The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[rjpalmer]

Anne openly referred to Mike's affidavit - highly embarrassed by her ex-husband's antics, no doubt - on January 18, 1995, after Shirley Harrison et alia had spent the morning with Mike Barrett:

AG: Did anything else come up? I, I, I was expecting you – to be honest – to come back and go on about the forgery thing [Barrett’s affidavit of January 5, thirteen days earlier].
SH: No. Not that at all [So Shirley knew about it].
[Inaudible background discussion.]
AG: Yeah. I thought you’d have the forgery story and not, I really did.
SH: None of that at all.
AG: Did that other chap turn up?
[General discussion around how helpful Ken Forshaw had been with Barrett.]
AG: I dread to think what he said [laughs].
SH: Oh, he wanted us to buy him a bottle of Scotch.

This is worthless, Ike.

You've taken a snippet of conversation out of context with nary a hint of what led up to Anne's reference to the 'forgery thing.'

Those who have read Inside Story will recall that Barrett had previously admitted to Shirley that he had forged the diary (this took place in the back garden the day before Mike's drunken, quickly retracted confession to Harold Brough) and without proper context we have no idea what Anne is referring to.

The only reference to Mike's secret, non-circulating affidavit in the above snippet is your own interlinear commentary in brackets!

Tsk, tsk. Very naughty, Old Man.

Your readers don't want your guiding hand leading them down the garden path. They want to see the entire transcript without your editorial musings sprinkled in.

[rjpalmer]

People not knowing something does not a 'secret' make.

Good one!

No one knows about it (except, of course, Mike, Melvin, and Alan) but it isn't a secret!

Names, Ike.

Give your readers the names of the people who had seen and read Mike's secret, non-circulating confessional affidavit before it was leaked to the internet two years later, as Caz has so succinctly admitted.

[Iconoclast]

Good one!
No one knows about it (except, of course, Mike, Melvin, and Alan) but it isn't a secret!
Names, Ike.
Give your readers the names of the people who had seen and read Mike's secret, non-circulating confessional affidavit before it was leaked to the internet two years later, as Caz has so succinctly admitted.

No-one knows (for certain) who Jack the Ripper was but that doesn't make it a secret, does it? It just means that no-one currently knows. Similarly, if a few people did know who Jack the Ripper was and they were not sharing it, that still wouldn't make it a secret. We could ask them and they could simply say who he was. Their not saying is therefore not evidence that there is a secret being withheld (or - in your choice vernacular, 'non-circulated').

Mike, Alan, Melvin, and Anne were four people who had seen the contents of the affidavit, so that doesn't sound like much of a secret to me. On the morning of January 18, 1995, Mike told Shirley and Keith that he had made a recent affidavit so the secret doesn't seem so precious, does it? Sally Evemy and Kenneth Forshaw were present at that meeting so presumably they also became aware of it. Now, for whatever reason, no-one picked-up on it and explored this further, but it doesn't sound like much of a secret still, does it?

For more people to have been made aware of it, one or more of four people who had copies of it had to make theirs publicly available. Mike didn't. Alan Gray didn't. Melvin Harris didn't. Anne Graham didn't. Was this evidence of an almighty conspiracy to withhold the truth, or was it simply that Mike, Alan, and Anne had no-one specifically to share it with, and - most suspiciously of all - Melvin Harris couldn't bring himself to show the world the fruits of his long campaign to get a detailed confession out of Mike?

By the way, I love your provocative use of the word 'leaked'. 'Leaked to the internet' - ooh, the salaciousness, the drama, the intrigue! Someone posted it online and that becomes a 'leak'. This is why I so often have to accuse you of muddying the waters, RJ. You and Orsam are so practiced at it, I honestly don't think you even know you're doing it. The good news for my dear readers is that I am here to protect them from your sense of theatre.

By the way too, it is impossible for me to know what background material you and Orsam do or do not have. Sometimes you have stuff that surprises me and sometimes - like now - you do not appear to have stuff and that surprises me. Sadly, it's not in my gift to share it as it's not my material to share (I offer snippets without authority to hopefully make the occasional point).

