The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[Iconoclast]

I realised recently that - since Admin had closed down The Greatest Thread of All recently - I had been inadvertantly posting to a thread whose title was 'The Diary—Old Hoax or New?' and that that didn't make much sense for the world's most brilliant and famous Maybrickian (and therefore the one Ripperologist history will acclaim as having been right all along), so I resolved not to post on it in case foolhardy fellows and fellowesses thought that I was actually endorsing one possibility or the other. I'm not. It's not a hoax. Just in case anyone was in any doubt. Different thread, same theme from the Ikester.

But you have posted to it in my specific direction so I would hate to be seen as an unfriendly sort. What - I think - is required is a new pro-Maybrick thread with a really clever name that captures our dear readers' attention for fifteen years or so. But I can't think of a suitable title! Can any of my dear readers help, I wonder?

I see old Algernon Orsam has given up the ghost and formally retired from all future escapades never to be heard of again so he won't be making any (suitable) suggestions, I suspect. I will miss his Spandau Ballet-themed wit and wisdom. 'This much is fa-hake, this much is fa-hake', et cetera. Okay, I know he'll read this so I'm just winding him up. He's not retired at all. He has just resigned from everything ...

Ah, Newcastle!

Ah, Newcastle, indeed. Was back there just yesterday amongst the old back alleys and bloody rain.

I thought of you the other night, Ike. Don't be alarmed; let me explain.

You don't need to explain to me, RJ. I understand.

The political landscape on this side of the pond is so bleak among us left-of-center types that I am determined to permanently escape reality and devote the next four years to wholesome, family-oriented stories and films that will, with luck, soften my brain and lead to sentimental, addle-headed happiness while Western Civilization collapses.

Have you tried reading Orsam's articles on Maybrick? That should speed the brain-softening and addled-headedness, but probably do very little for the sentimentality aspect of your present condition. For the record, I'm hoping that Trump doesn't become the evil overlord he could be with such a powerful mandate from your neighbours (if not you), though I'm not putting any money on it. Can you imagine Trump, Xi, Jong Un, and Putin out on the piss in Times Square next Christmas? I'm not sure if there'll be room for all the tanks but at least Putin won't be able to turn Hell's Kitchen into a de facto oblast (I assume).

The first movie I came across was called 'The Rag Nymph.'

Ah, Catherine Cookson, Tyneside's finest author of mindless, utterly misogynistic claptrap. I particularly loved 'The Mallon Streak' where some posh bloke raped a young servant girl, she moved into a cave in a nearby hill to have the baby rather than be harassed as an unmarried mother by the disgusted locals, and he later 'sponsored' her life to help her with the mortgage, and I think possibly married her or something. I could be mixing-up my stories a little bit, but you get the gist of the sort of outrageous tales it was okay to tell in the 1970s or whenever. Still, the TV adaptation featured that wonderful quintessential English rose Honeysuckle Weeks so it was sort of endorsed by the unofficial 'British Establishment', I guess.

To my dismay, the opening credits alerted me to the fact that the story would take place in Newcastle in the 1850s. And what a dirty town it was.

When I left it for Edinburgh in October 1987, it was still quite grubby. You'd think someone would have got a mop and brush out?

Perhaps you are familiar with 'The Rag Nymph'; I wasn't.
Here, I thought, was a heart-warming tale of an orphan taken-in by a rag-and-bone woman. It would be mildly akin to Anne of Green Gables or Pollyanna--or your favorite, Annie.
Alas, it soon became apparent that the story dealt with child sex trafficking.

See what I mean?

By the way, my favourite song from Annie is 'Tomorrow'. Check out Sydnie [sic] Christmas' [sic] recent version on Britain's Got Talent - that girl's got some lungs on her, I can tell you. And some tonsils, I assume.

Which, by an association of thoughts, brought me back to our current political landscape on this side of the pond.

Aye, 'strange times, strange times' [thank you, Local Hero].

And then other stay thoughts started to pop up; Newcastle Brown Ale and Sandro Tonali faking an injury against Man City, and finally it led to our old friend Ike, the Maybrick guru (my knowledge of Newcastle is woefully limited).

