The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[Iconoclast]

Absolutely Anne was fishing, trying to find out what Mike may have told them. How does that help your argument?

Mike had slipped a copy of the affidavit through Anne's mailbox as a form of blackmail. That she knows about the affidavit and is wondering if Mike spilled the beans in no way demonstrates that Shirley and Keith were also aware of it, or in Shirley's case, was admitting that she was aware of it.

At this point, Old Bean, I really think it would be to your benefit to take this up with your colleague Caroline Brown, who has insisted that Shirley and Keith were unaware of the affidavit until January 1997, and has even taken the late Melvin Harris to task for not sharing the affidavit with other researchers back in 1995-1996. See the 'Special Announcement' thread for details.

Roger,

I am not trying to suggest for a moment that Keith and Shirley were not unaware of the contents of Barrett's Disney Productions affidavit of January 5, 1995 until 1997. They clearly were unaware of the contents. No, no, no, no, no, you once again miss the point. It is very obvious that they did not see the actual affidavit until 1997 (because they clearly hadn't realised to what level of artificial intelligence Barrett had stooped to in describing his fantastic creative skills) but we are discussing whether or not some intergalactic secret was being preserved by the unlucky few who had been inflicted with the contents of the affidavit of January 5, 1995. You keep implying that it was the biggest secret of all time (until a new secret emerged last Saturday explaining why Fabian Schar didn't pass the ball sideways to Alexander Isak who was standing in front of Fulham's empty goal for 2-2). You keep implying that no-one was to know about this 'non-circulating' 'confession'. Well, Mike freely mentioned it in the morning of January 18 to Shirley and Keith (inter alia) and then his ex-wife did the same thing in the afternoon (once they'd finished the critical business of which was the appropriate cake to serve with tea). This doesn't sound to me like any kind of a secret. Shirley and Keith were twice drawn to Mike having made a fresh affidavit of forgery and everyone else in the room could hear it.

No, no, no, no, no. There's no secret, and that (I'm fairly sure) is what we were debating. Shirley and Keith knew about the January 5, 1995, affidavit within two weeks of Melvin - sorry, Mike - making it: they just didn't show any interest in seeing it, presumably because they weren't made aware that there were new claims being made in it. Two years later, they realised.

[rjpalmer]

- but let's not use this as some backdoor attempt to marginalise Anne's very obvious attempt to find out what her husband had said that morning about his latest forgery claim.

Absolutely Anne was fishing, trying to find out what Mike may have told them. How does that help your argument?

Mike had slipped a copy of the affidavit through Anne's mailbox as a form of blackmail. That she knows about the affidavit and is wondering if Mike spilled the beans in no way demonstrates that Shirley and Keith were also aware of it, or in Shirley's case, was admitting that she was aware of it.

At this point, Old Bean, I really think it would be to your benefit to take this up with your colleague Caroline Brown, who has insisted that Shirley and Keith were unaware of the affidavit until January 1997, and has even taken the late Melvin Harris to task for not sharing the affidavit with other researchers back in 1995-1996. See the 'Special Announcement' thread for details.

[John Wheat]

I'm happy to concede that Shirley's meeting with Kevin Whay of Outhwaite & Litherland on January 16, 1995, could very well have been set up in advance of Barrett's January 5, 1995, fantasia. It's the lesser of the points at issue here - but let's not use this as some backdoor attempt to marginalise Anne's very obvious attempt to find out what her husband had said that morning about his latest forgery claim.

How would that even work? Well, let's expand a little on it to see how that would work:

Anne: Did Mike not mention the forgery thing this morning when you met him?
Shirley: You mean the latest forgery claim he made in an affidavit a couple of weeks ago and which he posted through your door? ["I put that through the front door to Anne".]
Anne: No, not that one - not the forgery claim he made a couple of weeks ago! Why would you think I was referring to that one?
Shirley: Well, the recency effect, I guess - he's just made an affidavit claiming to have forged the diary and he said he'd posted a copy through your door.
Anne: No, no, no, no, no. I was referring to the one that he made almost seven months ago now - obviously!
Shirley (sotto voce): It seems this latest affidavit is more secret than we first thought ...

The Diary is a fake and it's highly likely it was written by Anne and Mike Barrett.

[Iconoclast]

PPS. Ike - One final thing to clear up some possible confusion. Recall that Barrett had already mentioned getting the photograph album from Outhwait & Litherland as far back as June 1994, during his drunken confession to Harold Brough that summer.

I'm happy to concede that Shirley's meeting with Kevin Whay of Outhwaite & Litherland on January 16, 1995, could very well have been set up in advance of Barrett's January 5, 1995, fantasia. It's the lesser of the points at issue here - but let's not use this as some backdoor attempt to marginalise Anne's very obvious attempt to find out what her husband had said that morning about his latest forgery claim.

How would that even work? Well, let's expand a little on it to see how that would work:

Anne: Did Mike not mention the forgery thing this morning when you met him?
Shirley: You mean the latest forgery claim he made in an affidavit a couple of weeks ago and which he posted through your door? ["I put that through the front door to Anne".]
Anne: No, not that one - not the forgery claim he made a couple of weeks ago! Why would you think I was referring to that one?
Shirley: Well, the recency effect, I guess - he's just made an affidavit claiming to have forged the diary and he said he'd posted a copy through your door.
Anne: No, no, no, no, no. I was referring to the one that he made almost seven months ago now - obviously!
Shirley (sotto voce): It seems this latest affidavit is more secret than we first thought ...

[rjpalmer]

PPS. Ike - One final thing to clear up some possible confusion. Recall that Barrett had already mentioned getting the photograph album from Outhwait & Litherland as far back as June 1994, during his drunken confession to Harold Brough that summer.

Liverpool Daily Post, 27 July 1994, page 4:





Thus, you can't demonstrate that anything Shirely Harrison had asked Barrett about during the 18 January 1995 interview (and subsequently referred to during her discussion with Anne Graham on the same date) refers to Mike's sworn affidavit rather than his public confession to Harold Brough back in June.

It's just wishful thinking that this "forgery thing" was a reference to the secret, non-circulating affidavit.

Yes, Shirley did contract Kevin Whay in preparation to her interview with Barrett, but that would be entirely natural if she was going to confront Barrett about his drunken confession to Brough. In the same conversation, she mentions the Bluecoat Art Shop...which was also revealed to Brough by Barrett.

The timing of Shirley's memo has led you astray; it was because Keith and Shirley were going to confront Barrett; it had sod-all to do with the affidavit lodged two weeks earlier.

FINIS

[rjpalmer]

PS. It would, of course, be useful if Shirley Harrison could shed some light on these events, but she has never responded to any emails in the past few years, and I suspect that she is retired and/or no longer has any interest in the diary. That's just my guess, though.

It is also worth reminding yourself, Ike, that it would have been the easiest thing in the world for the Diary researchers to have ignored Barrett in 1995, and to have not truly sifted his claims, because they were then under the spell of Anne and Billy Graham, who had convinced them that they had seen the diary in the 1960s and 1940s respectively.

Yet, according to your own theory, the Grahams must have been leading them down the garden path.

Anne's behavior should worry you more than the behavior of the admittedly pathological liar Barrett.

[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.

[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]

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]

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??????

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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!