One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

As your good friend Lord Orsam suggested, it was the collapse of Celebrity that forced Barrett to look for other outlets for his creative juices.
In brief, an income.

Are you suggesting, RJ, that the reasonably-large nation of the United Kingdom back in the late 1980s had only one cheap tittle-tattle rag which untalented but aspiring creatives could palm their efforts onto?

I cannot buy the notion that Celebrity folded and therefore Mike Barrett's options were:

1) No outlets for his creative genius so he needed to write a hoaxed Jack the Ripper scrapbook; or
2) Be without any income.

I'm assuming that Barrett could easily have got references from Celebrity and then plied his trade with any of a large number of chit-chat, tittle-tattle crap rags that either preceeded it or replaced it? After all, none of them would have required insights from Deep Throat to get the printing presses rolling.

This is why I suggested that editors had sussed him out (because there were other mags) but I was only saying so lightheartedly because - of course - the editors of other mags would not have known about him. The challenge for Barrett was the realisation that the magazines were there but the talent to write was not. In truth, I take it as read now that Barrett got no work because he had realised that it was too much effort for the small reward that came his way. Nothing whatsoever to do with his mortgage, and to imagine that his acquisition of a mortgage was the reason why he wrote the Maybrick scrapbook is simply not sustainable.

[rjpalmer]

This is why I suggested that editors had sussed him out (because there were other mags)

but I was only saying so lightheartedly

because - of course - the editors of other mags would not have known about him.

I don't think there's much point in going on, Ike.

Whenever one of your wild inventions is challenged, you immediately come back and state you were being "jocular" or "lighthearted."

You've played this card once too often.

Ciao.

[Iconoclast]

I don't think there's much point in going on, Ike.
Whenever one of your wild inventions is challenged, you immediately come back and state you were being "jocular" or "lighthearted."
You've played this card once too often.
Ciao.

What I actually said was:

It seems to me that no health-related issues took their toll on his ability to write (!) from the late 1980s onwards. The evidence simply suggests that he either gave it up as the dead loss that it patently was or that editors sussed him out and stopped publishing any of his hard-hitting material in their gentle rags.

Now, I think it's reasonably clear that I was emphasising the first suggestion - "The evidence simply suggests that he either gave it up as the dead loss that it patently was" and that the second part was a little tongue-in-cheek (because - as I suggested in a later post - I don't believe that editors even knew of him never mind 'sussed him out').

I think my posts were clear enough: I believe that by the time Celebrity folded, so had Barrett's literary ambitions. It was hard work and his rewards had been pitiful (to say the least). I have no doubt that the blowhard that he was did not 'retire' from the creative arts, though. I think we can all imagine him down The Saddle Inn in 1990 and 1991 and 1992 boring anyone who would listen about his literary connections and his creative past. Possibly he gave one of his famous nods and a wink when asked if he was still working in the field (when, of course, he very much wasn't) and - as a consequence - he was seen as the 'book man', the 'bookish type', the literati of Liverpool's working class and when Eddie Lyons and/or Jim Bowling turned up one day with an old, damaged scrapbook that was incredibly difficult to read, perhaps they were directed to the doyen of the inn who immediately recognised the value of the book and sought to have it.

The rest, as they say, is very much his story ...

[erobitha]

No problem RD, I appreciate the clarity in your follow-up comments.

No offence has been taken.

I appreciate the point you have clarified.

Handwriting analysis takes us into areas that can be regarded as subjective and open to various viewpoints. Which makes Ike’s point pretty valid on that basis.

The handwriting has been my biggest challenge with the scrapbook, but I believe the K in the watch does match Maybrick’s style.

But both could be wrong, one could right or both could be right.

[The Rookie Detective]

No problem RD, I appreciate the clarity in your follow-up comments.

No offence has been taken.

I appreciate the point you have clarified.

Handwriting analysis takes us into areas that can be regarded as subjective and open to various viewpoints. Which makes Ike’s point pretty valid on that basis.

The handwriting has been my biggest challenge with the scrapbook, but I believe the K in the watch does match Maybrick’s style.

But both could be wrong, one could right or both could be right.

I agree with you completely on this, great post!


