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]

I resolved not to post on it in case foolhardy fellows and fellowesses thought that I was actually endorsing one possibility or the other.

My apologies, Ike. I assumed (obviously incorrectly) that you had abandoned this thread because you could offer no coherent explanation for the strange and suspicious oily patterns on the inside cover of the photo album. I stand corrected.

I suppose Sir Jim could have taken Mary Kelly out for her final meal of fish & chips and what we are seeing is oil and vinegar. If I squint my eyes that kidney pattern mildy resemble a piece of cod. If I squint even harder, the whole diary resembles a piece of cod.

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.

Actually, this bit of claptrap dates to 1997, but I realize that the Maybrickians tend to backdate bad art by two decades or more.

Alas, I gave up on The Rag Nymph half-way through episode 2; it became too much of a romance novel for my liking. I never heard of Catherine Cookson. Thanks for the warning. Much appreciated.

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!

Somewhere I have a magazine article Melvin wrote, knocking Our Lady of Knock; perhaps I could poke around for it to supplement your already substantial collection. If I recall, his theory involved a magic lantern, and he was afterwards condemned by the Pope.

Speaking of hoaxes, a friend of yours recently informed me that there was no analogy between the Maybrick Hoax and the Loch Ness Monster because Barrett's album physically exists. However, photographs of the Loch Ness Monster also physically exist, so I don't accept the logic. The most famous photograph was made using a toy submarine and the head of a plesiosaur fashioned out of plastic wood. It took nearly 60 years for the hoaxer to come clean, so provided your theories of authenticity are wide of the mark, we are still in the early days.

Cheers. It's turkey day here and must get my act together.

[caz]

I think the facts show otherwise, Mike, and unfortunately your argument is the same one formulated by Paul Begg on this forum over twenty years ago--that "Mike hated Feldman" and his allegedly bogus confession was just a way to ruin Feldman's project.

It doesn't compute.

Here's how Keith Skinner explained it back on January 15, 2018:

“Mike Barrett hated Paul Feldman. Blamed him for everything that had gone wrong in his life since the day Paul became involved with the project. The collapse of his marriage to Anne. Taking his daughter away from him. Hounding him day and night to confirm his (Paul’s) theory that he (Mike) and Anne had been given new identities by the Government. Paul Begg has frequently stated, privately and publicly, that Barrett would have done anything to have destroyed Feldman. Mike conclusively proving the diary to be a modern hoax which he created would have done just that.”

As I say, the trouble with Keith and Paul's theory is that it doesn't fit the facts.

When Barrett made his drunken confession to faking the Diary in late June 1994 (to Harold Brough of the Liverpool Post) Mike had no reason to hate Feldman. Indeed, Feldman stood to make Mike a lot of money. Mike and his lawyer both quickly retracted this drunken confession and Mike went into rehab.

Significantly, Feldman barely knew Anne at this point, so jealousy doesn't enter the picture. They were practically strangers. Feldman and Anne wouldn't become friendly, and Anne wouldn't join Feldman's team, until a month later, after a meeting in the bar of the old Moat House Hotel on July 23, 1994. (See Inside Story, p 105-107)

So, the chronology doesn't work.

Now hold the phone, I hear you say. Immediately after this Anne did become friendly with Feldman and joined his team. We are told Feldman even paid her a weekly allowance. So Mike could indeed have become jealous after July 1994.

There's just one problem. Mike's secret confessional non-circulating confession was never made public. If he hated Feldman why not circulate it? Why not shout it from the rooftops.

Here's the deal.

Nine months later, on September 13 and September 1995 Mike Barrett appeared on BBC Radio Merseyside with Bob Azurdia in front an audience of hundreds.

Here was Mike's big chance to "stick it to Feldman."

Here was Mike's big chance to reveal his confession to a live audience.

Mike could tell how he had sought out a blank Victorian diary in the weeks before coming to London. He could have revealed the author of the mysterious 'O Costly Intercourse' quote in the diary. He could have struck a savage blow against Feldman and Anne by naming her as the penmen. He could have at least tried.

Did he?

Did he heck.

Barrett instead defended the diary with more eloquence and eagerness than Tom "Iconoclast" Mitchell, denying his early confession to Brough, citing Shirley Harison chapter & verse, boasting how the diary was genuine and had passed all the ink and paper tests him flying cover. He was certain Maybrick was the Ripper. Feldman must have beamed from ear to ear.

