One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

If - and I do mean if - Florie referred to Margaret Baillie as "Aunt Margaret", because "Distant Cousin Margaret" would have been too silly for words [and I had at least three "Aunties" who were actually my Mum's cousins], then it would appear that Florie did indeed plan to visit her aunt, and stayed with her between 24th and 28th March, following her dirty weekend with Alf. She could also have spent some time with her Godmother, who was understood to have gone under the knife - ahem.

If Florie's plans included seeing both these women, the confusion could merely have been over which one she said was in need of some TLC, her aunt or her Godmother.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

...a question of trying to piece together the evidence for what Florie Maybrick did, and who she saw, during her week in London, towards the end of March 1989.

Oh lordy, I meant March 1889.

And I've had a closer look at my mother's family tree [as compiled by my father] and found my dear old "Auntie Katie" from Tooting, who was in fact another of my mother's cousins, and my first cousin once removed. I remember her daughter, who is actually my second cousin, getting married in the 1960s and it was the first wedding I ever attended.

Of course, Auntie Katie was no more my real aunt than Auntie Joan and Auntie Sybil were, so I suppose in Orsam World she would always have been referred to as "First Cousin Once Removed Katie".

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

...had he had done his homework first...

Whoops, I'm getting sloppy. The above should of course read: if he had done his homework first.

One less thing for Barrat to crow about in his next update.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

And now for something completely different...

This is not an argument for or against anything in the diary, but more a question of trying to piece together the evidence for what Florie Maybrick did, and who she saw, during her week in London, towards the end of March 1989.

Bernard Ryan tells us that she wrote letters to her distant cousins, Margaret Baillie and John Baillie Knight, telling Margaret that she would like to stop with her for a few days, and asking John if he would escort her to dinner on Thursday 21st, as she would be stopping alone at Flatman's Hotel that night and disliked dining alone.

Trevor Christie also has John Knight claiming to be a distant relative of Florie's, so I'm assuming both authors were right, and Margaret and John were not merely close family friends.

So we have Florie travelling to London and staying at Flatman's for three nights from Thursday 21st to the morning of Sunday 24th, when she and her lover, Alf Brierley, check out and go their separate ways. John confirms meeting up with Florie on the Thursday, and Alf arrived on the Friday. From Sunday to Wednesday night, Florie stays with Margaret, just as her letter suggested, and then returns to Liverpool on the Thursday, in time for Friday's eventful Grand National. While Florie is staying with the 'Misses Baillie' [presumably Margaret lives with her sister?] she has dinner with Michael Maybrick and is also taken by Margaret to see her cousin's solicitors about a separation from James. Lord knows what she was expecting, but if she thought her adultery might help her get a divorce, I imagine the solicitor would have put her straight and strongly advised her not to breathe a word. She may also have been advised that grounds for divorce for a woman were severely limited, but could include physical violence, which may have tempted her into deliberately provoking Jim at the Grand National. If she then saw a second solicitor about a separation, and also discussed her concerns with Dr Hopper, the advice was presumably to stay put and try for a reconciliation, rather than risk being left on her own and penniless, considering the bills she was running up, which James apparently agreed to settle.

To cut a long story short, it's pretty clear that Florie's main purpose for her trip to London was not to stay with a sick aunt, Godmother or anyone else for, as Ryan puts it: 'a week or so during her first days of recuperation'. If Florie led James and Dr Hopper to believe she went to tend her Godmother, was this ever confirmed by the Countess herself, or by distant cousin Margaret, who had Florie staying with her? If Florie did see her Godmother while in London, which day was this, and how much time did she have to spend with her? The fact remains that whether or not she did see her Godmother at some point, she definitely stayed with distant cousin Margaret, after writing to her about her intentions, and I see no reason why she would not have mentioned any of this to James.

My mother was an only child, but she had a cousin on her father's side who was always referred to in our family as "Auntie Joan"; a cousin on her mother's side who was always referred to by us all as "Auntie Sybil"; and an uncle, whose wife was always known as "Auntie Mabs" and signed herself that way when writing to us. So who exactly was Florie's 'Aunt M' [for Margaret], if not the same distant cousin Margaret she stayed with during her week in London, who was also one of John's aunts?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Afternoon All,

It has been brought to my notice that David Barrat accused me recently of mangling something he had previously written, when I posted the following here, on 4th September:

I have not been waging a relentless 'PR campaign' over the last 20 years, either on my own or with others, with the aim of debunking Mike Barrett's various 'confessions'.