RD

[caz]

Okay, if Parade magazine persuaded her that Marilyn vos Savant (her mother's maiden name) was a catchier name than Marilyn Mach (her father's name and her actual surname) then surely we should be struck by the thought that Fate had an inkling as to what was coming when It gave her mother her surname long before Marilyn was even thought of?

It's nice to be back. I'd hate to think Lord Orsam was struggling for articles on his blog without me. Imagine what mastery of statistics we can look forward to from him as he attempts to prove that vos Savant-Mach was wrong all along???

I can't wait ...

Is Parade magazine the one I remember my Dad trying - and failing - to hide from me back in the 1960s?

Nice to think it was Marilyn's mum who had the apt surname. Keeping it in the genes, rather than the jeans, perhaps?

I should have adopted my own mum's maiden name, I might have become a billionaire.

Clue: her maiden name was not Lottie Winner.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

And there, it would seem, we have it.

The handwriting in the scrapbook which does not look like any of Maybrick's public handwriting leads us to folly if we pursued it as a criticism of the scrapbook's authenticity. I couldn't agree more, RD!

What we need is an example of James Maybrick's private scribbling for his own eyes only. Or - more to the point - another example of his private scribbling for his own eyes only ...

What I'd most like to see is an example of Anne Graham's handwriting from March 1992, when she was practising her best mock Victorian script in readiness for the 11-day creation in early April.

If anyone has such a thing, perhaps they would be kind enough to post it and I could take up dentistry or something.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

To be pedantic, her mother's maiden name appears to have been Savant-Ros, inherited from the grandfather, Giuseppe Savant-Ros.

If women were supposed to take the surname of their mother, as Marilyn claimed in justifying her nom de plume, her mother didn't follow the tradition, so the pen name is somewhat contrived. (And in Italian the word for wise is "sapiente").

Still, I suppose one can't blame her. Marilyn Mach doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?

Mach brings to mind Machiavelli---a name more suitable for an 'Ask Marilyn' advice column with particularly nasty advice. I don't remember Parade having such a thing.

Blimey, something about Marilyn's IQ seems to have touched a nerve.

Don't worry about me, though. Mine must be below 70 for voting against Brexit and not seeing a Barrett hand in the diary.

[caz]

Parade, for those in the UK that might not know, was a glossy, weekly tabloid that was sometimes given away free with newspaper subscriptions, filled with chit-chat and public interest stories.

It wasn't too different from the magazines that the diary's discoverer and chief promoter, Michael John Barrett, wrote for in the 1980s, before alcoholism, kidney disease, and stroke took their toll, forcing him to seek more imaginative means of securing an income.

Those of us in the UK who are d'un certain âge, might recall - ahem - a rather different Parade magazine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parade_(British_magazine)

'Parade was a British magazine for men. With origins dating back to 1916, the magazine went through a number of different incarnations and different publishers until it went defunct sometime in the mid-2000s. It was originally known as Blighty between 1916 and 1920 and was intended as a humorous magazine for servicemen. Relaunched in 1939, as Blighty Parade, it was turned into a pin-up magazine. Renamed Parade in 1960, by the 1970s content had progressed to topless and nude photos of models, and at the end of the 1990s it went hardcore.'

Talking about seeking a more imaginative way to make a living, our very own Michael Barrett once tried his hand at creating riddles for submission, but the one I was shown was unprintable for two painfully obvious reasons. It was of the type that starts: 'My first is in... but not in...', and the clues used a plethora of naughty words, which were clearly meant to spell out the word O R G A S M. [Apologies for revealing the intended solution, in case it ever gets published in Viz.] The problem was that Mike got the spelling wrong, so it all went tits up, if you'll pardon the expression.

It was a forerunner to Mike's repeated 'sweet intercourse' bloomers.

[caz]

Are you suggesting, RJ, that the reasonably-large nation of the United Kingdom back in the late 1980s had only one cheap tittle-tattle rag which untalented but aspiring creatives could palm their efforts onto?

I cannot buy the notion that Celebrity folded and therefore Mike Barrett's options were:

1) No outlets for his creative genius so he needed to write a hoaxed Jack the Ripper scrapbook; or
2) Be without any income.

