One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

He's claiming that we all see the 'FM' equally. I see it; you see it; Kenneth Rendell sees it. Some just won't admit it, because in Ike's words, they "can't-afford-to-have-those-initials-present-in-Kelly's-room."

I am certainly claiming that if you claim you can't see Florence Maybrick's initials in this photograph you should have a season ticket to Carstairs Station on the Glasgow or Edinburgh line:



Like Caz in 2003, you are welcome to think they are an illusion, but they are not an affliction of the single mind (that kind of worrying illusion), let's be clear. If you can't see that to which I am referring, you need a trip to Specsavers pronto.

And Caz's post bothers me not a jot. She has never said that she thinks the scrapbook is genuine and her comments in 2003 are the views of someone who believed that what was written in the scrapbook was only tangentially relevant to what we can see on Kelly's wall. As a non-believer, that's clearly what she would have said then and presumably what she would say now. I've borne a great deal more opprobrium (which is what you were implying it was) than that I have a fertile imagination. In relative terms, it was more of a compliment, and yet you have presented it as a criticism of sorts.

Nothing will stop me, RJ. I will not be deflected from this path whilst a single non-Maybrickian walks the earth. I owe it to mankind to ensure they are not wasting their time on the colour of Mrs Fiddymont's shoelaces on the day of Eddowes' autopsy, etc..

[Iconoclast]

I've got a brief update from Keith Skinner regarding the 'research paper' Anne failed to get published in a peer-reviewed journal. He notes:

I know the report Martin is referring to because it was me who sent it to him - but I don't remember it being specifically commissioned by Feldman? Martin phoned me up to discuss the report and was staggered when I told him it had been prepared by Anne. But not having met Anne or knowing anything about her, why should he be staggered? That I think is the more pertinent point I regret not asking Martin at the time.

I asked him if I could quote him and - in giving his ascent - he also noted:

It's also worth adding that Martin Fido concluded that Anne could not have written the diary because she would be incapable of solecisms and making spelling mistakes. Martin also acknowledged the handwriting in the diary was not the same as Anne's.

I don't think that Anne Graham was a fool - unlike the man she married whose foolishness ruined his life. I can deal with her being well-educated (a Catholic convent, as I recall) and articulate (presumably a quality she had evolved as part of her usual employment) but not a hoaxer in any capacity whatsoever. I have not seen any evidence that she was so inclined.

All I've ever seen is inference, desperate leaning to one side of an argument, and the inconsistent ramblings of her alcoholic, bitter, and very twisted husband. To quote Mr Fido himself, "It's just not good enough".

By the way, I'll be steering well clear of Hadrian's Wall whilst ancient oaks are falling all around there. A metaphor for Barret-believers, methinks?

[caz]

I assume it has occurred to you that you are a woman. I would certainly hope so. Why would these blokes (or your ex-husband) have admitted to a woman the awful names they use to address their wives or ex-wives? It's not a good look.

Does Palmer not realise how offensive this is? It takes more than this to offend me personally, but I do wonder what other readers think and how it advances any argument.

It is, however, something an angry and particularly bitter man will let slip to a drinking buddy while the two are in their cups---you now, a real drinking buddy like Mike and Tony Devereux were as confirmed by at least one publican.

Men can be quite crude and insensitive when among themselves. It's known as "locker room talk," Caz, if you are unfamiliar with the concept. It's nothing I condone, but it is an unfortunate reality.

Silly me. I thought the argument was that Anne [who also happens to be female] had heard what Tony called his wife, and chose to pepper the text of the diary with the 'w' word, like a child who has just learned a bad word and wants to wear it out with repeated use. Now the argument seems to be that no man would have admitted to Anne the awful name Tony had called his wife. Was not Mike a man then? Did he run to his wife with tales of whatever awful names he had heard the blokes down the pub calling their own wives? Or is the argument that it was Mike who picked up on the 'w' word from Tony and Anne simply corrected the spelling before copying it again and again into the guard book, oblivious to where Mike had picked up this particularly offensive label? Was she also giggling nervously each time she wrote it, like a naughty schoolgirl, thoroughly enjoying herself? Or was hubby standing over her with the cattle prod, calling her names when she hesitated too long over his spelling of 'rendezvous', before settling on 'rondavous'? The fine details of this whole speculative scenario would be fascinating - if only we ever got any.