Barrat was apparently foaming at the mouth about it, so I just wanted to set the record straight. It's an amusing episode.

Firstly, I didn't even know what Barrat had previously written, but he evidently believed I was responding directly to his words and totally misinterpreting them.

Secondly, I was in fact responding to something RJ Palmer had written, right here on this thread, on 22nd August:

As for Barrett's confessions being debunked, this is just so much hot air; a PR campaign relentlessly waged by Caroline Brown over a 20+ year period, with the blessing and cooperation of others.

So I have to wonder if Barrat would have reacted rather differently, had he had done his homework first, noticed my use of quote marks, and worked out that I was quoting RJ Palmer, who did presumably read what Barrat wrote about me and liked it so much that he adapted it for his own use.

Nothing like original thought, is there?

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Whatever, Caz. To be blunt, I'm not particularly interested in helping you revive the stale Dairy 'debate,' such as it is, by responding at length to your post. Let this shabby hoax die its long deserved death.

What if find sad is your willingness--I'd even say eagerness--to believe the word of Mike Barrett--Mike!--over the instincts of the policeman who interviewed him. That speaks volumes. There's not a sliver of evidence that Barrett's miraculous rediscovery of Tales of Liverpool in Smith's ever happened---other than Barrett's own b.s. tales of Liverpool. Funny how the "alternative facts" in this instance are oddly similar to another tale of Liverpool: Mike's miraculous week of rediscovering yet another book he previously owned, but forgot about, this time in the Central Liverpool Library--The Sphere guide. My gawd. Mike sure had a weird talent for haphazardly finding books he once owned--but never read!

Either that, or Mike lowered his bucket into the same imaginary well twice, and was believed both times! Yes, he certainly knew how to keep them guessing.

[caz]

Typographical error?

That's a good one. So when I queried 'July 1992' the first time, because I couldn't recall Janet Devereux ever saying she borrowed Tales of Liverpool in 1992, instead of RJ saying it was a typo, and he meant 1991, he not only repeated the 'July 1992' date, but tried to attribute it to Ripper Diary. He even put this in italics to emphasise the point:

'I was paraphrasing, but--correctly me if I'm wrong-- the suggestion of July 1992 came from your own book, Caz...'

Invited to correct him if he was wrong, I naturally did so, supplying the relevant page numbers and quotes - and suddenly RJ's repeated reference to 'July 1992' becomes a typo - a slip of the pen - which I was supposed to recognise as such.

If you now have an urge to dismiss your earlier chronology and shove this event back 6 months or so, who am I to complain? It doesn't really change anything, but I suppose you are hoping an additional 6 month span will give Mike more time to have simply forgot to whom he had lent a book mentioning the Maybrick case several months before Dodd had his heaters installed.

If that's how you want to play it, so be it.

So when I favour the primary source - Janet Devereux - who actually borrowed the damned book and gave her account in 1993, over a secondary source - one of her sisters - recalling ten years later an event in which she wasn't personally involved, I'm playing games, and now have an 'urge to dismiss' the less reliable source, and 'shove' the event back to where the primary source originally put it.

Wonderful. Who is RJ to complain indeed? After all, it's exactly what David Barrat did, when he favoured Dr Hopper's 'Godmother' over Addison's 'aunt', and dismissed the latter. The earliest available source, who was also closest to the event described, wins the day. But only, apparently, when it suits RJ's agenda, which is disappointing to say the least.

Martin Fido to Nick Warren, 17 October 1994: [note: Bonsey is Detective Thomas']

'I am impressed that Bonesy was deeply suspicious of her [Anne]. She made a near-hysterical fuss about having police in the house; insisted that she knew nothing about the diary - it was all Mike's - but stood behind the kitchen door listening like a hawk to his entire interview with Mike. Bones knew Mike was lying when he claimed not to have talked about Maybrick with Tony Devereux, and went to look for the book from which he himself had learned about the case - the book with Richard W-E's account of the case, which was in the boot of Bonesy's car at the time, having been given him by the Devereux daughters, who remembered Mike lending it to their father!'

