within the pages of a closed book, it won't fade due to exposure to sunlight, which implies that other factors connected with the ink's properties would have to be the cause.

Books of some considerable age tend not to have all their pages frequently exposed to natural daylight, which does rather argue against a hoaxer spending any time, effort or hard cash to simulate a century's worth of natural fading within the pages of a book that is meant to have been closed and hidden away somewhere the sun don't shine since 1889. The whole accelerated fading apparatus idea - even using a humble sun lamp - was arguably the only way Voller could reconcile his own opinions with whatever Warren was telling him about the diary being a recent Barrett fake using Diamine.

Whenever the diary was written, and whoever penned it, it is quite feasible to imagine it taking place of an evening, in artificial light, and the book remaining closed during daylight hours. Anne would have been at work in term time, in early April 1992, so that would have applied in her case too. The clocks would have just gone forward an hour, but I doubt it would have been light enough outside by the time she settled down with pen and ink [and the 'pen and ink' of the linseed oil].

The first known exposure of any of the pages to sunlight was in Doreen's office on Monday 13th April 1992, when the brown paper came off and the book was opened. Mike took it home with him the same day and it was lodged with the bank for safe keeping not long afterwards. It was taken out for photocopying and then down to London again for the day on 4th June, and was with Baxendale on 22nd. After that, the ink's exposure to daylight was arguably more frequent, but all 63 pages would not have had equal or extended exposure, so yes, the uneven fading that so impressed Voller does call for a realistic explanation by those who insist that the Barretts were responsible for it.

I hope Palmer will watch where he's treading, with those elephants in his tent, still making the 'tusk' to reconcile their presence with Mike's auction acquisition as tricky as ever.

[rjpalmer]

What 'mischief' does Palmer have in mind?

Keith would soon let me know if I ever stepped out of line, so when Palmer writes this kind of divisive stuff, he will only succeed in implicating Keith in whatever 'mischief' he imagines I am indulging in myself.

What is 'divisive' about my comment?

I made a polite and entirely reasonable request for Keith to address me directly if he wants answers to his questions, because I refuse to work through an intermediary. If he doesn't want to do that, which is entirely his choice and within his right, then this conversation comes to a speedy end with no hard feelings--at least on my part.

This is a public forum, and anyone can log-on if they want--especially if they are already registered.

Frankly, if I was to post examples of the 'mischief' you weave, I'd soon have writer's cramp so by way of example I'll focus on one of your more recent attempts:

I'm hoping Tim will stick by his promise to cook me a lobster thermidor one day, or I may have to concede that Palmer is right if he thinks the man is another dirty rotten scoundrel who tells lies about the diary to whoever will listen.

These are the sort of cheap, transparent, and childish comments that make you a poor intermediary, Caz, and which waste everyone's time.

No one on this forum, other than yourself, has even remotely raised the specter of Martin-Wright being a 'scoundrel' or a 'liar.' What a ridiculous thing to write. You deliberately tailored your comment to imply otherwise through the disingenuous use of the word 'if,' and don't pretend that you didn't. So yes, I decline having you act as an intermediary.

Let's clear the air.

Personally, I don't know Martin-Wright from the Pope--never met the man and don't know anything about him--and thus I have utterly no reason to assume that he is anything other than respectable and sincere.

Yet, you seem to believe that we should be blown away by the fact that he once heard a rumor about a diary being sold. So what? As told by James Johnston, Martin-Wright couldn't pinpoint when he heard this conversation which, of course, is of vital importance to your theory.

After some poking around and some reflection, Mr. Martin-Wright seems to have narrowed it down to a six-month-span, some eighteen or twenty-four months in the past, ie., 1992, which hardly inspires confidence that he has a 'clear memory.' In another version (based on recent posts by you and Tom), he seems to have even accepted the possibility that he heard this rumor sometime in 1991, which means he couldn't pinpoint the conversation to a span any narrower than two years!

And all of this was merely a conversation he had--he didn't actually see this 'diary'--so it was hardly the memory of an important event in his life that would be emblazoned on his mind. There is some muddle over a hat rack and some dispute about when the shop where this conversation took place first opened.