I'm assuming that Barrett could easily have got references from Celebrity and then plied his trade with any of a large number of chit-chat, tittle-tattle crap rags that either preceeded it or replaced it? After all, none of them would have required insights from Deep Throat to get the printing presses rolling.

This is why I suggested that editors had sussed him out (because there were other mags) but I was only saying so lightheartedly because - of course - the editors of other mags would not have known about him. The challenge for Barrett was the realisation that the magazines were there but the talent to write was not. In truth, I take it as read now that Barrett got no work because he had realised that it was too much effort for the small reward that came his way. Nothing whatsoever to do with his mortgage, and to imagine that his acquisition of a mortgage was the reason why he wrote the Maybrick scrapbook is simply not sustainable.

Morning Ike,

I suspect everything changed for Mike when Anne wanted to move house against his will, to be nearer Billy Graham [not the infamous evangelist, for anyone who was wondering]. Now with a mortgage to pay and an ageing father to keep an eye on, Anne may not have been able or willing to spend her limited spare time helping Mike revive a less than lucrative writing career, which would have relied heavily on her efforts to get it off the ground to begin with.

Moving home is one of the biggest causes of stress and strife after all, and then in January 1994 the stress went through the roof for hubby when his 'trouble and strife' upped and left.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Blimey, something about Marilyn's IQ seems to have touched a nerve.

Nerve? Not in the least.

The only legitimate response to Tom comparing his deductions about the Maybrick hoax to the deductions of a woman with an I.Q. of 225+ is good natured mirth. How could it be otherwise?

And unless you suddenly believe that Sue Iremonger and Maureen Casey Owens and Audrey Giles and Kenneth Rendell, etc. etc., got it all wrong and the diary really is the handiwork of James Maybrick, then you must think Tom is just as wrong as I do. But please don't tell him.

Tom has deeper problems than flippantly claiming that the Mudbrick's "private hand" must have been radically different than his "public hand"---an argument that doesn't seem to have attracted much of a following. Perhaps this is Ms. Savant-Ros territory, and the herd can never hope to appreciate Ike's logic, but some of the mere mortal handwriting experts didn't believe the penman was even Victorian, let alone Maybrick, which throws something of a spanner in the Mitchell machinery.

Was it not Sue Iremonger (Martin Fido's favorite of the lot) who noted that the strokes on certain letters were artificially added---not a natural component of the writing but more like someone trying to fake copperplate writing---'mock Victorian' to use your own phrase?

[rjpalmer]

Was it not Sue Iremonger (Martin Fido's favorite of the lot) who noted that the strokes on certain letters were artificially added---not a natural component of the writing but more like someone trying to fake copperplate writing---'mock Victorian' to use your own phrase?

It was actually Audrey Giles, later head of Scotland Yard's Questioned Document division. "....evidence of strokes added to the characters of "f", "y" and "g" to give the large and rounded loops typical of copperplate writing. Compared to Maybrick's will, she found "many differences"....the initials 'J' and 'M' are very different. Since these are Maybrick's initials these differences are significant."

[Iconoclast]

What I'd most like to see is an example of Anne Graham's handwriting from March 1992, when she was practising her best mock Victorian script in readiness for the 11-day creation in early April. If anyone has such a thing, perhaps they would be kind enough to post it and I could take up dentistry or something.
Love, Caz X

Hi Caz,

Just Anne Graham's? Would you not like examples of Anne's and Mike's? After all, Mike makes the claim to Alan Gray in the aptly-named 'Gray-Barrett tapes' - when Gray catches Barrett out in another of his ceaseless lies - that it was "fifty-fifty". So we need both handwritings to understand who actually wrote into the physical diary.

And then we need to start asking ourselves the question, how did the two of them get the handwriting so consistent despite it being "fifty-fifty"? Some skill, eh?

Here's the cheese, if any of the mice around here are inclined to nibble:

Sunday, November 6, 1994:
Now it will be easy for MB to prove.
MB: 'Doesn't anybody understand’.
A thought crosses AG's mind. ‘You said Anne did it. You're still saying it’s
all her handwriting?
MB: ‘it’s 50/50’. It appears they did a bit each.

