The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[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

[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.

[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]

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]

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.

[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.

[Iconoclast]

Why did he deny it to Bob Absurdia?

One of the downsides of having an Apple Mac is that it has a mind of its own and wields its autocorrect rather tyrannically ...

[Iconoclast]

... so keep it to yourself, won't you?

[Iconoclast]

Remember, everyone - it was a secret ...

[Iconoclast]

So why would Melvin Harris receive a copy of the thing he most craved in all the world, and then do nothing with it, dear readers?

Was it:

A) He simply had too much integrity, the old softy?
B) It went to his old address and his redirection had lapsed? or
C) He immediately realised it was a complete crock of ****?

[Iconoclast]

People not knowing something does not a 'secret' make. The reality is this. Barrett wrote the January 5, 1995, affidavit to get Harris off his back. He deliberately made it utterly mincelike in every respect so that it was useless to Harris (well done, Mike - right enough, Harris put it away in a drawer for eternity).

I would be shocked if anyone reading this recent series of posts genuinely thought that Barrett's infantile and surreal affidavit of January 5, 1995, was ever meant to be kept a secret.

Let's stop for a moment and think this through. How could it have gone down? How about:

Mike: I'll do an affidavit if you can promise me it will be kept absolutely secret from the world. And by 'secret' I obviously mean that common or garden term 'non-circulating'.
Gray: Oh, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Not a soul outside of us will ever know about it because it's critical that the terrible truth of your guilt is never revealed.
Mike: I'm going to do this in order to blackmail Anne into letting me see little Caroline.
Gray: Of course, Mike, of course. Absolutely. I get it. She's evil. She wrote all of the diary text, or half of it, and Tony did the other two-thirds, I get it - so get it down on paper and I'll type it up. I'll then eat the paper you wrote it on, type it up, and then we'll put it away in a solicitor's safe and no-one will ever know about it, ever, ever, never.
Mike: That sounds great, Alan. You're such a great and trustworthy friend, you really are. I really must pay you one day.
Alan: Oh, just create and sign that affidavit, Mike, and we'll be done with it - no payment required!
Mike: That's amazing friendship, Alan.
Alan: That's what friends are for, Mike.
Mike: But will I not be immediately nicked?
Alan: No - just the opposite, you'll be fully-protected by it. We'll need lot of details, Mike, so make sure you put in all the crucial steps and provide us with the evidence.
Mike: Sure, Alan, I can do that no problem. "I did it" - there's all the evidence you need! By the way, who is this 'us' you've referred to a couple of times? Just you and me, right?
Alan: Absolutely, Mike, absolutely. Oh, and [inaudible].
Mike: Who?
Alan: [Inaudible].
Mike: I can't hear what you're saying, Alan.
Alan: Melvin Harris.
Mike: Melvin Harris. Isn't he the diary's biggest and most vocal critic? The bloke who published a book about a totally implausible candidate just as the industry's biggest seller hit the shops and appeared to try desperately to stop it ever hitting the shops because of all of that integrity he had?
Alan: Yep, that's him.
Mike: Well, surely he's got a huge vested interest in publishing any detailed confession I make and making sure that the world thinks James Maybrick's diary is a hoax?
Alan: No!
Mike: You sure about that, Alan?
Alan: Of course, Mike. He told me himself that he is all about integrity. If he had evidential proof that the diary was actually a hoax after all but he had promised not to say anything, then he'd put it away in a drawer and never mention it again.
Mike: That's a relief, I can tell you. Well, I'll tell you what, with that in mind, let's also send a copy to Maurice Chittenden of The Sunday Times, Nick Warren of Ripperama, and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
Alan: Great idea, Mike. Here's a pencil, mate.

[Iconoclast]

Of course, Anne knew about the affidavit. She was Barrett's intended audience! The Barretts were going through an ugly divorce, and he was threatening to expose their dirty little secret unless he was allowed to see their child.

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.

Now please name the names of anyone else who knew about this 'widely circulated' secret affidavit and also explain why Mike denied its very existence nine months later on the Bob Azurdia show. The idea that it was made to destroy Feldman is clearly a myth.

People not knowing something does not a 'secret' make. The reality is this. Barrett wrote the January 5, 1995, affidavit to get Harris off his back. He deliberately made it utterly mincelike in every respect so that it was useless to Harris (well done, Mike - right enough, Harris put it away in a drawer for eternity). But Barrett had a secondary objective - he was (and in this regard you and I are in complete agreement) seeking to blackmail Anne to let her see his daughter: "Let me see Caroline or else I go public that you and I hoaxed the diary of Jack the Ripper". See how it cuts both ways? You think he was blackmailing her over the truth of the matter, and I know he was blackmailing her over a lie he was prepared to tell about her. Anne was unmoved. She didn't scare that easily, that lass. I wonder why? The truth will set you free, RJ, just as it had Anne.

The funny thing is, Anne was not withholding access to Caroline from Mike: his own antics had achieved that - Caroline had made it clear to her mum she had no wish to see her father again.

Why did he deny it to Bob Absurdia? Well, having realised that his little blackmail was falling on deaf ears, he evidently thought it pragmatic for his own best interests to take yet another tack.

Go figure. That was Mike all over.

[Kattrup]

Sorry Ike, but you have written so much utter nonsense and inaccurate claptrap in your last few posts that I have lost the will to even respond, and if I do respond in the manner it deserves, I'll be breaking the rules of this website in reference to politeness and propriety and I'll find myself, as you so often have found yourself, suspended.

Very sensible position, RJ. I applaud your efforts.

[rjpalmer]

As I said in my post, Keith and Shirley were told about it by Anne during the January 18, 1995, interview but neither of them picked up on what she had said. Realising this, she then said no more.

Thanks for proving my point, Ike.

Of course, Anne knew about the affidavit. She was Barrett's intended audience! The Barretts were going through an ugly divorce, and he was threatening to expose their dirty little secret unless he was allowed to see their child.

And Alan Gray knew about it because he helped create it, and Harris knew about it because he was giving advice to Gray.

Now please name the names of anyone else who knew about this 'widely circulated' secret affidavit and also explain why Mike denied it's very existence nine months later on the Bob Azurdia show. The idea that it was made to destroy Feldman is clearly a myth.

I have sympathy for your plight--I really do. You have misinterpreted what was going on and it must be a shock to your system for your ideas to be challenged. All I can do is advise you to read your friend David Barrat's article "Blackmail or Mrs. Barrett." This will lay out the finer points in detail. I don't think the article is currently available on his website, but I can probably find a way to get a copy to you.

Football beckons. Cheers. Got to run.

[Iconoclast]

This is no more accurate than your previous claim that Kenneth Rendall [sic] ignored Rod McNeil's ion migration test when in fact he broadcast it far & wide.

Here we go again. This is what I actually said:

Kenneth Rendall avoided Rod McNeil's awkward evidence that the ink was laid on paper as early as 1909 or as late as 1932. Instead, he focused on the hard evidence of his opinions and basically just didn't like it. Time Warner got seriously burned but Rendall didn't care.

It’s clear that I was talking about Rendell’s report for Time Warner in which he provided McNeil’s conclusions but drew no inference from them. He has lots to say about his own incredulity but nothing of insight or substance to say of McNeil’s damning analysis which showed that the ink had hit the paper a long long time ago.

The snide comments about my posts do not faze me in the slightest, RJ, and I can only hope that my dear readers see through them.