The suggestion is that Maybrick of the diary is partially based on Tony Devereux's own attitude towards his ex-wife---regardless of whether she deserved that attitude or not. It has nothing to do with Anne's own feelings about them, other than she's working with Barrett's first-hand knowledge of how Devereux spoke of his ex-wife. If Anne is the authoress, she would only be exploiting the appropriate dialogue--she's not naming the Devereuxs by name, so she's not raining "ire" down on their heads. Good grief--what a strange take.

Yes, I think naming Devereux or his wife in the diary would have been a tad unwise, for a number of reasons, so it's a good spot. It just seems such a juvenile thing to do, to pick up on this word from Tony and then use it repeatedly for a hoax that will inevitably be associated, if it does get published, with Tony's drinking buddy - and that's before Mike uses the original potty mouth for the provenance! It's more akin to the teenager writing it over a wet weekend, and it smacks of a real desperation to see clues in the diary text to link our three amigos to the process.

Melvin Harris learned that Devereux referred to his ex-wife as 'The Whore,' and I think anyone with even the minimal amount of commonsense could grasp how a fictional writer, or a pair of fictional writers, will use knowledge from their own experiences or second-hand experiences while building up a character. This is commonplace. It shouldn't be controversial.

But there has to be evidence that this is what actually happened in this case, or it's just baseless conjecture, clinging on for dear life to Mike's auction claim, which enjoys no evidential support and is seriously undermined by what evidence we do have.

You'd have been better off arguing that Devereux never used the phrase, but it's obvious enough that Devereux was remarkably bitter towards his ex-wife, as seen in the strange codicil in his will.

I don't need any more lectures on how I would be 'better off' arguing this, that or the other, regardless of what the evidence does or doesn't support. If this is the way others wish to pursue their dreams of being right, that's up to them, but I'll have none of it.

Yet we are supposed to believe that crude talk about one's wife, or an office manager having no patience with a subordinate, are huge leaps of insight beyond the imagination of Mike and Anne?

It's silly.

It's silly to claim that anyone is 'supposed' to believe anything about Mike and Anne. They are free to believe whatever they like, but it won't make them 'better off' if what they choose to believe comes not from any actual evidence, but from their own imagination. This kind of speculation about what Mike and Anne might have been capable of gets them nowhere fast, because it doesn't amount to circumstantial evidence that either of them actually had the will, the wit, the stomach or the guts, in March 1992 to do what they are accused of here.

[caz]

Is it also a 'coincidence' that a month after Barrett bought the word processor, bits from his interviews started appearing in Chat magazine, such as the one that David Barrat found in the 26 May 1986 issue: "'Emmerdale Stephen's Naughty Mail'?

The Amstrad wasn't a 'coincidence,' Markus. It was a career move!

And one that the Barretts kept hidden from both their own literary agent and collaborator as well as the public.

You're a very forgiving sort if that doesn't give you pause to reflect.

Happy Holidays.

Oh well, that's that then.

It does indeed give me pause to reflect. In the interests of putting the final nail in this particular coffin, perhaps Palmer can pin down for us where Anne was first asked by anyone about the word processor, including when it was bought, who paid for it and why Mike wanted one, and what she said to keep the truth hidden? Did she tell outright lies about it, or was it more of a "No comment" response?

Or is the argument that if nobody thought to ask Anne about the word processor in the early days, they jolly well should have done, and that Anne herself would have appreciated the relevance and volunteered the information if she had nothing to hide?

I mean, let's not leave anyone out of this speculative mudslinging, eh?

If it's okay with everyone, I will call it speculative in the absence of any direct evidence that Anne conspired with Mike to keep everyone in the dark about the infernal machine.

That should give us all pause to reflect on the importance of differentiating between fact and fancy.

[The Rookie Detective]

Over 5 years since this thread started.

That's rather impressive when you consider the full range of suspects that have been discussed over the years.

It's the first time I have ever engaged with a "Maybrick" thread and I must say it is quite overwhelming.

I have always found Maybrick fascinating in the sense that it was the "diary" that got me into the Ripper case in the first place.

Out side of the "diary" I must admit that I know very little about Maybrick as a case study and so it would be unfair for me to comment about something I know little about, out of respect to those who have spent decades trying to fit Maybrick into shoes of the Ripper.

