The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[Iconoclast]

I do think that if Mike penned it, and could prove it, then he would have done so.

This is a point I have made before regarding Mike's facile January 5, 1995 affidavit. If he had genuinely had any sort of role to play in the creation of the scrapbook and the text, his affidavit would not have been the nebulous, unprovable, slightly unhinged (the linseed oil!) version that we got. It reads like a man who had no idea whatsoever how the scrapbook ended up in his hands (or he didn't want to confess what he really knew about how it ended up in his hands) and was simply humouring Mishter Gray who wanted to humour Mishter Harriz.

The linseed oil and drying the scrapbook in the oven without any apparent damage to it occurring or any lingering evidence of his having done so is - as I say - the apex of his unhinged tale.

Monday, April 13, 1992
Shirley Harrison: "Is it me or is there one hell of a whiff of linseed oil in the room?"
Mike [thinks]: "Damn, I knew I should have used extra virgin olive oil".

[rjpalmer]

I can hear the police sirens now tearing down Anne's street in January 1995 with a Black Maria packed with indignant polis seeking to right the terrible wrongs of a woman who had committed the unforgivable crime of the century the day she married MJB.

You're the one who believes Anne is a pathological liar, Ike.

It's right there in your own theory.

According to your own theory, after Anne joined Feldman's team in 1994 (and despite having been 'free and clear' of Barrett for months) she spent the next eight years lying to everyone around her about the diary and must have even coached her own elderly father to lie to them, too.

[rjpalmer]

The linseed oil and drying the scrapbook in the oven without any apparent damage to it occurring or any lingering evidence of his having done so is - as I say - the apex of his unhinged tale.

What is this?

[Iconoclast]

What is this?

Well, I don't know what it is, RJ, but I'm confident (though not certain) of what it's not. Let us remind ourselves of what Barrett claimed:

When I got the Album and Compass home, I examined it closely, inside the front cover I noticed a makers stamp mark, dated 1908 or 1909 to remove this without trace I soaked the whole of the front cover in Linseed Oil, once the oil was absorbed by the front cover, which took about 2 days to dry out. I even used the heat from the gas oven to assist in the drying out.

Now, he was very explicit about having soaked the whole of the front cover in linseed oil and that it had taken two days to dry out (it must have been seriously soaked) - even needing to effectively bake it in the oven - but we see no after effects of such a process.

I'm sure someone will inform me what the damage is to the top left of the inside front cover, but that's irrelevant because the sort of damage I was referring to was the warping I would have anticipated from soaking the front cover in linseed oil. Now, I'm no oilist - perhaps such a scrapbook would be utterly resistant to damage from so much oil? Do we have anyone who reads these posts who could clarify it for us?

Is it truly possible to soak such a document in oil and leave no trace in the structure of the cover?

I'm happy to live and learn so - if we have any oil-on-old-Victorian-scrapbooks experts out there, please speak up!

[rjpalmer]

I'm sure someone will inform me what the damage is to the top left of the inside front cover, but that's irrelevant

I can't agree that it is 'irrelevant,' Ike.

Barrett, a man that would tell six different versions of the same event before he had had his morning shave, described removing a "maker's stamp" from the inside front cover.

I can't recall that any photograph of the inside front cover has ever been made available to the public, but from what we see in the image below there does appear to be quite extensive (and strangely dark) damage in the location indicated by Barrett, and it would be interesting to know what, if any, forensic examination has been conducted on this damaged area. The brown patch could conceivable be glue, but what on earth is all that black staining?

You'll no doubt recall that Dr. Baxendale and others noticed a rectangular impression on the flyleaf of the photo album consistent with the size of photographs that were popular between World War I and World War II, and I believe one can just barely make out this faint rectangle (marked in red) on the flyleaf.

But what the nasty stain on the endpaper/inside cover represents (indicated by the blue arrows) has never, to my recollection, been explained.

It's hard to understand why James Maybrick or a contemporary hoaxer would remove something from the cover--why would they bother?--- but one can readily imagine the necessity of a modern hoaxer to do so. If it indicated the maker of the photo album the company could be traced, and this would help in determining its age. As would a pasted-on sticker that indicated, say "Laurence Smith, 212 Oak Drive, Wallasey," which would help trace the previous owner.

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.

[Mike J. G.]

This is a point I have made before regarding Mike's facile January 5, 1995 affidavit. If he had genuinely had any sort of role to play in the creation of the scrapbook and the text, his affidavit would not have been the nebulous, unprovable, slightly unhinged (the linseed oil!) version that we got. It reads like a man who had no idea whatsoever how the scrapbook ended up in his hands (or he didn't want to confess what he really knew about how it ended up in his hands) and was simply humouring Mishter Gray who wanted to humour Mishter Harriz.