The funny thing is--and I know for a fact that other people are confused by this--if Martin-Wright was entirely accurate it doesn't particularly help your theory, because by the time that this conversation supposedly took place, Barrett's The Diary of Jack the Ripper had already been in London for months. The story doesn't make any sense.

Here's an exercise.

Let's compare Martin-Wright's statement to a statement made by Paul Dodd. I'm going to assume that you don't view Dodd as a 'scoundrel and a liar.'

Asked by Paul Feldman in February 1993, Dodd stated that the electrical work on his house had occurred some four years earlier, ie., sometime in 1989.

In reality, it had been less than a year earlier. March 1992. This is a fact on record, you often tell us. Dodd is an entirely sincere and respectable man, of course, yet his memory was wildly off.

And this wasn't a mere conversation--it was workmen tramping in and out of his house, heaters being installed, and cheques that had to be written. Yet Paul had thought (incorrectly) that all of this took place years earlier. Lesson: human memory is not to be relied upon when it comes to the passage of time.

Couldn't Martin-Wright's memory have been equally at fault and, indeed, isn't this the most likely explanation?

It would hardly have been as inexplicable as Dodd's error. He would have only needed to shove his memory back four or five months for it to have occurred after the story of Jack the Ripper's diary had broken in the Liverpool Post, or a little longer to a time when Feldman was calling the electricians on the phone, politely accusing them of stealing from a client--something that was bound to kick the rumor mill into motion.

Sorry Caz, but I don't find this 'evidence' compelling. If you do, you're welcome to it. I find it strange that you have the ability to see the weakness of these sorts of 'evidences' when they are applied to Lechmere or Kozminski or Prince Eddie, but when applied to Maybrick or the Maybrick Diary your mind suddenly goes on holiday.

[caz]

I can't see where, in the quote above from Robert Smith's letter to Warren, he specifically says that there was no 'bronzing' in the diary at the time of writing in 1994?

Robert refers to some unspecified comment by Warren about 'browning' and says that this is not, as far as he knows, 'conclusive', but it's not clear where Warren had been going with this, and Robert goes on to mention the use of iron in Victorian inks and says that he has a large number of such documents which have not 'bronzed', some of which were examined and compared with the diary ink by Eastaugh. Robert said that no 'problem' was found with the 'colour' of the diary ink by Robert A.H. Smith at the British Library [on 13th April 1992], or Eastaugh, or Leeds.

Surely what matters is whether the very faint bronzing in the diary is, or ever was, obvious or extensive, and crucially whether it was provably absent in April 1992, and had provably increased since Baxendale.

Regarding the following observation I made in a post at the end of 2017, which Palmer posted a few days ago and disputed:



I alerted Robert via email, and asked him to correct me if I had misinterpreted what he had told me privately about this, and last evening he responded:

'Re the bronzing, you are quite correct that I did say or write those words. The bronzing was not at all obvious, and given Baxendale's retraction of his first report, it would have been amazing if he had noticed it. I can say now that subsequent to Voller's observation on October 20^th 1995, to my inexpert eye there has been no progression of bronzing since 1995. It seems highly unlikely that it would have developed between 1992 and 1995 and then no further in the next 28 years.'

One more observation from me regarding the colour of the diary ink - I strongly suspect that Nick Warren and Melvin Harris both assumed that Mike had bought and used Diamine to create the diary, just as he claimed [but not before the name of the ink had been suggested by others], and were therefore fully expecting it to have 'bronzed' on the paper since it was first seen in 1992, turning the writing to a brown colour and giving the game away. But once again, beginner's luck must have been with Mike, because there has been no discernible difference in the colour of the ink throughout the diary, from June 1992 to the present day. It was not 'brown' to begin with, and it never has gone 'brown'. It remains black/dark grey. How disappointed Warren and Harris would have been to see that.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

What is 'divisive' about my comment?

I made a polite and entirely reasonable request for Keith to address me directly if he wants answers to his questions, because I refuse to work through an intermediary. If he doesn't want to do that, which is entirely his choice and within his right, then this conversation comes to a speedy end with no hard feelings--at least on my part.