If, as you suggest, Barrett had simply forgot about lending this book to someone—having not even read the book-- but had simply seen a similar copy in Smith's at a later date, why do we get no hint of this in the above account?

Er, because Mike had forgotten all about lending Tony the same book?

Instead, Mike puts on a charade of hunting all over his house for it.

Charade? Not if he remembered consulting the book after buying the diary from Eddie, in March 1992, many months after Tony had died, because it had given him the connection from 'Battlecrease' to James Maybrick. For all we know, when looking high and low for it, he had forgotten getting it out of the library and returning it, and only thought he had bought it from Smith's. Nobody has perfect recall, and Mike's was exceptionally poor.

No doubt Martin Fido, Bonesy and Warren were convinced Mike was lying, because he lied at the drop of a hat, but what was he lying about? If he and Anne both knew that Tony had bugger all to do with anything, and had been 'exhumed' by Mike for the sole purpose of providing a bogus explanation to Doreen for how the diary arrived in Goldie Street, is it so surprising that Anne was on edge when the police arrived there the following year?

But I ask again, why is Mike distancing himself from Devereux? What is his motive? All he had to do was admit to having had the book. Even having lent it to Devereux was no big deal, for, according to Mike, he had been researching the Diary and Maybrick for a long time before contacting Crew, as per his bogus research notes.

All is explained if Mike had simply forgotten all about having lent a copy of that particular book to Tony in late 1990/early 1991. That would make sense if he had no interest in it himself at the time and thought it was something Tony might like to read while he was housebound. Tony only told Janet to return it because it was 'Bongo's'. We don't know if Mike ever said he wanted it back, and if he did he was evidently in no hurry, because he presumably went on visiting Tony right up to July 1991, when the school runs ended for the summer holidays, and the book was with Janet all that time. My copy, published in 1985, is a slim volume, with 13 chapters over just 64 pages, so even if Janet only read a chapter a day it would have taken her no more than a fortnight to finish and return it to her father. It seems clear to me that it was forgotten about by all concerned, shortly after leaving Tony's house.

The fact that Mike is being evasive is what interests me. It's not having owned the book: it's his lying about it.

But what if he was only lying about when he began researching the diary, because he needed to make it as soon after Tony's death as possible, to make the story appear credible? If he didn't have a diary to research before 9th March 1992, because that was when he first knew of its existence, he had to backdate his research accordingly, spreading it over a longer period. The fact that Anne typed up his notes and admitted it is what obliged her to stick to Mike's original Tony story, if she knew very well it wasn't true because he had not come home with the diary until March 1992. If he lied about this to Doreen before Anne was aware of what he was going to say, there was no easy way out once he had dragged her into it. How could she reveal to Doreen and Shirley that Mike had lied to them from the word go about where and when he got the diary? All hell would have broken loose in the Barrett household.

If Anne was complicit in a deception, by agreeing to backdate Mike's limited research to fit in with his 'dead pal' story, because he had made it a fait accompli by then, it's merely an assumption - not a fact - that the notes themselves were fake.

Good weekend all.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Thanks, Caz, for expounding--at great length--on my typographical error.

Devereux could hardly have lent Mike’s book to his daughter eleven months after his own death, and I didn't meant to suggest he had.

If you now have an urge to dismiss your earlier chronology and shove this event back 6 months or so, who am I to complain? It doesn't really change anything, but I suppose you are hoping an additional 6 month span will give Mike more time to have simply forgot to whom he had lent a book mentioning the Maybrick case several months before Dodd had his heaters installed.

If that’s how you want to play it, so be it.

Others came to a different conclusion.

Martin Fido to Nick Warren, 17 October 1994: [note: Bonsey is Detective Thomas’]

'I am impressed that Bonesy was deeply suspicious of her [Anne]. She made a near-hysterical fuss about having police in the house; insisted that she knew nothing about the diary - it was all Mike's - but stood behind the kitchen door listening like a hawk to his entire interview with Mike. Bones knew Mike was lying when he claimed not to have talked about Maybrick with Tony Devereux, and went to look for the book from which he himself had learned about the case - the book with Richard W-E's account of the case, which was in the boot of Bonesy's car at the time, having been given him by the Devereux daughters, who remembered Mike lending it to their father!'