That said, I'm starting to think that Society's Pillar 2025 is likely to be even more remarkable than the critics originally predicted ...

[rjpalmer]

Mike, Alan, Melvin, and Anne were four people who had seen the contents of the affidavit, so that doesn't sound like much of a secret to me.

Good Lord, Tom, you really are struggling.

We know that Mike, Alan, and Melvin knew about the secret, non-circulating confessional affidavit. Mike & Alan are the ones who created it, and Alan was taking advice from Melvin or at least keeping him in the loop. This has been established and is not in dispute.

My question is who was Mike's intended audience? What was his motive for signing it and lodging it with his solicitor?

I've already given you Keith's theory from 2018 in an earlier post. His explanation (and he can correctly me if he thinks I'm a misstating it) is that Mike made a false confession because "he hated Paul Feldman" (the owner of the visual rights) and wanted to get back at him.

I'm trying to establish the legitimacy of that hypothesis.

If this was the case, what is the evidence that Barrett circulated this allegedly bogus confession to potential film companies, or to newspapers, or to the media, etc., which certainly would have complicated Feldman's quest for a major motion picture?

There isn't any. No evidence has been provided.

Instead, you have identified an audience of one: Anne Elizabeth Graham. Which is exactly what your good friend David Barrat has argued. Again, I suggest that you chase down a copy of his dissertation.

Thus, we are faced with the bizarre fact that Barrett, with Gray's help, created a supposedly bogus confession and then released it solely to the only person in the entire world who would have personal insight into its authenticity or inauthenticity. Anne Graham.

It doesn't compute. No matter how much you wriggle, you can't make it make sense.

By the way, I love your provocative use of the word 'leaked'. 'Leaked to the internet' - ooh, the salaciousness, the drama, the intrigue!

I used the word 'leaked' deliberately because I've seen no evidence that Barrett agreed to the release of the affidavit. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't; perhaps Stephen Ryder, if you contacted him, could clarify matters, but my assumption is that Melvin Harris released it.

Whether he had Barrett's permission, I couldn't say, but the first public airing this secret, non-circulating confessional affidavit came two years after its creation.

Those are the facts.

A might strange delay if the motivation was to harm Paul Feldman. No; whatever the motivations of Gray and Harris, Mike was clearly using the affidavit as 'leverage' over Anne, and Mike's private notes to Anne confirm this.

[Iconoclast]

This is worthless, Ike.
You've taken a snippet of conversation out of context with nary a hint of what led up to Anne's reference to the 'forgery thing.'

You will note from the below - a generously (though utterly irrelevant) extension of the 'snippet of conversation' which was quoted 'out of context' (I think you meant a snippet of conversation which may have been taken out of context and which you will now see was not). I trust my dear readers will agree with me that I quoted as much as was required, whilst chucking in the bit about the bottle of whisky as it made me chuckle:

KS: Yes, so it must have been bizarre to hear a fortune, a possible fortune, to be made and all you wanted to do was to throw the thing on the fire.
AG: Well, that was actually, you know, organised through Doreen and that, you know.
SH: Yes –
AG: When I realised –
SH: He was serious –
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].
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.]
AG: Did anything else come up? I, I, I was expecting you – to be honest – to come back and go on about the forgery thing [Barrett’s affidavit of January 5, thirteen days earlier].
SH: No. Not that at all.
[Inaudible background discussion.]
AG: Yeah. I thought you’d have the forgery story and not, I really did.
SH: None of that at all.
AG: Did that other chap turn up?
[General discussion around how helpful Ken Forshaw had been with Barrett.]
AG: I dread to think what he said [laughs].
SH: Oh, he wanted us to buy him a bottle of Scotch.
AG: Oh, he did?
SH: [Inaudible] a quarter bottle –
AG: So, he’s still on it, then? He’s just got no money and that’s why he’s not drinking, probably.
SH: Well, he must drink because of his alcoholism. He can’t not drink, can he?
AG: No.
SH: So, I don’t know where he gets it from.
[General discussion around how clean the house and Barrett were along with the status of the wound to his arm as well as his various scars.]