This is a public forum, and anyone can log-on if they want--especially if they are already registered.

I'm assuming that Keith doesn't want or need answers from Palmer badly enough, considering his response via email. I'm not his keeper, and Palmer can either take it or leave it, and if he wants to shoot the messenger while he's at it, that's fine by me, but it's not a great look.

No one on this forum, other than yourself, has even remotely raised the specter of Martin-Wright being a 'scoundrel' or a 'liar.' What a ridiculous thing to write. You deliberately tailored your comment to imply otherwise through the disingenuous use of the word 'if,' and don't pretend that you didn't. So yes, I decline having you act as an intermediary.

Hmmm. Palmer clearly didn't like the thought of Tim being one of the elephants in the room, but he has also failed dismally to suggest how he's going to be rid of him, in order to keep Bongo, the biggest liar and fantasist in his circus, as the Ringmaster, with his affidavit representing more than just the tears of a clown - when there's no-one around. So excuse me for wondering how Palmer is planning to dismiss Tim as an act that sucks by comparison to Mike's performance.

So shoot me - again. With the water pistol is okay.

Let's clear the air.

That would be a first.

Personally, I don't know Martin-Wright from the Pope--never met the man and don't know anything about him--and thus I have utterly no reason to assume that he is anything other than respectable and sincere.

Palmer is correct on both counts. Tim is also not a dunce, or a mental patient, or living in denial.

Yet, you seem to believe that we should be blown away by the fact that he once heard a rumor about a diary being sold. So what? As told by James Johnston, Martin-Wright couldn't pinpoint when he heard this conversation which, of course, is of vital importance to your theory.

Funny that. Palmer has argued repeatedly - and quite rightly - that Eddie could not have been expected to pinpoint when he worked in Dodd's house with the floorboards up, which is why he wasn't asked that question, and didn't need to be asked, because he was able to recall and describe the circumstances, down to the people he was working with at the time, sufficiently well to put his presence there on 9th March 1992 beyond doubt. The record confirmed his personal recollections.

After some poking around and some reflection, Mr. Martin-Wright seems to have narrowed it down to a six-month-span, some eighteen or twenty-four months in the past, ie., 1992, which hardly inspires confidence that he has a 'clear memory.' In another version (based on recent posts by you and Tom), he seems to have even accepted the possibility that he heard this rumor sometime in 1991, which means he couldn't pinpoint the conversation to a span any narrower than two years!

But Tim was recalling the conversation, and he knew it happened shortly after he had opened APS, and he is still trying to establish, with documentary proof, precisely when that was. He does know it was before 1993, which implies that no 'poking around' or 'reflection' was needed by him in that respect, and there is no reason why he should even be aware - let alone take into account - that Feldman only became involved in February 1993. In other words, he hasn't been 'got at', either by Feldman back then, or by Keith or James much more recently, or been persuaded by anyone but himself to exclude 1993 as too late.

The funny thing is--and I know for a fact that other people are confused by this--if Martin-Wright was entirely accurate it doesn't particularly help your theory, because by this time this conversation took place, Barrett's The Diary of Jack the Ripper had already been in London for months. The story doesn't make any sense.

So the conservation Tim had with his employee at APS, about Jack the Ripper's diary being up for grabs, only makes sense to Palmer if it was an invention by the employee and/or Tim? Or they were both imagining things? Or hallucinating? Or hoping to make money by selling their story?

Here's an exercise.

Oh, goody. I could do with some exercise.

Let's compare Martin-Wright's statement to a statement made by Paul Dodd. I'm going to assume that you don't view Dodd as a 'scoundrel and a liar.'

Asked by Paul Feldman in February 1993, Dodd stated that the electrical work on his house had occurred some four years earlier, ie., sometime in 1989.

In reality, it had been less than a year earlier. March 1992. This is a fact on record, you often tell us. Dodd is an entirely sincere and respectable man, of course, yet his memory was wildly off.

And this wasn't a mere conversation--it was workmen tramping in and out of his house, heaters being installed, and cheques that had to be written. Yet Paul had thought (incorrectly) that all of this took place years earlier. Lesson: human memory is not to be relied upon when it comes to the passage of time.