The linseed oil and drying the scrapbook in the oven without any apparent damage to it occurring or any lingering evidence of his having done so is - as I say - the apex of his unhinged tale.

Monday, April 13, 1992
Shirley Harrison: "Is it me or is there one hell of a whiff of linseed oil in the room?"
Mike [thinks]: "Damn, I knew I should have used extra virgin olive oil".

I do think that if Mike could have thrown some unshakable evidence at Feldman, then he likely would have.

[Iconoclast]

I do think that if Mike could have thrown some unshakable evidence at Feldman, then he likely would have.

This is what posters on the site need to reflect deeply upon: in all the long years (32 currently) since Mike Barrett first brought that scrapbook to Rupert Crew Ltd., the only 'evidence' (pah!) that it was a hoax was when Mike Barrett occasionally interspersed his claims of authenticity with claims of inauthenticity.

Dr. Baxendale's 'evidence' was that he found the ink to be more soluble than he would have expected and a year later told The Sunday Times (probably in a fit of pique) that it dissolved in seconds and in his opinion had been laid down in the last 2-3 years (which is remarkable because his various reports to Robert Smith failed to suggest anything more specifically recent than 1945). No other examination of the ink produced any indication that it was more soluble than one might have expected if it had been laid down in 1888 and 1889.

Anne never said a word about a hoax. Nor did Billy. Alan Gray found nothing, therefore Melvin Harris (pink with frustration, no doubt) found nothing (that's the guy who was publishing a book on Jack the Ripper and therefore obviously was entirely objective when he immediately called it a hoax before he saw it).

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.

That's before we start on the Maybrick watch for which there is not a scrap of evidence that those scratches were put there as recently as 1992 - and solid evidence that they very much were not.

It's a pantomime, of course, and like a good pantomime, it comes 'round every year.

But 'unshakable evidence'? Mike had none. Not in front of him, and not behind him.

[jmenges]

I'm sure someone will inform me what the damage is to the top left of the inside front cover, but that's irrelevant because the sort of damage I was referring to was the warping I would have anticipated from soaking the front cover in linseed oil. Now, I'm no oilist - perhaps such a scrapbook would be utterly resistant to damage from so much oil? Do we have anyone who reads these posts who could clarify it for us?

Is it truly possible to soak such a document in oil and leave no trace in the structure of the cover?

I'm happy to live and learn so - if we have any oil-on-old-Victorian-scrapbooks experts out there, please speak up!

The damage isn’t just to the top left of the inside cover. There’s a large splotch of an unknown substance in the center of the inside cover as well as several dribbles scattered around.

JM

[rjpalmer]

I do think that if Mike could have thrown some unshakable evidence at Feldman, then he likely would have.

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?

[Iconoclast]

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?

Come, come, Sir Roger, you and I both know that that affidavit was sworn at Melvin Harris' request via a persistent Alan I'll-now-do-anything-if-someone-would-just-pay-me Gray. Gray makes this very clear when he tells Barrett whilst he is in hospital in early December that he should make the affidavit and that they "will need all the details" (or words to that effect), thereby giving Mike a full month to prepare his old-gentleman-broken-compass bullshit story).

And what did Harris do with Barrett's long-anticipated 'confession'? What mileage did he make of the details Mike had so 'willingly' coughed-up? Well, I'll tell you, dear readers: he did diddley-squat because he instantly knew it was top-notch bollocks. Tell me it wasn't so, and show me the evidence it wasn't so, and I'll be impressed. The viper Harris got a metaphorical kick in the ghoolies and that was the end of the scrap.

Barrett had not wanted to make that affidavit. In that same hospital conversation with private detective Dimwit Gray he says, "But won't I then get arrested?" (or words to that effect) to which the deeply honourable Gray states to the vulnerable alcoholic, "No, because then you'll be protected" (or words to that effect) - as scurrilous a lie as any PI has ever told to obtain a confession so he can get paid at last. But Barrett - even befuddled - did not fall for that claptrap! And - just for those who wonder why Barrett subsequently appeared to succumb to the pressure to make an affidavit he so self-evidently did not want to make - that is why (I suspect) we got the mercilessly stupid affidavit we got on January 5, 1995: Barrett was basically saying to the world, "Believe this if you dare", and Teflon Barrett could sail off into the sunset having given Harris what he was salivating after for so long without any realistic risk of it coming back to haunt its author.

One of Mike Barrett's cleverer moves, I'd say.

Does that answer your question regarding Mike's bogus confession, Sir Rog?