So, that's how Anne Graham touched on the subject of Mike's hopeless affidavit, and how she let it quickly lie when she realised that Shirley and Keith were not going to dig into it. Perhaps Lord Orsam would like to update his 'Silence of the Annes' article by reviewing his sinister reasoning for Keith Skinner twice in one day being tentatively introduced to the inglorious January 5, 1995 affidavit and twice not pursuing it - there was surely some nefarious reason for Keith not digging deeper, but what on earth could it have been? (Lord Orsam will let us all know, I have no doubt, and it won't be good for anyone he perceives to be in the 'diary camp', let me forewarn you all.)

Keith knew it was another forgery claim, by the way (he actually says to Mike in the morning of the Anne Graham interview when Mike mentions his latest affidavit, "Is that to say, “I forged the Diary”?" but unfortunately both Mike and Shirley were off on another tack and the moment was gone, with Keith clearly uninspired because it's not like Mike hadn't made that claim a few times already). Keith undoubtedly would have been a great deal more interested in hearing more about the January 5, 1995 affidavit if Mike had added, "Yes - and in it I give a detailed account of exactly how I forged the diary", but Mike didn't so Keith (not unreasonably) wasn't. In retrospect, I don't think he missed out on very much, even if the Theatre of Orsam has tried desperately to make some kind of melodrama out of it.

[jmenges]

I view this damage and staining with curiosity and not a little suspicion.

Linseed oil is the same as flaxseed oil. There are grades of it that are nearly odorless.

These photographs of the inside cover were taken by James Johnston and shared with me back in 2019.

JM

[rjpalmer]

Very interesting images. Thanks.

I now see what caused the black rectangular shape that looked so curious in the previous image.

The oily substance has soaked so thoroughly through the endpaper that it has become semi-transparent 'oil paper,' showing the edges of the colored cloth underneath.

It's also nice to finally see the stain where Barrett once claimed he had slapped the diary with a fresh kidney!

[Iconoclast]

It's also nice to finally see the stain where Barrett once claimed he had slapped the diary with a fresh kidney!

I'm pretty sure that that particular hallucinogenic claim featured his wife Anne dropping a kidney onto the inside front cover of the scrapbook not he himself.

Well, what can you expect if you prance around with actual kidneys when a priceless document is open at the side of the cooker with a pan full of spitting fat on it, eh?

Don't try this at home, folks.

[Scott Nelson]

Hey, Scotty, what happened to the five things you find most troublesome about James Mybrick's scrapbook?

Hey Ike,

Why does it have to be five things?

Here's a couple of troubling things to me:

1. The writer's obsession with Abberline
2. Ink was fresh until it started bronzing in mid-late 1990s.
3. Is the 'diary' a scrapbook, a photo album or a guard book and why write a story in that?
4. Why did Tony Devereux have to borrow Mike's copy of Tales of Liverpool?

But the most troubling aspects are the interpretations people have put on the writing content. Like your insistence there was an "FM" on Kelly's wall and another carved into her arm.

[rjpalmer]

3. Is the 'diary' a scrapbook, a photo album or a guard book and why write a story in that?

Hi Scott.

From Shirley Harrison, the diary's best-known supporter.




"It had clearly been a photograph album." And indeed, a corner of a photograph was found in its binding.

Calling it a "Victorian scrapbook" is one of Ike's many optimistic quirks.

One of Donald Rumbelow's friends believed it to be Victorian, but Kenneth Rendell called it "Victorian or Edwardian." Melvin Harris claimed on the old forums that similar photograph albums were still being made in 1930.

Even if we are generous and say it is Victorian, Queen Vickie lived until 1901, so the album could conceivably date to nearly 12 years after Maybrick's death.

All this is relevant considering the strange oily blotch on the inside cover of the photo album.

I don't know if a maker's mark was ever there, but there is no doubt that people often sign and date their books on the upper left inside corner of the cover.

Thus, the location of the oil stain is quite interesting.

[Iconoclast]

Hey Ike,

Why does it have to be five things?