I am also aware of the infamous "letters on the wall" beside Kelly's body.

The "F M" that has helped to drive the case for Maybrick because his wife had the same initials.
In addition, James starting with the same letter as Jack...

I would add that based on my own objective viewpoint, that when looking at the "F M" that while it does appear that something is written in blood, that the deciphering of the letters isn't as obvious.

The 2nd letter does look like an "M"...

But the FIRST letter looks more like a "+" symbol.

To me it looks like ... +M

A cross and an M

Cross and an M

Crossingham


Can you imagine...

RD

[Iconoclast]

Over 5 years since this thread started.

Fifteen, mate. Assume that was typo?

That's rather impressive when you consider the full range of suspects that have been discussed over the years.

It's not rather impressive, young Rookster ...

To me it looks like ... +M

And that is your right and of course that's perfectly fine (I have never noticed that but I see what you mean) - the key thing is that you know exactly what is being spoken about, can pinpoint exactly where in the photograph to look, and acknowledge that - right enough - there's something there.

Now - RJ take note - that wasn't difficult, was it?

Welcome to the gates of Hell, Rookster - there's just about enough time left to turn back ...

Ike

[caz]

.
No, Ike.

It was clearly Mike and Anne who kept this back.

The funny thing is, even early on there were at least two ladies in Liverpool who knew there was something not quite right about this portray of Barrett.

The Devereux Sisters.

Based on information they had gleaned before their father's death in 1991, they "thought of Barrett as a journalist who had contributed features to a magazine, so the sisters were consequently surprised to see him described as an ordinary 'Liverpool bloke." (Inside Story, p. 88)

Subsequent research by your good friend Lord Orsam proved that the Devereux Sisters were not wrong.

It would appear, Ike, that the Devereux Sisters were less forgiving about this sort of thing and more capable of smelling a rat than you are. And more capable of being "surprised" at misinformation. Perhaps it's your lack of surprise that is preventing you from seeing the writing on the wall. And I don't mean the illusory 'FM.'

Happy Holidays.

The irony is that Tony's daughters said very early on that they suspected Mike had got Jack the Ripper's diary "from somewhere he shouldn't". They were certainly smelling a rat when they first heard about his claim to have got it from their father, but the thought didn't appear to occur to them that this interviewer of the rich and famous may have bought an old book and written the diary himself. The implication could not be clearer that they thought he had half-inched it from somewhere. Given the celebrity contacts he had bragged about to their Dad, Mike might plausibly have 'liberated' such a diary from one of them, for all they knew.

No, the sisters were not wrong about the tales their Dad had told them about Mike's literary claims to fame - but those claims did all originate with Mike. Surely, given their certainty that this man had lied about their late father in print, their initial surprise at seeing "Bongo" described in print as an ordinary Liverpool bloke would soon have turned to the realisation that he would have lied to their father about himself, if it elevated him from ordinary Liverpool bloke to someone who mixed with the stars.

In short, there had been something not quite right about Barrett's portrayal of Barrett. He was the known liar in the case, after all.

The Devereux sisters were not wrong back then. If asked again today, would they still express the opinion that Mike got the diary "from somewhere he shouldn't"?

[The Rookie Detective]

Fifteen, mate. Assume that was typo?



It's not rather impressive, young Rookster ...



And that is your right and of course that's perfectly fine (I have never noticed that but I see what you mean) - the key thing is that you know exactly what is being spoken about, can pinpoint exactly where in the photograph to look, and acknowledge that - right enough - there's something there.

Now - RJ take note - that wasn't difficult, was it?

Welcome to the gates of Hell, Rookster - there's just about enough time left to turn back ...

Ike

Haha! Brilliant post!

Thank you for the heads-up, and yes I did mean "15" years and not "5" sorry.

This thread could be fun...


RD

[erobitha]

Haha! Brilliant post!

Thank you for the heads-up, and yes I did mean "15" years and not "5" sorry.

This thread could be fun...


RD

It’s not too late to change your mind RD.

Keith Skinner emailed me to offer you some advice:

”Without wishing to discourage or influence RD in any way, I would suggest to him/her that the first thing he/ she has to decide is whether the diary is a modern hoax - and I would suggest he/she read all of R.J.Palmer's contributions and Lord Orsam's diary to help him/her to reach a conclusion. If RD is persuaded by their arguments that the diary was created by Mike and Anne Barrett, then all discussion about FM on the wall and whether JM was JTR becomes irrelevant.”