Couldn't Martin-Wright's memory have been equally at fault and, indeed, isn't this the most likely explanation?

I see what Palmer is doing here. But Dodd should not have needed to rely on human memory to pinpoint what was done and when, because, as Palmer himself points out, cheques had to be written and he could easily have consulted his bank statements if in any doubt - just as Anne did over the bloody red diary. There were also the P&R worksheets, with all the precise dates, job details and the costs of labour and materials. So Dodd was clearly not going out of his way to give these strangers on his doorstep the accurate information they wanted, about when he had Colin Rhodes's workmen 'tramping in and out of his house', and who could have blamed him? He knew Colin Rhodes personally, so his reasons for not digging out the dates and details of the work done by his crew could well have been sound but private, relating to confidentiality. Colin might or might not have been happy to give out that information himself.

Different kettle of fish with Tim, because it was Tim who came forward voluntarily with his information in 1994. Dodd was door-stepped the previous year, and may have appeared happier than he actually felt about helping with Feldman's pointed inquiries.

It would hardly have been as inexplicable as Dodd's error. He would have only needed to shove his memory back four or five months for it to have occurred after the story of Jack the Ripper's diary had broken in the Liverpool Post, or a little longer to a time when Feldman was calling the electricians on the phone, politely accusing them of stealing from a client--something that was bound to kick the rumor mill into motion.

And wouldn't Palmer just love that to have been the case? There is no reason why the electricians Feldman contacted in April 1993 should have shared their money-making scheme, or the knowledge of it, with Tim; no evidence that Tim knew them personally; and no evidence that Tim is the kind of fool who could have heard some vague rumour through the grapevine after April 1993, which didn't even concern him, and then just a year later recall this as a very specific conversation which involved him personally, but had taken place before the end of 1992.

Palmer wouldn't find anything 'compelling' enough to make him question his touching faith in Mike's affidavit and I'm not naive enough to think otherwise. But I'm also not here just for his benefit or I could have sent him a private message.

I realise that opinions differ, and that's normally a healthy thing, but Palmer is welcome to Mike's affidavit if he finds his claims even remotely 'compelling'. Mike would no doubt be splitting his sides somewhere if he was still with us.

[rjpalmer]

So the conservation Tim had with his employee at APS, about Jack the Ripper's diary being up for grabs, only makes sense to Palmer if it was an invention by the employee and/or Tim? Or they were both imagining things? Or hallucinating? Or hoping to make money by selling their story?

Can you read and comprehend the English language? No wonder everyone avoids the Maybrick Hoax like the plague.

To Keith Skinner:

I have no problem writing to Anne Graham, but it is hardly 'feeble' to be uncertain how to do so when someone lives in a foreign country, and I have no current contact details.

Can you supply an email address? Can you at least confirm if 'Delamore' is still current? How will I know if she has merely ignored a letter or never received it?

I would also like to respond to your claim that I am accusing Anne of having a 'hand' in the hoax. This is technically true, and I do not plan on denying it, but I have stated repeatedly that I don't believe she is morally guilty of having perpetrated a hoax. My belief is only mildly different than the belief of your late friend Martin Fido, who suggested on this very forum 20 years ago that Anne created the diary on the word processor as a piece of fiction, and Barrett took this typescript and created the physical diary. I view her as a victim of Barrett's treachery and abuse, and I assume that Martin did, too.

I do think it would be better to contact her with your blessing and your cooperation, for obvious reasons, but if you don't wish to cooperate, I will try to find other means. However, let me stress that I don't want to misstate your position, so I think it would be wise for you to state it concisely before I initial contact. Are you suggesting that both the 'Eddie Lyons' and the 'in the family/Tony Devereux' provenance told by Anne are true? I don't see how that can possibly be the case, but if that's what you're saying please pass it along.

RP

[rjpalmer]

So the conservation Tim had with his employee at APS

Can you imagine if 'Palmer' had written about the 'conservation' Tim had with his employee? I'd be hearing about it for weeks.

Consider this conversation closed.

[Scott Nelson]

I wonder what Anne thinks of the Eddie Lyons/Battlecrease provenance?