I'm currently reading 'All With Smiling Faces', a light-hearted look at Newcastle United's formation from the old Stanley FC and then East End FC. If you want an introduction to all things Geordie, it's not a bad place to start. Except the bits where it mentions Sunderland AFC (formerly top of the English Championship but now not), obviously. I think 'Maybrick guru' sells me slightly short, but equally it was sort of a compliment too so I'm thinking about having it tattooed onto my arm. Let's hope the bugger [not a swear word in Newcastle, note], doesn't use Diamine ink, eh? [Maybrick joke for the uninitiated.]

By the way, old fruit, I have four books in front of me as I type - all by that much-lauded hoax-buster (pah!) Melvin Harris. Let no-one say that the now rather poorly-named Society's Pillar 2025 (due out in about 2030) will not be a balanced affair!

Unlike the game against Wet Spam on Monday evening (fortunately, I had screwed a hole into a gas pipe - no joke - and was therefore rather distracted from the action) ...

Ike

[rjpalmer]

the only time in my life I've secretly wanted Newcastle to NOT get to an FA Cup Final as I would have missed it, and Chelsea obliged us in the semi-final so ethical dilemma dealt with) is that he is Venezuelan...

Ah, Newcastle!

I thought of you the other night, Ike. Don't be alarmed; let me explain.

The political landscape on this side of the pond is so bleak among us left-of-center types that I am determined to permanently escape reality and devote the next four years to wholesome, family-oriented stories and films that will, with luck, soften my brain and lead to sentimental, addle-headed happiness while Western Civilization collapses.

The first movie I came across was called 'The Rag Nymph.'

To my dismay, the opening credits alerted me to the fact that the story would take place in Newcastle in the 1850s. And what a dirty town it was.

Perhaps you are familiar with 'The Rag Nymph'; I wasn't.

Here, I thought, was a heart-warming tale of an orphan taken-in by a rag-and-bone woman. It would be mildly akin to Anne of Green Gables or Pollyanna--or your favorite, Annie.

Alas, it soon became apparent that the story dealt with child sex trafficking.

Which, by an association of thoughts, brought me back to our current political landscape on this side of the pond.

And then other stay thoughts started to pop up; Newcastle Brown Ale and Sandro Tonali faking an injury against Man City, and finally it led to our old friend Ike, the Maybrick guru (my knowledge of Newcastle is woefully limited).

Such is life.

Not a terrible series, though, but I only completed part one before calling it a night. As the credits rolled, the Jeffrey Epstein character was lurking.

Ciao.

Edit: or, on second thought, it might be more accurate to say that the Ghislaine Maxwell character was lurking.

[caz]

If science cannot be replicated, it is not science. Faced with this criticism, McNeil radically changed his estimation to the ink going on paper sometime before 1970.

And herein lies another of the problems for Barrett hoax believers. Or another two problems to be exact.

One would think it ought to have been easy enough for science to replicate the test result which indicated the presence of chloroacetamide in the diary ink, and to confirm it as a component of the original ink, and not potentially introduced via contaminated equipment. The attempt to prove Mike Barrett's claim to have bought and used Diamine ink to fake the diary didn't work. The result of this attempt was not replicated and proved inconclusive at best, and if a direct chemical comparison could have been made between the diary ink and the known formula for Diamine, to clear up the matter once and for all, it wasn't commissioned. Perhaps there was no available method to do this, or maybe the worry was that Mike would be found out in a lie - another one.

The second problem is that 'sometime before 1970' would be every bit as fatal to the Barrett hoax theory as any other date one could mention, up to and including 31st March 1992, when Mike has to have attended a specific auction sale where he has to have bought the book into which the diary then had to be transferred. And yes, this would fit neatly with the ink being "barely dry on the paper" when he brought the finished fake to London 13 days later and allowed it to be seen by the first two experts in handwritten Victorian documents. Or it would have fitted neatly if Mike himself had dated the writing to early April 1992, instead of January 1990.