[caz]

This is somewhat coyly written, Ike---a slight tip of the cap in the direction of Robert Smith's imagination---but that is a small complaint, and I congratulate you on refusing to pretend, as others pretend, that you know the exact state of Barrett's manuscripts when they were handed over to Chat or Celebrity magazines. You weren't there, and neither was I, and neither was Smith, and a vast career as a publisher, no matter how impressive it is, doesn't come with a Phantom Tollbooth.

More to the point, none of us was there to witness the fruits of Mike's initial labours before the articles were seen in print. But we have all seen enough of his private correspondence and creative writing - handwritten and typed - to form a pretty good idea of his likely literary limitations. I wonder if any of the articles would have escaped a final edit if Anne had done the 'tidying up' and written: Kylies eyes were shinning as our rondavous began.

Even more to the point is how relevant this all is anyway, to the claims that the Barretts were jointly responsible for faking the diary Mike freely handed over for expert scrutiny, advice and opinion.

If someone presents a Picasso of dubious provenance, which is then strongly suspected of being a fake, will the presenter and his wife be accused because he had liked to dabble with a paintbrush and she had given him helpful hints and tips so some of his efforts had appeared in seaside novelty shops?

I don't know if you have been keeping up on Lord Orsam's "diary," but he mentions something that I forgot. Alan Gray had seen, first-hand, a cassette of one of Barrett's interviews from the 1980s, so it would be incorrect for Smith to conclude that they were "not interviews per se" but just a collection of random quotes. Clearly, Barrett interviewed people (and possibly even Ms. Minogue!).

Alan Gray had 'seen' a cassette first-hand? Wow.

Not 'listened' to it?

Strange use of words if this was more than just a label on a cassette, shown to Gray by a suspected forger. But we can't have everything, can we?

I'm not sure if this is more about undermining Robert's professional experience and opinions or trying to prove something about Mike's writing abilities because he may have pressed the record button to interview everyone's favourite Princess of Pop.

Didn't the editor of Celebrity merely say that he had always found Mike a reliable contributor? Could that not amount to inviting the celeb in question to talk about themselves for the tape, and being punctual in submitting the best quotes, which were transcribed with Anne's help before going through a routine final edit?

What is the evidence that any of Mike's 'contributions' were good enough - with or without Anne's input - to be published unedited?

Any why does it seem to matter so much to Barrett hoax believers?

[Iconoclast]

What is the evidence that any of Mike's 'contributions' were good enough - with or without Anne's input - to be published unedited?
Any why does it seem to matter so much to Barrett hoax believers?

I think you know the answer to that last bit, Cazzeroo: like the reliance on the little red utterly irrelevant diary, Barrett's prowess as a literary titan needs to be reinforced at every turn in order to give might and power to the ghastly notion that the illiterate idiot might have had a hand in creating a record of James Maybrick's exploits as Jack the Spratt McVitie.

Without such canards as that which gets built up on the skeleton of these tenuous 'truths', there is effectively no case to answer. Even the police do not believe that everyone who reports a crime committed it, even though they sensibly consider the possibility as an option until it can be ruled out. In the case of Barrett as hoaxer, the 'police' have turned away from every other option in order to build a case against him and now they can't turn back.

[Iconoclast]

It’s not too late to change your mind RD.

Keith Skinner emailed me to offer you some advice:

”Without wishing to discourage or influence RD in any way, I would suggest to him/her that the first thing he/ she has to decide is whether the diary is a modern hoax - and I would suggest he/she read all of R.J.Palmer's contributions and Lord Orsam's diary to help him/her to reach a conclusion. If RD is persuaded by their arguments that the diary was created by Mike and Anne Barrett, then all discussion about FM on the wall and whether JM was JTR becomes irrelevant.”

Bloody Hell, man - he posts one thought and gets a response from Keith Skinner!

It took me ten years just to get him to open my letters, for goodness sake ...