Bob Azurdia had even caught wind (from Melvin Harris, evidently) of Mike secret confessional affidavit and asked him about it.

Barrett denied it even existed!!

Strange behavior for a man who wanted to 'stick it to Feldman'!!

You can hear Barrett's interviews here, Post #9

Rippercast Audio Archives: The Maybrick Diary - Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums

Late to the party as usual...

What Palmer was missing here is that Mike could have wanted to 'stick it to Feldman' really, really badly, but if he was all too painfully aware that the risible rubbish he had put in that stupid affidavit of 5th January 1995 - assuming he'd have been able to recall any of the details accurately - was more likely to induce laughter, it wouldn't have got him anywhere.

This whole issue is about Mike's failure to produce a coherent, credible and supportable account of how and when he came by the scrapbook, which he claimed was used by himself and his wife to create the diary. The affidavit doesn't come close, which is as good a reason as any why Mike didn't 'stick it to Feldman' - whether or not he'd have liked to do so.

I think it can safely be said, however, that Melvin Harris did want to 'stick it to Feldman' - with great hairy knobs on. He too had Mike's 'secret confessional affidavit' in January 1995, and was unlikely to forget what it contained. So did he use this damning document to destroy Feldman's dreams? Did he buggery. Melvin put as little faith in its ability to damage Feldman's cause in 1995, as Feldman did himself when he was finally able to read what all the fuss was about.

[Iconoclast]

I feel a new thread coming on, dear readers …

[FISHY1118]

Oh God no , not again

[John Wheat]

Is there actually any evidence the diary wasn't written by Ann and Mike Barrett?

[Iconoclast]

Is there actually any evidence the diary wasn't written by Ann and Mike Barrett?

I don't know what evidence would show it wasn't written by Anne and Mike, but - if Mike Barrett had never said a word about hoaxing it - in terms of evidence that it was written by them, we'd have:

1) The Barretts had it in their possession
2) Mike sought out a Victorian with at least twenty blank pages in March 1992, and
3) Mike was the first to identify the source of 'O costly intercourse' in the scrapbook and claimed to have the Sphere book (in his attic) from which he had found the quotation though that (that he had that specific volume in his attic) was never conclusively proven.

Anne never claimed it was hoaxed, the handwriting was not matched to either of them (or anyone else for that matter, including James Maybrick) although that Master of Disaster (Retired) Algernon Orsam pointed-out that Anne's handwriting had some small similarities in certain letter formations; the Barretts had no known pedigree in writing or in hoaxing, and there is no evidence that they needed to commit fraud to make money.

Would that have been enough to have convinced you had Mike not claimed to have hoaxed the text of the scrapbook?

I don't think it would make a great case if Mike had not confessed but I can't deny that someone could use 2) and 3), above, to at least put the cat amongst the pigeons.

Obviously, Mike Barrett was his own 'someone': his claims of 1994 onwards put the entire cattery into the pigeon coop and it's been something of a pantomime ever since. I personally cannot create a scenario in my head where the Barretts dunnit, but I can well understand why so many people can, and that's a shame because the scrapbook was either written by James Maybrick who was Jack the Ripper or else by a highly creative hoaxer who went out of their way to make their hoax look superficially quite facile and I'd really like to know who that was and buy them a pint.

[John Wheat]

I don't know what evidence would show it wasn't written by Anne and Mike, but - if Mike Barrett had never said a word about hoaxing it - in terms of evidence that it was written by them, we'd have:

1) The Barretts had it in their possession
2) Mike sought out a Victorian with at least twenty blank pages in March 1992, and
3) Mike was the first to identify the source of 'O costly intercourse' in the scrapbook and claimed to have the Sphere book (in his attic) from which he had found the quotation though that (that he had that specific volume in his attic) was never conclusively proven.

Anne never claimed it was hoaxed, the handwriting was not matched to either of them (or anyone else for that matter, including James Maybrick) although that Master of Disaster (Retired) Algernon Orsam pointed-out that Anne's handwriting had some small similarities in certain letter formations; the Barretts had no known pedigree in writing or in hoaxing, and there is no evidence that they needed to commit fraud to make money.

Would that have been enough to have convinced you had Mike not claimed to have hoaxed the text of the scrapbook?

I don't think it would make a great case if Mike had not confessed but I can't deny that someone could use 2) and 3), above, to at least put the cat amongst the pigeons.