But now we have problem number three, because in his report, Baxendale concluded that: 'An exact time of origin cannot be established [for when this "barely dry" ink might have met the paper], but I consider it likely that it has originated since 1945.' What the actual flip? Even when Baxendale later modified his original opinion to a much more damning 2 or 3 years, without seeing the diary again and failing to replicate or improve on his unique solubility test result, this "barely dry" description fits nothing but a theory based loosely on a liar's claims.

Considering that Barrett went shopping for blank Victorian paper in the weeks leading up to April 1992...

...I'd say it could not have been for the text of the diary as we know it - covering the exact period of James Maybrick's life while living under the roof of Battlecrease House - unless Mike had no real idea of what he would need to buy and even less of a clue what to ask for.

Considering that the diary does not mention Maybrick by name, and nobody would have associated the name Jack the Ripper with a Liverpudlian who had lived in a big house on Riversdale Road, Aigburth, I think that would explain why the old book was allowed to slip into Mike's hands, instead of being left where it was found or shown to the current owner of James Maybrick's former home. Had it been found lying open on a desk or table, it would never have been taken away as it would have been missed. Had someone written inside it: 'This book belongs to James Maybrick of Riversdale Road, Liverpool', again it would never have been taken away due to its obvious association with the address - as with any other document relating to the history of the property. The contents may have been meant as a joke, or someone's attempt at writing a short story, or anything else we could imagine, but a clear link with Paul Dodd's house would have made anyone working there think twice, and then think again, about taking it without his knowledge or permission, and then passing it on or selling it. Even Mike Barrett would have realised the folly of taking it on under those circumstances. It would only have been possible if it looked like it had been hidden away undisturbed, its existence unknown to Paul Dodd, and nothing immediately suggesting a direct link to the house itself. Mike Barrett would have had no idea who Jack the Ripper was supposed to be, let alone where he was supposed to have lived, when he first looked inside the diary and decided to look for a publisher.

I suspect Paul Dodd was lucky that it wasn't handed over to him, as it probably would have been if it had any obvious signs of attachment to his house. Even luckier that he didn't find it himself. The saga within its pages, covering February 1888 to May 1889, could not have been more attached if it had come with its own umbilical cord. But it would have been the same saga in essence, warts and all, and the prime suspect for creating it would in that event have been Paul Dodd - because as every good Lechmerian will tell us, the finder of anything distinctly rotten, or the first person to connect themselves with it and bring it to public attention, is overwhelmingly the most likely one to have done the deed.

[caz]

Feldman wouldn't have accepted anything Barrett told him; Feldman had Anne Graham lying to him 24/7 and he was more than capable of denying reality.

What people don't grasp (but becomes obvious when listening to the Barrett/Gray tapes) is that Barrett wanted to be paid for his confession. Barrett wasn't willing to 'give up the goods' for free. Gray was trying to find a newspaper or magazine that would pay for Barrett's exclusive confession.

Also, Mike's January 5, 1992 confessional affidavit was secret and non-circulating. This is a key point that is easily missed. Feldman and Keith Skinner and other researchers would not be aware of it for several years.

Who makes an allegedly 'bogus' confession and then only lodges it with a solicitor? What would be the point? Wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of a bogus confession?

Just starting to catch up with this thread since mid-September...

Why does it matter if Feldman wouldn't have accepted any confession made by Mike? If that affidavit of 5th January 1995 had reflected reality, Feldman could have denied it as much as he liked, but Harris would have crowed about it from the rooftops instead of acting for the longest time like it didn't exist. When others, like Keith, Shirley and Doreen eventually got sight of it, they could not have denied the reality if there had been any contained within its pages - and would not have tried. It's too easy to focus on Feldman and forget that he was very far from unique in his treatment of Mike's 'confession', and if he was denying reality then the same would have to apply to Harris. There is no way that Harris could - or would - have kept quiet if Mike had delivered the goods in the New Year which he had ordered via Alan Gray before Christmas.