It sounds like both Fido and Thomas (and Warren?) were convinced Barrett was lying. Paul Feldman tells a similar tale and concluded that Barrett and Devereux had discussed the Maybrick case.

If, as you suggest, Barrett had simply forgot about lending this book to someone—having not even read the book-- but had simply seen a similar copy in Smith’s at a later date, why do we get no hint of this in the above account?

Instead, Mike puts on a charade of hunting all over his house for it.

But I ask again…why is Mike distancing himself from Devereux? What is his motive? All he had to do was admit to having had the book. Even having lent it to Devereux was no big deal, for, according to Mike, he had been researching the Diary and Maybrick for a long time before contacting Crew, as per his bogus research notes.

The fact that Mike is being evasive is what interests me. It’s not having owned the book: it’s his lying about it.

It's like a bird dog pointing to where the peasant is hiding.

And by the way, in regards to your suggestion that Graham wouldn't involve herself in a hoax. Please explain Mike's bogus research notes, dating to 'as of August 1991.' She admitted to typing them up, didn't she? You believe the Diary entered the Barrett's home in March 1992. Are you suggesting she didn't bloody well know that Mike didn't have the Diary back in 1991?

Is this not evidence that she was, in fact, complicit in a deception by helping create fake notes and then backdating them?

[caz]

I was paraphrasing, but--correctly me if I'm wrong-- the suggestion of July 1992 came from your own book, Caz, based on a discussion with the Devereux daughters.

Apologies for not seeing and correcting this curious 'July 1992' suggestion until now. Pages 74 and 256 of Ripper Diary refer to the borrowing of Mike's Tales of Liverpool from Tony Devereux, and there is no suggestion that anyone was borrowing anything from him a year after his death, which was in August 1991.

Page 74 only has the book being seen in Tony's house and borrowed by one of his daughters 'sometime in 1991'.

On page 256 we write:

'Over the years confusion had grown up over just which sister had borrowed the book and, more crucially, when. We were able to confirm with Nancy Steele, the eldest, that it was her sister Janet who had borrowed the book. Janet, she told us, had been pregnant at the time and was bored, having recently left work to begin maternity leave... She was told it had to be returned as it belonged to "Bongo"...

As Janet's son was subsequently born on 27 November 1991, the sisters believe it must have been in the summer, probably late July or early August, just before their father's death, that Janet would have borrowed the book.'

The confusion may have arisen because Janet's sisters were trying to recall what happened many years after the event, connecting her pregnancy with borrowing the book, and naturally assuming their Dad's death was the reason it was not returned. It wasn't known in 2003 what Janet had said about it originally.

After our book was published, in 2003, to mark the first ten years of the diary story, Keith continued to investigate, trying to tie up many such loose ends, which is when he ascertained that Janet's own account, from 1993, was that she had seen the book and borrowed it "about January 1991".

I have to say, while I'm here, that the Barrett Believers still have the obstacle of Mike's affidavit to get over, before they ought to be smugly satisfied that it somehow reflects a basic truth about the diary's conception and creation. Where does it leave Mike's claims about Anne, if the handwriting can never be identified as her own, and could therefore be virtually anyone's, invited into their home in Goldie Street to join the party? Would Anne have been aware, when writing letters by hand to Mike after their marriage broke down, that she had absolutely nothing to fear if he passed them on to Alan Gray, and they eventually found their way to someone who saw similarities with the diary and published examples? I'm not sure I'd have taken that risk if I had committed a very public fraud, but then the hoaxer presumably knew they were as safe as houses as long as they made a half reasonable attempt at disguising their normal hand.