Obviously, Mike Barrett was his own 'someone': his claims of 1994 onwards put the entire cattery into the pigeon coop and it's been something of a pantomime ever since. I personally cannot create a scenario in my head where the Barretts dunnit, but I can well understand why so many people can, and that's a shame because the scrapbook was either written by James Maybrick who was Jack the Ripper or else by a highly creative hoaxer who went out of their way to make their hoax look superficially quite facile and I'd really like to know who that was and buy them a pint.

So there's very little evidence it wasn't written by Ann and Mike Barrett then?

[Iconoclast]

So there's very little evidence it wasn't written by Ann and Mike Barrett then?

There's very little evidence that it wasn't written by Anne and Mike Barrett, yes, indeed.

If you want to quantify it, it's a similar level of evidence that it wasn't written by you, John. I assume that you know for 100% certainty that it wasn't written by you.

Now, can you prove it it wasn't?

[John Wheat]

There's very little evidence that it wasn't written by Anne and Mike Barrett, yes, indeed.

If you want to quantify it, it's a similar level of evidence that it wasn't written by you, John. I assume that you know for 100% certainty that it wasn't written by you.

Now, can you prove it it wasn't?

But Anne and Mike Barrett are the front runners for writing the diary. You have even outlined the evidence that they wrote the diary. There is no evidence I wrote the diary whatsoever.

[Iconoclast]

You asked for the evidence that showed it wasn't written by Anne and Mike, and you have cited the evidence (as you see it) that it was.

It's all in the structure of the question. I can't show you evidence that it wasn't created by Anne and Mike in the same way you can't show it wasn't created by you and I can't show the evidence it wasn't created by me.

It's really hard to show the evidence for something for which there can be no evidence to show. What would that evidence look like? A dry pen? The absence of Jack the Ripper books and books on the Maybricks? How could anyone show you that it wasn't created by Anne and Mike?

Except - of course - by showing the evidence for why it was created by someone else entirely which, funnily enough, is exactly what I seek to do.

[rjpalmer]

Here, Ike, if you feel the urge to chase it down:

Free Inquiry, The 'Miracle' at Knock by Melvin Harris, Vol. 20, Number 2, Spring 2000

It must have been around this same time, or slightly before, that I first became acquainted with the Mudbrick Hoax, because I remember noticing the name Melvin Harris and buying the issue down at a local bookstore that, alas, has long since been reincarnated as a passable Chinese restaurant. The best bookstore in town held on for dear life for another two decades but was bulldozed a couple years back. We have fallen on evil times.

[John Wheat]

You asked for the evidence that showed it wasn't written by Anne and Mike, and you have cited the evidence (as you see it) that it was.

It's all in the structure of the question. I can't show you evidence that it wasn't created by Anne and Mike in the same way you can't show it wasn't created by you and I can't show the evidence it wasn't created by me.

It's really hard to show the evidence for something for which there can be no evidence to show. What would that evidence look like? A dry pen? The absence of Jack the Ripper books and books on the Maybricks? How could anyone show you that it wasn't created by Anne and Mike?

Except - of course - by showing the evidence for why it was created by someone else entirely which, funnily enough, is exactly what I seek to do.

Alright then I will rephrase the question. What evidence is there that someone other than Anne and Mike Barrett wrote the diary?

[FISHY1118]

Two things we know to be true ,

Someone wrote a fake diary claiming James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper

James Maybrick did not write the diary.

[caz]

Hi Mike

Chris Jones, when I talked to him briefly, was very guarded about his suspicions, but I never got that impression at all. I could be completely wrong, but I rather thought that he suspected Anne Graham, though he by no means ever said so directly.

Here is what he has written about Mike Barrett at this website, describing a long meeting he had with Mike at Christmas 2007.

"He showed [me] some pages of a book he had written based on the Ripper murders. It was clear from the numerous spelling and grammatical errors contained in the text that Barrett did not have the necessary literary skills to have personally written the Diary. Nevertheless, his obvious intelligence and vivid imagination, did suggest the possibility that while he may not have personally penned the document, he could have worked with another person(s) to have collectively produced it."

Whereas the Diary-friendly people uniformly portray Barrett as a 'mental vegetable' (their words) utterly incapable, Jones allows Barrett enough intelligence and imagination to come up with the concept, the plotting, etc. But Mike would have needed a collaborator.

Who are the Diary-friendly people, who uniformly portray Barrett as a - quote - 'mental vegetable' (their words)? It should be easy enough for Palmer to identify them all by name if his statement was based on reading 'their words'.

