The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[John Wheat]

There is no plausible reason why the Barrett's couldn't have written the diary.

[Scott Nelson]

The problem with your theory, Scott, is with the part which says "he thought he could use it to create his own version of a Maybrick diary". The question is why? By your own account he already had one he could use which was perfectly suitable. You say "ego" but that really explains nothing, is based on nothing, and is just a product of your own imagination. We both agree that he's already called Doreen who has said she'd like to see it and is interested in publishing it, so the obvious and simple course is for him to take it to London. After this, Mike may have had second thoughts about turning over what he was given. I just can't see any good reason for him to waste time, effort and money creating a duplicate of what he already had. It just makes no sense and is certainly not simple. What I'm proposing is a theory. I've never suggested otherwise. But I think that "ego" can and does enter into things like this. I proposed that Mike was simply handed a completed diary. With time on his hands, Mike possibly thought that he could turn over a newly created version of the diary instead of the one he was given, just for the personal satisfaction that he could pull one over on the public rather than relying on someone else. Try and put yourself into the mind of Mike Barrett, if you can.

Your claim that Mike's wife "did most of the writing for him" isn't supported by her own account which was that she helped him tidy up his articles. He was definitely a journalist in the sense that his name was attached to the byline of a number of articles in nationally published magazines (sometimes labelled as "Exclusive") for which he was paid a fee. I think Anne's role in helping with the articles was deliberately underplayed to give Mike the confidence he needed to develop his writing. But, truly, that's not even the most important part because, while I can't think of any reason why he couldn't have drafted the fairly simple diary text himself, if you think that's a problem, he could have sought help from Billy, Tony, Anne, Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. Mike wanted to try it by himself. One or all of them might have written the entire thing for him. One or more of them probably did, but Mike came to the idea of using that document (the diary) only as a guide for his version. The point is that his actions in March 1992 looking for a Victorian diary with blank pages indicate that the text hadn't yet been written out in manuscript. The diary manuscript was likely written while Tony Devereux was still alive. Mike possibly didn't like the fact that it was written in a photo album and that album came via his wife's father after the photos were removed.

If we can only guess at Mike Barrett's mental state prior to 1992, as you admit, this means we have to use our imagination to invent what his state was. There is absolutely no reason to suppose he was suffering from Korsakoff Syndrome in 1992 and you've yet to provide any evidence that he was ever even diagnosed with this in 1994, or at any other time in his life. Somewhere I recall seeing an actual diagnosis medical form of Mike's condition with Korsakoff Syndrome. I believe it may have been printed in an early issue of Ripperana. I can't find the issue and may no longer have it, would you? I also searched this site and the forums, to no avail. It may have been lost when casebook crashed some years back. I'll keep looking. No-one here has any idea what Mike was capable of, despite a lot of people claiming to know that he was too stupid to do anything, but, really, I'm perfectly happy to say that others drafted the text of the diary which he then dictated to Anne. As far as I'm concerned, his only roles in the project might have been obtaining the photograph album, dictating someone else's fake diary to his wife and then taking the completed diary to London, if that makes you happy. He could have done this very easily with any mental issues you'd care to invent.

I don't care to be accused of inventing things. As long as one clearly identifies that it's speculation. Your second to last sentence is possible, but is it really simpler than mine?

[rjpalmer]

It's bizarre that so few can grasp that Anne Graham is the main suspect. It doesn't bode well for 'Ripperology.' There's no way in hell that she would have made herself the center of attention if the diary had come from Devereux or Lyons.

[John Wheat]

It's bizarre that so few can grasp that Anne Graham is the main suspect. It doesn't bode well for 'Ripperology.' There's no way in hell that she would have made herself the center of attention if the diary had come from Devereux or Lyons.

The whole Diary saga with Diary supporters still claiming the Diary was written by Maybrick is not good for Ripperology.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don't care to be accused of inventing things. As long as one clearly identifies that it's speculation. Your second to last sentence is possible, but is it really simpler than mine?

Scott, I can only think that you've bought into the argument that Michael Barrett was incapable of doing anything, made by people who never knew him in 1992 and barely knew him at all. Perhaps you also think that if the diary had been written in April 1992 it would have looked obviously new to those who examined it in April (which is another bad argument in my opinion). I don't know, but your determination to attribute the forgery to someone other than Barrett is otherwise hard to understand. It's good that we both agree that he was seeking a Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992 to forge the Ripper diary but where I have a serious problem with your theory is in thinking that after a fully created diary in a Victorian looking "old book" magically dropped into his lap for him to exploit as he wished, which is apparently what you think happened, he would have wasted time, money and energy in pretty much replicating it. It just doesn't make sense to me. I take your point about the fact that the photograph album had pages ripped out of it but that didn't seem to trouble Doreen Montgomery, Shirley Harrison, the guy at the British museum, the antique bookseller, Paul Feldman, Robert Smith and a host of others, including over very own Ike Mitchell. I'm not convinced it would have troubled Michael Barrett. And there's no evidence that he ever felt troubled by it.

As for your claim that Anne's role in her husband's journalism was "deliberately underplayed to give Mike the confidence he needed to develop his writing", this doesn't make sense because Anne explained that she (only) helped him tidy up his articles years later, after she had left him, at a time when she would have had no interest in boosting his confidence. Had she actually done all the writing she would surely have said so. For that reason, you can be confident that Mike did have a certain ability as a journalist. He might not have had the skills with spelling and grammar but that's true of a lot of writers whose first drafts are knocked into shape by others. Many writers don't (and can't) even write at all. They dictate their books.

I'm afraid I don't have any recall of seeing any such medical form in Ripperana. I do think you're going down the wrong path here because even if such a form existed it's only going to apply to his period of severe alcoholism which hadn't commenced in 1992.

It's obviously fine to put forward your theory but with no actual evidence to support it and the unlikelihood of Barrett feeling the need to replicate what he would already have had in his hands, it just seems a bit odd to me that you feel the need to regularly push it as if it's got something going for it. That's why I asked you what was behind it and was surprised when you mentioned Korsakoff Syndrome which can't possibly be a relevant factor. Once that's eliminated there's no reason why Mike and Anne couldn't have created that error strewn diary themselves.