There is a delicious irony in arguing that because Mike wanted to be paid for his confession [shades of Eddie Lyons back in 1993], that was a point in his favour, suggesting he was on the level and would be making a true statement about the diary's origins - for once in his life. Why would he not have supplied the goods Harris was so itching to have in the bag, if he expected the money to follow? The only plausible reason would be if he was bluffing but still hoping to be paid for the load of guff Harris would soon be reading. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but you can try to sell the ear to anyone who will listen.

Eddie Lyons, by contrast, thought better of confessing anything to Feldman, and within a couple of months was making a feeble attempt to fool Robert Smith with a substituted skip-based confession, which was worthless on more than one level.

If Mike made his bogus confession in the hope of making money out of the gullible, he saw that as a potential bonus if his main thrust failed, which was to try and frighten Anne by delivering his affidavit to her, with its vengeful allegations concerning her, her recently deceased father and their young daughter Caroline, and threatening to go public with it if she still refused to talk to him. Naturally it didn't work out, because Anne knew the threat had no teeth and didn't rise to it, but Mike hoped she would care enough about what other people might believe. He was wrong about the money and wrong about Anne. Going public with his limp weapon wouldn't get him anywhere and would not impress anyone he needed to impress. Had it been a true confession, with all its own teeth, he might have earned himself that longed-for conversation with Anne along with a newspaper deal for his story.

[John Wheat]

'Clearly' ?? But in whose handwriting?

I'm guessing Anne Barrett. But its not exactly difficult to disguise your hand writing.

[Scott Nelson]

The diary was clearly written by Anne and Mike Barrett.

'Clearly' ?? But in whose handwriting?

[John Wheat]

err...that should read luminaries, unless FDC belongs to a certain Bay Area band!....




Thanks, Ike--a most fascinating exchange.

This is a final comment for Caz.

Anne Graham has made several very intriguing statements over the years, but this one takes the cake. Ever since it was posted, I've mulled over its meaning, and not without the beginnings of a smile.

Rhetorical question: Is this the closest Anne has ever come to describing the creation of the typescript? That is, if we throw out the part about the photo album already existing?

Gone is Anne's previous claim of Barrett himself writing a story about Maybrick-as-Ripper, now it is 'we'...a collaborative effort between Mike and Anne.

"We write a story around it."

Much like I’ve been suggesting to Caz for years--to no avail--but this time coming from the horse’s mouth.

(Somewhere--in either one of Shirley's books or in Inside Story--Anne was asked pointblank if she helped Mike hoax the diary and she denied it, claiming that their marriage was in such a sorry state that the idea of them collaborating on anything was out of the question. Yet here Anne makes an obvious enough contradiction, describing a joint project).

Equally remarkable, Anne describes that 'it' will be given to Mike 'bit by bit.' What on earth does she mean? What does she give to Mike 'bit by bit'? The ‘idea,’ evidently---but that hardly makes much sense.

The physical diary is either handed to him in one piece or not at all. The idea of writing a story about it is either suggested or it isn't suggested. Bizarrely, it seems (to me) that Anne can only be alluding to the idea of the story of Maybrick-as-Ripper--the plotting, the 'ideas,' being given to Barrett bit by bit---that she is the one who will be writing the story but manipulating Mike into thinking all the ideas are his.

If Anne is describing in a sideways fashion the creation of the typescript, then it is little wonder that when Barrett began spilling the beans in 1994, he described himself as the diary's author--the greatest forger in history!--even though his own writing talents were meager.

Because Anne is telling us that Mike would be manipulated into believing this was so.

People who lie will often incorporate the truth--or an approximation of the truth--into their accounts.

But who has ever listened to me?

No one.

Peace.

I disagree with your last point. I think a lot of sensible posters listen to what you say RJ. Why wouldn't they? The diary was clearly written by Anne and Mike Barrett.

Cheers John

[rjpalmer]

oft mentioned by FDC and other illuminaries....

err...that should read luminaries, unless FDC belongs to a certain Bay Area band!....