In my opinion, Mike had one: Anne Graham. I can see no other rational explanation for Anne's extraordinary behavior in 1994-2001 other than she had been involved in the hoax. If she hadn't been involved, she would have gladly thrown Barrett under the bus. Barrett, by contrast, had no job and little or no income and was divorcing the family's breadwinner. That complicates your idea that Barrett would have destroyed Feldman if he could: the diary was Mike's income, his lifeline.

This statement is remarkably illogical, considering that Mike single-handedly destroyed his own golden goose by claiming to have faked the diary, initially all by himself until Anne chose to stick the knife in and twist it, by claiming it had been in the Graham family all along, leaving Mike with as much personal involvement as he had with the Hitler Diaries. Boy, that must have smarted. His affidavit the following January positively reeks of impotent rage and even more impotent revenge, in the wake of his wife's actions during the course of 1994. Cause and effect has rarely been so clearly demonstrated.

If Anne had been involved in the diary's creation, she'd have been asking to be thrown under the bus as a direct result of coming out with her 'in the family' story. All Mike would have needed to do was to come up with proof of where the raw materials for their hoax came from and when, and it would have been all over, with Anne's toes peeping out from under the bus. Conversely, only if she wasn't involved and knew Mike wasn't either, did she have nothing to fear from anything he might have tried to claim about faking the diary. That's cause and effect for you.

I suspect Mike had more than one reason for making his initial forgery claim, and his reasons only increased as 1994 turned into 1995. So I'm not sure it matters if one of his reasons was or wasn't to get back at Feldman. It makes little difference to the overall story and we can't in any case take Mike's word for who or what motivated him to act. If Palmer is willing to take Mike's own words into account, he need look no further than the start of the affidavit, where it is made abundantly clear that Feldman is a primary target:

'Since December 1993 I have been trying, through the press, the Publishers, the Author of the Book, Mrs Harrison, and my Agent Doreen Montgomery to expose the fraud of ' The Diary of Jack the Ripper ' ("the diary").

Nobody will believe me and in fact some very influential people in the Publishing and Film world have been doing everything to discredit me and in fact they have gone so far as to introduce a new and complete story of the original facts of the Diary and how it came to light.'

This can only be a reference to Anne's 'new and complete story', as told to Feldman and described in Shirley's 1994 paperback.

I really don't understand why anyone feels the need to look elsewhere.

I'm quite sure Palmer doesn't understand why.

Several people are genuinely at a loss to understand why anyone would look beyond Charles Allen Lechmere for Jack the Ripper. After all, he claimed he had 'discovered' the murder in Buck's Row and he was the first person at the crime scene, so why not the last person to see Nichols alive? Nobody else can be placed so close to the event, and he even used an 'alias' when telling his story to the Inquest, which is supposedly a sure sign of deliberate deception. That makes him in many eyes the prime suspect - eyes that don't feel the need to look any further. It's the same phenomenon. No matter that there is nothing known about the suspect's past to indicate a capacity for the crime, whether it's "Charles Cross" who was secretly cut out to be a serial mutilator, or "Mike Williams" and his wife, who had no previous, but had a secret penchant and aptitude for faking the diary of one.

Has anyone ever taken their own fake Monet or Picasso to the Antiques Roadshow for a valuation, or to Fake Or Fortune? to try and get it authenticated? Do people whose artwork turns out to be a fake, or at least a suspected fake, routinely get accused of painting the damned thing themselves because they used to dabble with painting by numbers and didn't want to admit it? Would their accusers feel no need to look elsewhere?

Later, Anne joined the Diary's team and Martin Fido was impressed by her talent. She went on to co-write a book on Florence Maybrick (the introduction is attributed solely to her) and was said to have been working on a second book about Victorian crime.

So how much 'talent' would Anne have needed to polish the turd Mike would have produced, and turn it into the existing diary? If Martin Fido was impressed, why were so many basic errors of spelling and grammar left in the diary, with no sign of a dictionary having been consulted? I thought this was meant to resemble the work a teenager might have produced over a wet weekend. Did Anne disguise her talent as well as her handwriting, in the mistaken belief that it would make the finished product look more like Maybrick's handiwork? I can't quite get my head around the scene in Goldie Street according to Palmer. It doesn't work for me, that's for sure.

Occam's Razor indeed. The simplest explanation is that Mike and Anne wrote the diary without any help, and I think they would have been entirely capable.

The simplest explanation for me is that the diary landed in Mike's lap, and he didn't have a clue how to go about dealing with it.