(I took this from Seth Linder's summary - I don't believe a transcript of this tape exists yet?)

Cheers,

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Well, Michael was a writer. Maybe he was utilized as a co-hoaxer to hide a diary in Battlecrease house or someplace associated with his brother.
But the handwritten photo-album with its references to 'Abberline' is a modern invention. Abberline, the policeman, was (almost) publicly unknown in Maybrick's time. Abberline wasn't made into the villain chasing Maybrick until after 1988.

Hi Scotty,

I'm borrowing here from a discussion I had with a most redoubtable correspondent some weeks ago (by chance). He was questioning the image we have of Abberline relative to the reality (more of that in a subsequent post), and as part of that discussion, he cited a couple of examples of where Abberline was demonstrably a kent name by early September 1888. He first cited the St James's Gazette which - he informed me - mentioned his involvement in the case in its edition of Saturday, September 1, 1888. He then informed me that - by the time of the murder of Annie Chapman, on Saturday, September 8, 1888 - he was seen very much as the lead officer on the case, as is attested to by an article which appeared in The Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, on Friday, September 14, 1888.

Now, unfortunately, neither my correspondent nor I can locate his original email with a snippet of the Cambridge Chronicle article which is both hugely frustrating and most baffling (I store everything I receive on the subject) but he says he's going to keep looking (as will I). I definitely saw it but now cannot find it so can't prove my claim. If either of us locates it, I'll post it.

Long story short, then: I would say that there is indeed evidence that Fred Abberline was a detective at very least associated with the Ripper crimes and very early in their execution which rather contradicts your suggestion that he was (almost) publicly unknown in Maybrick's time and that he wasn't made into the villain [sic] chasing Maybrick until after 1988.

Now, check out my next post which will be in reply to ero b's mention of Michael Caine's portrayal of Abberline in 1988 to which you appeared to refer in your post.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Hi Scott, Abberline was not exactly a mega celebrity of the Victorian era, but then, which police officials were?
However, Abberline's name appears in the press of the time on quite a considerable basis for many cases, including that of the Ripper. Anyone reading the papers might have had a sense of his role in the case.
I accept your point about Abberline becoming more well-known in modern times due to things like Michael Caine's mini-series, but it would not be accurate to say that his name could not have been gleaned from press reports of the time.

Hi ero b,

Here's the rub on the Michael Caine, 1988, portrayal of our boy Fred Abberline. As is so often the case, the actor playing him looked absolutely nothing like the actual man himself.

Here's Caine in the role of Abberline:



And here's Abberline, looking nothing like Caine:



The photograph above shows Abberline amongst a host of other policemen, and he looks genuinely a bit shorter, a bit dumpier, and all-together more of a 'funny little man', and certainly no Michael Caine.

Now, if the Maybrick scrapbook was a modern (post-1987) hoax, would the hoaxer have had the image of Michael Caine in his or her mind, or the actual image of Fred Abberline? I assume it would be the image Caine gave us and to which you (and Scotty Nelson) refer, albeit both for alternative purposes than mine.

But - if the Maybrick scrapbook were written by James Maybrick - he would not have the image of the suave Michael Caine in his mind. He might not have had an image at all, of course, but it's perfectly possible that he had either seen a photograph of Abberline in one of the many newspapers available in 1888, or else had perhaps read a description of Abberline in the same.

Why is any of this relevant?

Well, the Maybrick scrapbook states (crossed-out, by the way):

Mr Abberline is a funny little man.

Why would anyone refer to Abberline as 'a funny little man'? I suppose the argument will be made that the hoaxer checked out a photograph of Abberline before he made his comment in his nascent work, but - if it is made - one would have to stand back and applaud the determination of the hoaxer to glean every last bit of detail he could (whilst apparently getting so many other basic details wrong), only to then cross out his comment and refer to him as 'a clever man' instead.

I am - for the record - struck by how yet again the Maybrick scrapbook is no 'shoddy' piece of work, despite the many claims that it is.

PS This line of argument is not mine to claim, by the way - it came from my regular correspondent.

Ike