Returning to the affidavit, who made the mistake about Tony Devereux's death date, for example? As we can see from the 'July 1992' suggestion, that Janet Devereux borrowed the book from her father when he had been dead for nearly a year, it can be easy for the more casual observer to make such an error. However, if Tony was there with Mike and/or Anne when the idea of the Maybrick diary was being seriously considered, but had expired before he could see the fruits of their combined labours, I do struggle with the excuses made for Mike and/or Alan Gray getting all this so badly arse about face in the affidavit, particularly when it has recently been observed that Tony seems like an unnecessary inclusion - a spare part - rather than a central figure, whose ill health had even allegedly caused the Barretts to leave the diary 'for a while' after completing it.

By January 1995, when this affidavit was sworn, Alan Gray had been working with Mike on his 'story' for long enough to be in absolutely no doubt about the man's difficulties with dates. Back in early November 1994, for example, outside Outhwaite & Litherland, Gray had found it hard work trying to pin Mike down to when he had attended the auction there. He had initially claimed it was in 1987. Gray complained: "Now we've had another date. We had 1990 the other day".

Gray was a private investigator, who took on the job of typing up Mike's detailed affidavit, after working closely with him to try and get at the truth of the matter. And yet, between the two of them, they couldn't even manage to get Devereux's date of death right? Whose chronology was it anyway? Mike was hopeless with dates, so he can apparently be excused for claiming that the red diary was purchased first, followed by the photo album and other writing materials in early 1990, followed by the creation on the word processor and the 11 days to transfer it into the album, followed by the wait to see if Tony Devereux's health would improve [or give them a handy 'dead pal' story if it deteriorated]:

'Several days prior to our purchase of materials [which Mike dated to early 1990] I had started to roughly outline the Diary on my word processor.

Anne and I started to write the Diary in all it took us 11 days. I worked on the story and then I dictated it to Anne who wrote it down in the Photograph Album and thus we produced the Diary of Jack the Ripper...

During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severly (sic) ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990.'

Fair enough if Alan Gray had no easy way to firm up any of the dates Mike supplied for the creative process itself, but there were two dates someone in his profession had no excuse for not establishing beyond doubt: August 1991 for Tony Devereux's death, and April 1992 for Mike finally taking the finished diary to London. If Gray had only consulted the two diary books from 1993 and 1994, copyright narrative and commentary, Shirley Harrison and Michael Barrett [did Mike not have spare copies? Or the library?], he'd have known that Mike was getting in a mucking fuddle with his chronology, and could have avoided getting in one himself if he was the one putting it all together. Either way, I don't understand why anyone thinks this document deserves to be taken seriously. It doesn't help to try and put the responsibility at Gray's door. If it's Mike's chronology, which Gray was simply accepting, it's a pig's ear. If it was Gray who got it wrong, it's even worse, because he had long enough to check the basics regarding Devereux's state of health [he was not 'severely ill' in 1990 or 1991, and his death from a heart attack was sudden and unexpected] and Mike was meant to have read the document through carefully and checked all the details before signing.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Assumptions and suspicions are all very well of course, but they are no substitute for solid evidence. That will come if and when the diary handwriting is finally identified.

As a final thought...

There's nothing like hamstringing yourself by worrying about the evidence you don't have, instead of exploring the obvious implications of the evidence you do have.

In theory, the pen-person could be some anonymous woman hired off the street, who had no other connection to the hoax and is therefore forever unknowable.

You've therefore placed the 'bar of evidence' so high that...conveniently, perhaps...it can never be reached. It's somewhat akin to the American lawyer who recently announced that his client couldn't be charged with murder because the victim's body has never been found. He must have received quite a shock when his client was charged anyway.

In other words, one doesn't need to know the name of the getaway driver to know the bank has been robbed, and to have a very shrewd idea that Bonnie and Clyde were behind it, particularly if circumstances point to them.

But I think it is time to withdraw from the Diary debate for a much needed hiatus. Barrat and others have dumped quite a lot of new information in the last two months. It might not be amiss to give the 'Modern Hoax Doubters' time for some private reflection, so they can think over this new data without the need to bicker with the skeptics, and decide in their own minds if their previously held beliefs might not need serious revision.

[rjpalmer]

I don't recall Janet Devereux ever suggesting it was in '1992', but then her own words: "about January 1991" are no longer good enough for RJ, so false assumptions are now made...