AG: - that he was going to get the bloody thing published –
SH: Yes, yes.
KS: Yes.
AG: You see, I had to be very subtle in my approach in as much that I couldn’t say to him, we don’t get it published, we write a story around it. I just sort of give it to him bit by bit to try and make him understand it’s come from his idea, it was his idea. But I couldn’t do it! I had managed to manipulate him every, years, so many things, I just [inaudible] this one [laughs ruefully].

Thanks, Ike--a most fascinating exchange.

This is a final comment for Caz.

Anne Graham has made several very intriguing statements over the years, but this one takes the cake. Ever since it was posted, I've mulled over its meaning, and not without the beginnings of a smile.

Rhetorical question: Is this the closest Anne has ever come to describing the creation of the typescript? That is, if we throw out the part about the photo album already existing?

Gone is Anne's previous claim of Barrett himself writing a story about Maybrick-as-Ripper, now it is 'we'...a collaborative effort between Mike and Anne.

"We write a story around it."

Much like I’ve been suggesting to Caz for years--to no avail--but this time coming from the horse’s mouth.

(Somewhere--in either one of Shirley's books or in Inside Story--Anne was asked pointblank if she helped Mike hoax the diary and she denied it, claiming that their marriage was in such a sorry state that the idea of them collaborating on anything was out of the question. Yet here Anne makes an obvious enough contradiction, describing a joint project).

Equally remarkable, Anne describes that 'it' will be given to Mike 'bit by bit.' What on earth does she mean? What does she give to Mike 'bit by bit'? The ‘idea,’ evidently---but that hardly makes much sense.

The physical diary is either handed to him in one piece or not at all. The idea of writing a story about it is either suggested or it isn't suggested. Bizarrely, it seems (to me) that Anne can only be alluding to the idea of the story of Maybrick-as-Ripper--the plotting, the 'ideas,' being given to Barrett bit by bit---that she is the one who will be writing the story but manipulating Mike into thinking all the ideas are his.

If Anne is describing in a sideways fashion the creation of the typescript, then it is little wonder that when Barrett began spilling the beans in 1994, he described himself as the diary's author--the greatest forger in history!--even though his own writing talents were meager.

Because Anne is telling us that Mike would be manipulated into believing this was so.

People who lie will often incorporate the truth--or an approximation of the truth--into their accounts.

But who has ever listened to me?

No one.

Peace.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Ike.

I’ve only now learned that your good friend, Lord Orsam, has retired.

It seems like an appropriate time to join him outside the slings and arrows of Maybrickian warfare.

And so, with a heavy heart, let me leave you with a small update on some experiments I’ve been running, concerning the curious oily patterns of damage on the diary’s inside cover.

Since I’ve written it up, I might as well pass it along.

Concerning the alleged strong odor of linseed oil, unnoticed by the nostrils of Shirley and Doreen…oft mentioned by FDC and other illuminaries....

As previously noted, linseed oil and flaxseed oil are the same thing. There are different grades of flaxseed oil and sometimes additives are introduced, depending on the intended use.

We have no way of knowing what Barrett used, or allegedly used, but pure flaxseed oil only becomes rancid and strong smelling if it is left out and exposed to oxygen for several days or weeks. The following scientific study will be of interest to you because it describes standard olive oil being used as a 'blind' for flaxseed oil in a clinical trial, and the participants couldn't tell the difference nor identify what they were using. Note also the reference to the flaxseed/linseed oil being odorless.

Effects of Flaxseed Oil and Olive Oil on Markers of Inflammation and Wound Healing in Burn Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial - PMC


Anyway, a month ago I took an old unwanted book cover, detached from the book, and allowed a tablespoon of 'new' flaxseed oil to soak into the endpaper for two hours in an attempt to replicate the pattern of damage we see in the photographs. More on this in a moment.

After two hours I mopped it up and let it dry. It's been a month and there is no discernable odor. Indeed, there was never more than a very faint odor. I can hand the cover to people to examine, and no one notices any scent. If one presses their nose directly against the stain and inhales like a winded racehorse or even like Tonali in the closing minutes of a regulation match against Man City, there is a very slight smell, but it's not at all unpleasant and it's impossible to know what it is.