Here's a couple of troubling things to me:

1. The writer's obsession with Abberline
2. Ink was fresh until it started bronzing in mid-late 1990s.
3. Is the 'diary' a scrapbook, a photo album or a guard book and why write a story in that?
4. Why did Tony Devereux have to borrow Mike's copy of Tales of Liverpool?

But the most troubling aspects are the interpretations people have put on the writing content. Like your insistence there was an "FM" on Kelly's wall and another carved into her arm.

Thanks for the five things, Scotty. Just on the subject of 'five', can you find me five different photographs of Kelly's death scene in which the 'FM' on Kelly's wall cannot be seen, please?

I honestly think you'll struggle, but do give it a go and see how irritatingly persistent they are I turning up. As for the 'F' carved into Kelly's arm, if you can't see an 'F' there, I honestly don't know what to say to you, mate. Let's not even call it an 'F' - let's just call it 'wounds that look at this angle for all the world to be an 'F''.

Cheers, Ike

[Iconoclast]

Very interesting images. Thanks.
It's also nice to finally see the stain where Barrett once claimed he had slapped the diary with a fresh kidney!

By the way, this is not as trivial as you (and therefore my dear readers) may assume because it draws our attention to the reports of at least three different versions of how the hoaxing process caused this kidney shape to appear on the inside front cover of James Maybrick's scrapbook - and (lo!) they all come from the bright mind of Michael Barrett:

1) Nov 5, 1994 (to Alan Gray, summarised by Seth Linder) -
"Barrett now writes a sample of the Diary that he actually wrote, an actual
passage. AG observes the writing appears to be very small. They now discuss
the kidney-stained shape cut from the cover. Apparently, this was because MB
only has one kidney."

2) Nov 7, 1994 (to Alan Gray)
Anne dropped an actual kidney on it (this one is my favourite)

3) Jan 5, 1995 (to no-one, it was the biggest secret ever, ever, ever, ever, never) -
"I then made a mark 'kidney' shaped just below centre inside the cover with the knife."

No. 1 and No. 3 could be conflated as the same, I guess - but why not just keep the story consistent for once, Mike??????

[rjpalmer]

Ike -- returning a moment to the meeting with Barrett on 18 January 1995...

I think I might be able to help you remove some of the gauze in front of your eyes.

Caz and I seldom agree, but as she has pointed out a zillion times, Feldman's team (Feldman, Carol Emmas, etc.) and Harrison's team (Shirley, Doreen, and Sally), though both "pro Diary," weren't always sharing information. Indeed, by all appearances Harrison was quite rightly alarmed by Feldman's screwball methods and, at times at least, tried to keep him out of the loop. She once wrote a very concerned post to this very forum, pleading not to allow Feldman to interview our Australian friend Steve Powell before she could get to him first. This reveals her mindset.

From what I understand, Keith Skinner was somewhat unique in that he had a foot in both 'camps'--working with Feldman, but also, at times, working with Harrison.

Only Keith could tell us, but it seems to me that something strange went on back in January 1995 if one really probes the minutia. There can't be much doubt that Harrison knew very early on about some of the claims Mike was making in his secret, non-circulating affidavit, because there is a note indicating that she contacted Kevin Whay of the auction house on 16 January 1995. She quizzes Mike about this on January 18th.

'Inside Story' inaccurately states that Harrison contacting Whay when news of Mike's affidavit went 'public,' but this is not correct because as Caz has reported on this forum, Barrett's affidavit did not go public until early 1997 when it was 'leaked' to the internet, presumably by Melvin Harris.

And what happened when it did leak? Caz tells us that Keith Skinner sent a copy of Mike's affidavit to Shirley Harrison as if he's seeing it for the first time (see Caz's post, reposted earlier in this thread) and Doreen Montgomery contacts Kevin Whay, who checks his books, with Doreen apparently being blissfully unaware that Harrison had contacted Whay two years earlier.

If you are astute, this should give you pause to reflect.

Further (and somewhat bizarrely) Shirley Harrison later publishes an account of Doreen's investigation with Whay in her book, not revealing that she had already contacted Whay in 1995.

