New Book: The Maybrick Murder and the Diary of Jack the Ripper

[rjpalmer]

I've seen one or two back copies of Look-In, and the magazine did have puzzles, but it was known for celebrity interviews--which is what Barrett was publishing around this time. Considering that Barrett lied about when and why he bought his word processor, it seems entirely plausible that he would also down-play his association with Look-in as nothing more than an inept "ex scrap metal dealer" sending in word puzzles.

In referring back to Richard Whittington-Egan's "The Great Hoax: The Diary of Jack the Ripper" I see that he refers to Barrett "writing a feature piece about Kylie Minogue for a children's magazine, Look-in."


I must have previously skipped over that detail. This article may have appeared in the 20 May 1989 issue:




So, despite Tom Mitchell's claim elsewhere that Barrett only 'briefly' wrote for 'one' magazine, he actually had feature articles published in 1986, 1987, and 1988 in at least three national magazines that have been so far identified.

Yet he told his interviewers that he bought his word processor to better research the Diary of Jack the Ripper.

[FISHY1118]

Oh, I don't know, Ike. Have you tried running it past the International Society for Determining Inauthenticity? Or the British Branch of The Council for Deciding Whether or Not the Evidence is Sufficiently Conclusive?

Since no such organizations exist, all you can really be saying is that you, Iconoclast Mitchell, do not find the evidence sufficient to divest you of your belief. Ditto Jay Hartley. Yet you both seem eager to make this announcement very frequently as if it is an objective fact.

It isn't an objective fact--it is an opinion, and opinions can be right, or they can be wrong.

''Others will heartily disagree with your insistence and feel you are simply a poor judge of evidence''--just as you and Hartley have drawn similar opinions about my own discernment, evidently finding the alleged 'FM" smeared on the backwall of Miller's Court more compelling than Barrett trying to get his mitts on a genuine blank Victorian Diary in March 1992, or seeing the 'Diego Laurenz' letter as more confirming than Anne Graham typing up a set of bogus research notes for the former "Mr. Williams."

Such is life. As you often say, 'you pay your money..." etc etc

Meeeeeee

[caz]

Hi Caz,

It's not that curious really, it's a shonky hoax that reads like a poorly written novel.

Hi Al,

So if you were jotting down your innermost thoughts in a personal diary [which is the effect the hoaxer was presumably gong for], the result would read like one of the classics of literature?

If so, I'm well impressed!

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I see by the article that Barrett is forever doomed to be known as an "ex scrap metal dealer" instead of a frustrated freelance journalist

I'll take 'frustrated'. Lots of people would love to be a successful something or other, even if they are totally unsuited to the profession of their dreams. How we used to laugh at all the talentless buffoons, who only got auditions for reality shows like X Factor because their singing was so abysmal it made your ears bleed. They got their 'big break' on national tv, but it was never going to lead to a hit record.

If Mike Barrett even believed he could write a bestseller, he wouldn't have wanted to coerce his wife into composing up to 95% of the diary text - which is what you believe he had to do. So why on earth do you suppose the same would not have applied to anything he had managed to get published, in previous years of their marriage? Both admitted, on separate occasions, that Mike was hopelessly out of his depth, so Anne had to step in with the writing and typing up of the articles based on his celebrity interviews, and the less said about Mike's attempts at word puzzles, when left to his own devices, the better.

I sometimes wonder if there is any independent confirmation that Barrett ever wrote children's puzzles for Look-In, or whether this was just Barrett's excuse when Harrison found out that he belonged to a local writer's circle, and has been repeated afterwards as a proven fact?

I don't know if any of Mike's puzzles were published anywhere, but I do know of one particular effort that wasn't. When Keith Skinner invited me to see his Barrett Archive, over 20 years ago, I saw an unforgettable example of an adult riddle that was meant to spell out the letters of a saucy word, but Mike's spelling let him down so badly that the riddle produced an innocent word instead, totally ruining the effect.

In summary, I can't really see what is to be gained from 'promoting' him to an ex crap feature writer by 1992. At least as a scrap metal dealer, he wouldn't have faced the humiliation of needing the wife to do all the hard graft.

[caz]

Isn’t this a rather unfair insinuation?

It wasn't an 'insinuation' or even an opinion.

What has Paul Dodd's understanding of the lay-out of Maybrick's old house got to do with the discrepancies between his own various and contradictory accounts of the work done by Portus & Rhodes, and what is down on record on the actual P&R worksheets from the time - the job, where in the house it was done, the materials, the man hours and costs?

Judging from Feldman's video, filmed in the 1990s, Dodd believed the upstairs room that received the heaters was Maybrick's old bedroom and that Maybrick's private study was off this room. Obliviously, this belief couldn't have been a "recollection." An assumption, maybe--or something that Dodd had been told by a realtor or someone else--but certainly not a recollection.