[rjpalmer]

I find this to be a particularly interesting comment by Keith, though I confess that some of it leaves me scratching my head:

I can deal with [Anne] being well-educated (a Catholic convent, as I recall) and articulate (presumably a quality she had evolved as part of her usual employment) but not a hoaxer in any capacity whatsoever. I have not seen any evidence that she was so inclined.

Three comments.

1. The first and most important comment is that neither I, nor Martin Fido (more on this in another post), suspected or suspects that Anne is a bad person who set out to knowingly create a hoax, so Keith's comment both falls flat and is wide of the mark. It doesn't come into play. This will become clearer in my second post later this morning and I encourage Keith to read it, so he doesn't continue to misunderstand my own thoughts on the subject. (Assuming that he cares about my thought on the subject)

2. Secondly, and this will probably be upsetting to some, but it can't be avoided, is that it is also a curious comment because the 'Eddie Lyons' theory that Keith currently holds (what was it? with something like 98% conviction?), and which is being vigorously promoted on this forum by his friends and admirers, contains within it an undeniable concession that Anne Graham successfully and elaborately hoodwinked Paul Feldman, Shirley Harrison, Carol Emmas, Keith himself, as well as radio and television audiences, over a period of many years, leaving our current spokesmen and spokeswomen perhaps not the most appropriate choice to give opinions about her capabilities for deception.

That might strike some as a little harsh, but I can't be the only one who is thinking it. Anne didn't merely lie about seeing the diary in 1968/9; she actively led Feldman and others down an elaborate garden path, supplying a photograph of Flynn's grave, etc., and exploiting her own dying father to back-up her story because--in Billy's own words---Anne "told me you were having trouble trying to get this film to come off." (Inside Story, p 122) 'You' being Paul Feldman.

(And on a technical note, I'm still pondering how the allegedly illiterate Elizabeth Formby managed to sign, if sign she did, both the 1911 and 1921 UK census returns).

Perhaps the public is thick and doesn't have the metaphysical skills of Keith and others, but I suspect that the line between being a 'hoaxer' and being an elaborate liar weaving an elaborate tale will be too thin for many of their members to discern.

3. Finally, I suggest that Keith has been successfully misdirected by Caz and Tom. I was not using Anne's highly professional research paper as a 'smoking gun,' nor as evidence that she hoaxed the diary, though this is what they immediately latched onto. I was using it as evidence of both her professionalism and as an indication that she was entirely capable of helping Barrett get his goods to market, and thus there was no reason for Robert Smith to state as a fact that an unidentified "inhouse writer" cobbled together Barrett's articles in the 1980s. I'm really astonished that some here would defend this sort of thing. It was an obvious attempt to quickly sweep David Barrat's research under the rug: undeniable evidence that Barrett had worked as a journalist in the 1980s, and this was kept from the public, almost certainly and knowingly by Mike and Anne, so it would not raise suspicion. How can this be anything other than a red flag?

[caz]

Kenneth Rendell didn't get the memo, apparently. Not everyone is as eager to surf the same wavelength as you and Markus.

The damaged photograph album raised immediate concerns, as it had done with Baxendale, and it was ultimately Rendell's firm thumbs down that sent Smith scrambling...for a third time. Rendell specifically named the used photograph album as one of the many dealbreakers.

So how good a choice was it, really?

Well, I would be willing to bet that if Palmer had asked what the name "Lowry" meant to Baxendale or Rendell, within days of their respective reports on the "old book", he'd have been met with a couple of blank looks.

It was fairly obvious that I was referring to how remarkably well the physical book, and the passages featuring the meddlesome clerk, go together.

And of course, it was never a 'choice' in any case, was it? Whether Mike had really been looking for a "diary", or had no such thought in his head until Jack's diary found him, the guard book containing it was either seen as a gift from heaven on 9th March 1992, or it was the best a man could get by 31st, just 13 days before it arrived in London, complete with Lowry's very 'fitting' cameo role.

If Baxendale or Rendell had absorbed every word in the diary, and had then been asked about the theory that the faker had only bought the guard book at the end of March 1992, because he couldn't find the diary he wanted for the prepared text, their opinions might have been more pertinent to what was actually being discussed.

[caz]

I find this to be a particularly interesting comment by Keith, though I confess that some of it leaves me scratching my head:



Three comments.

Hang on a minute. The comment quoted by Palmer was by Ike, not Keith.

Is Palmer getting his black and blue mixed up?