No one would notice it.

Thus, we have another busted myth.

The main thing that worries me--and I think this is very bad news for you--is that what I think we are seeing in the dark brown area in the center of the stain in the upper left corner is the ‘board’ peeking through. (Marked between the red arrows below). In other words, the endpaper has been so worn away by rubbing while the oil was still wet that 'board' is exposed.

(The board is what the bookbinders call the stiff composite to which the fabric and the endpaper are glued. The board is darkish brown, and the endpaper is glued over it).

I tried to replicate this and found it was impossible from mere soaking in oil. One must rub and scrape rather vigorously after the oil has soaked in, and when it is still damp and fresh.



The point here is that I find it impossible to believe that this could have happened accidently. If, for some bizarre reason, a person was holding a bottle of oil over an open photograph album, and accidently spilled it on the inside cover, they would want to daub it off immediately. Further, the pattern of splashing would have been entirely different. They wouldn't let it soak for some minutes and then brush and scrape to the extent that it would damage the end paper. Someone was trying to remove something. That's my conclusion.

Couple this with the location of the damage—in the exact spot one would expect to find an unwanted signature or maker’s stamp or ‘Ex Libris’ sticker--we are left with very suspicious wear & tear. And as your good friend Lord Orsam, now in musical retirement has pointed out more than once, unexplained wear & tear & damage is a well-known characteristic of fakes.

Again, my conclusion is that someone must have done this deliberately. This, of course, would leave a suspicious tell-tale sign, so as an act of misdirection, I further hypothesize that the hoaxer next made an additional glaring stain in the middle of the cover --the kidney shaped patch seen below--even going so far as to dribble oil around it as if pouring it in that spot. Again, this doesn’t look consistent with an accidental spill.





Why ‘Maybrick’ would do such a thing is unfathomable, but it is even more debilitating to the ‘old hoax’ theory, since any Victorian or Edwardian contemporary would have no trouble finding a more suitable book that didn’t need to be doctored.

No doubt you will not lose any sleep over this and conclude that these strange patterns of staining pre-dated Barrett's ownership of the album, and he used them to good effect when constructing his non-circulating confessional affidavit, but I don't think this helps your cause. The stains are inherently of great suspicion and point to someone --who might as well have been Barrett--being up to no good.

That’s it, chief. That's my observation.

I plan on running a few more test using a gas oven, but those will be for my own amusement only.

Shalom!

[Scott Nelson]

Not at all, thanks. I should have read back more carefully.

[rjpalmer]

I've spent the last few days pondering this comment. It must be an inside joke, right?

Yes, it was a joke, Scott, but not at your expense.

In an earlier post, Ike transcribed a conversation between Anne Graham, Keith, and Shirley back in 1995.

KS: I asked, erm, when you were out of the room about ‘O costly intercourse of death’, the Hillsborough disaster –
SH: Yes, yes, yes.
KS: - in which, erm –
AG: Anyone want more tea?
KS: Oh, yes.
[General discussion about tea, cake, staying over that evening, and a book which Skinner and Harrison hoped to take a photocopy from.]

It struck me that just as things were becoming interesting--the Crashaw quote--Anne Graham redirected the conversation to tea, cake, and sleeping arrangements.

Similarly, as Ike didn't seem to be particularly interested in engaging with your commentary about Tony D and Mike's copy of Tales of Liverpool, I thought I'd help him out by asking the same question.

Anyone want more tea?

I suppose I can be a bit of a smart-ass.

[Scott Nelson]

Anyone want more tea?

I've spent the last few days pondering this comment. It must be an inside joke, right?

Common sense would have told me that it was Mike who borrowed Tony's book, not the other way around.

[rjpalmer]

Why did Tony Devereux have to borrow Mike's copy of Tales of Liverpool?

Anyone want more tea?

[rjpalmer]

More a message out a bottle?

Now it's my turn to chuckle. Good one, Ike.

[Iconoclast]

A message in a bottle, as it were.

More a message out a bottle?