I was paraphrasing, but--correctly me if I'm wrong-- the suggestion of July 1992 came from your own book, Caz, based on a discussion with the Devereux daughters.

In reality, I'm totally fine with your amendment to January 1991. I merely asked why and how Janet Devereux was able to now pin-point a different date than what you and Keith had previously reported in Ripper Diary. If you find that an unreasonable question, than I apologize and withdraw it.

But I'm not so curious that I would actually twist your arm to find out. It doesn't really matter to me in the least.

Enjoy your day.

[caz]

Caroline, didn't Melvin Harris suggest the handwriting resembled Gerard Kane's?

Sorry, Scotty, how could I have missed your question?

Melvin got hold of Tony Devereux's will, which had been signed and witnessed by Gerard Kane. Melvin believed he detected a similarity between Kane's handwriting and the diary and proceeded to direct people to the man's home address. We cover it in Ripper Diary, if you have a copy?

Some present day theorists reject Melvin's belief that Mike was not being truthful in his affidavit, when he claimed it was Anne's handwriting in the diary. Melvin didn't believe either Anne or Mike wrote it, but were merely handlers and placers of someone else's hoax. Presumably, after seeing the will, he had Tony Devereux down as the diary's creator, with Kane as the mug who actually copied Tony's words into Mike's photo album. If, as David Barrat would have you believe, this wasn't done until early April 1992 [after Mike finally worked out that the tiny 1891 diary he had ordered was no good to man nor beast and had to go hunting for something else], when Devereux had been dead for several months, it leaves Barrat with little choice but to argue that it was Anne who held the pen, just as Mike claimed. Mike could have added Kane's name to the mix if he knew it, but he gets no mention in the affidavit and there's no evidence they ever met, so it's hard to see how it could all have worked if young Caroline really did witness the transfer of the diary text from the Barretts' word processor to the photo album.

Melvin also made his opinion known at the press launch of Shirley's book, when he loudly proclaimed that the handwriting was by someone who was probably schooled in the 1930s. Anne was born at the beginning of 1950, so did he get this badly wrong, or has David Barrat got it badly wrong?

My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that if Kane did write the diary he must have been even more of a clown than Bongo. He had no way of ever getting his hands on a penny of the profits, but he still risked being charged with fraud, by giving samples of his handwriting to strangers who had no authority to demand them, which could then have identified him as the penman. He could hardly have complained that the Barretts had swindled him out of his share of the spoils.

So whose handwriting is in the diary? The continued failure to pin it decisively on any of the usual modern suspects might well explain the millions of words still spewed out on every other aspect of this infernal book.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

This one's for Erobitha...

Let me assure you I have no desire to 'take up the chase', whatever RJ meant by that.

In fact, I'm more than happy to let RJ sort everything out for himself. He seems to have most of it figured out anyway, at least in his own mind, despite all his latest questions [several of which have been answered or addressed more than once] and requests for more detail and further elucidation. He has his own ideas about when Mike's Tales of Liverpool really left Tony's house, and he doesn't need a Devereux to tell him. I don't recall Janet Devereux ever suggesting it was in '1992', but then her own words: "about January 1991" are no longer good enough for RJ, so false assumptions are now made about when she first said this and in what context, so even her reliability [and by extension mine and Keith's] can now be called into question. Why RJ would be uncomfortable with the January 1991 date is unclear, but no doubt he will explain.

RJ will continue to work to his own chronology, and if primary sources such as Janet Devereux, Martin Earl and Alec Voller don't conform, and all else fails, he can carry on shooting the messenger, imagining he has made a direct hit.

This messenger is off soon for a mini break before Boris closes down all the pubs and restaurants again! If all goes well, nobody will have to read any more posts from me until at least Monday week.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

P.S. to Erobitha. Maybe Caz will want to take up the chase, but I think you'll find that the Diary is roughly 11 3/4" or 12" long.

Chris Jones describes the scrapbook as approximately 11 by 8 1/2" , though I assume the cover would make it slightly larger.

[Scott Nelson]

Assumptions and suspicions are all very well of course, but they are no substitute for solid evidence. That will come if and when the diary handwriting is finally identified.

Caroline, didn't Melvin Harris suggest the handwriting resembled Gerard Kane's?