I don't know if you can follow all of this, but is sounds an awful lot to me like Harrison knew of Barrett's secret non-circulating affidavit, or at least parts of it (from whom we do not know) but did not reveal its existence to Keith Skinner, possibly because she did not want Paul Feldman to know about it before she had a chance to research it herself.

But it could also be that Mike was yammering some of the same information to Harrison during his infamous late-night harassing telephone calls.

To reverse your own commentary, just because Harrison knew something about Mike's affidavit, doesn't mean it wasn't a secret. The point is that if Mike's motive was to destroy Feldman, he would have circulated it to newspapers, television stations, film companies, etc. Leaking it or parts of it to Harrison does not show 1) it was a bogus confession; 2) that Mike's aim was to destroy Feldman; 3) that it wasn't secret.

But all I can do is to helpfully and kindly lead a struggling horse to the watering-hole; I cannot make him drink.

[Iconoclast]

Ike -- returning a moment to the meeting with Barrett on 18 January 1995...
I think I might be able to help you remove some of the gauze in front of your eyes.
But all I can do is to helpfully and kindly lead a struggling horse to the watering-hole; I cannot make him drink.

Suggestion: If you make the watering-hole a wee bit more enticing, you might find many horses come to drink there, RJ.

You do make a case for Shirley knowing about the January 5, 1995 affidavit and you also make a possible case for why she would keep schtum about it. Less 'Silence of the Annes' (which we now know was untrue) and more the 'Silence of the Shirleys' (which doesn't pun as well, but it was never one of Orsam's best puns anyway). Why did she shut Anne down on January 18 so quickly? Well, you provide us with the answer - she didn't want Keith to innocently mention it to Feldman. All makes sense. I didn't understand why she appeared to shut Anne down but now it seems so obvious.

Except it's not quite as obvious as that. The caveat here is why Shirley was being apparently so secret squirrel about the affidavit and yet had copied Keith into a memo dated January 16, 1995 in which she described her meeting with Kevin Whay at Outhwaite & Litherland two days before she suddenly appeared to get all secret squirrel at Anne's flat. Doesn't compute, I'd say. Unless she had told Keith about the meeting with Kevin Whay but NOT why she had sought it?

By the way, I think you were referring to Keith when you said someone said Barrett was trying to get back at Feldman. If so, two things:

1) I had thought Keith had said this in relation to Mike's 'confession' of June 1994 not about his 'confession' of January 5, 1995 (I could be wrong, of course); and
2) My personal interpretation of Mike's motivation for his January 5, 1995 'confession' was two-fold: to get Harris off his back (for a while at least), and also to have something to try to blackmail Anne with to let him see Caroline (a strategy which failed miserably because Anne evidently didn't show any concerns about his threats).

PS If I'm wrong about point number 1, you need to take it up with Keith directly.

[rjpalmer]

PS If I'm wrong about point number 1, you need to take it up with Keith directly.

Why would I need to do that if you are wrong? I've already posted Keith's comments in any earlier posting.

I don't think we are getting anywhere, Ike, and I think that you'll have to run your theories past Caroline Brown.

Your good friend, Lord Orsam, has reminded me of Caroline's post #331 on The Special Announcement thread:


'I have still seen no evidence that Mike, or Alan Gray, or Melvin Harris, or anyone on Melvin's behalf, shared the news of this particular affidavit, or its content, with anyone else until early 1997, when Shirley and Keith first saw copies, courtesy of Mike himself. If anyone has such evidence, I'll be happy to be corrected.'

Now read that again, Ike, slowly.


You seem to be entirely alone in believing that Mike made his secret, non-circulating affidavit available to anyone or broadcast its contents far and wide. Every step of the way Mike denied it and denied its contents until it was leaked to the internet two years later (presumably by Melvin Harris to Stephen Ryder) when for reasons not yet entirely explained, Mike sent a copy to Shirley Harrison.

This is not coming from me, a diary critic, but from your own colleague, Caroline Brown.

Ciao.