So was Paul Dodd's 'belief' right or wrong? As you suggest, maybe Chris Jones knows more about the history and usage of the house than Dodd ever did, and will give his sources in his new book. I do have a copy of an old [sadly undated] plan of the first floor of "BATTLECREASE" AIGBURTH in one of my files, which shows MR MAYBRICK'S BED ROOM - plus BED - and connecting DRESSING ROOM ('Called in brief Inner Room'), also with a BED and a NIGHT COMMODE. If Chris is claiming that the first floor heaters were not installed in Maybrick's bedroom, it will be interesting to learn if my plan is wrong, or if the heaters were installed in one of the other rooms shown, the main ones being another BED ROOM ('Spare Room') and the night nursery with a connecting dressing room.

And it is clear from the podcast that Jones is doing exactly what you say he wouldn’t do: he is challenging Dodd's belief on this point. Jones is saying that the room wasn't Maybrick's bedroom, after all, and that Maybrick's private study was on the ground-floor.

That's fine, but we know the heaters were installed on the first floor, in 1992, so I was commenting on Dodd's faulty recollections of this work [one example being what you have posted from Shirley's book] and the difficulty Chris might naturally have in correcting his friend's personal recollections. Challenging what appears to be a mistaken belief, or assumption, is not casting any aspersions on Dodd's memory, is it? It's the source of Dodd's information which is in doubt.

The main thrust of the podcast was that it would be ridiculous to imagine a very ill Maybrick, having climbed from his deathbed on May 6th, ordering Nurse Yapp to fetch a crowbar and a hammer so that he could make an ungodly racket pulling brass nails and lifting heavy floorboards.

Indeed it would be ridiculous to imagine that any such activity took place - if anyone had actually done so and proposed it as a possibility. The impression given by anyone imagining and then describing it in those terms is that it needed work to make it appear even more ridiculous than the image of the Barretts of Goldie Street beavering away to create the diary between them over eleven days of April 1992. I can't imagine any other reason for this ridiculous degree of hyperbole over bleedin' floorboards.

[Iconoclast]

So was Paul Dodd's 'belief' right or wrong? As you suggest, maybe Chris Jones knows more about the history and usage of the house than Dodd ever did, and will give his sources in his new book. I do have a copy of an old [sadly undated] plan of the first floor of "BATTLECREASE" AIGBURTH in one of my files, which shows MR MAYBRICK'S BED ROOM - plus BED - and connecting DRESSING ROOM ('Called in brief Inner Room'), also with a BED and a NIGHT COMMODE. If Chris is claiming that the first floor heaters were not installed in Maybrick's bedroom, it will be interesting to learn if my plan is wrong, or if the heaters were installed in one of the other rooms shown, the main ones being another BED ROOM ('Spare Room') and the night nursery with a connecting dressing room.

Hi Caz,

Does it look anything like this? I got it from an impeccable source (The Maybrick A to Z, Christopher Jones, 2008, Countyvise Limited, p111).



Cheers,

Ike

[caz]

That's the one, Ike, only mine is just a black and white copy of the same plan, which I think I may have been given by Lindsay Siviter [but don't quote me - memories can play tricks ha ha].

I'm in Chris's acknowledgements for my 'suggestions and proof reading', and he signed my 2008 copy of the Maybrick A to Z, along with this very kind message:

'To my very good friend, Caroline (Caz), with love and thanks.'

Of course, the plan would still be correct if the heaters were installed in a room on the first floor, which was not Maybrick's bedroom. Paul Dodd may have been led to believe that it was, when escorting others around the infamous house. But no doubt Chris will have an explanation for us.

Love,

Caz
X

[Losmandris]

Well, you seem to have found your boxing gloves again, Gary, after a long hiatus following your recent bout on JTR Forums. I can see you're itching for another timewasting fight.

Unfortunately, I have no immediately plans to be your postman, so you'll have to email David Barrat if you wish a response; my understanding is that he cannot be quoted on this site anyway.

Speaking for myself only, I'm afraid that I find your 'equestrian' defense of the Mabyrick Hoax strange and not a little desperate.

Why would anyone mention an obscure 'equestrian' term that that does not fit the context of the passage, and certainly not without an enormous amount of straining?

But let me see if I understand you.

'Maybrick'--in the same passage that also uses the anachronism 'bumbling buffoon' and references a phrase that was not known to have been used by Dr. Hopper until the inquest into Maybrick's own death several months later--while also describing events that never actually happened (is this the four strikes and you're out rule?) recounts how he struck his wife.

Florrie begs him not to do it again---a key point, if we are to fully understand the context.

'Maybrick' agrees not to do it again, assuring her it was a "one off instance."

It is as clear as a bell what the hoaxer meant by this and it had sod-all to do with horses.

Indeed, anyone reading this document-from-nowhere in 1992 would immediately recognize the phrase a "one off instance" because it was in wide circulation in 1992.




But, if I understand you correctly, you instead believe that "Maybrick" (in handwriting that is not his own) meant that striking Florrie was a "one-year-old horse instance"? That he is, for some reason, referencing this obscure equestrian term within his promise not to do it again and his assurance that it was a one-time thing?

Do I have that right? Does that make any sense? If so, how do you propose to equate this usage with Florrie asking him not to do it again, and Maybrick saying that he won't do it again?

Is there a single example of anyone in the 19th Century using this equestrian term in this way?

Sorry, Gary, but I really find your suggestion here entirely unconvincing. I found it unconvincing two years ago and I still do. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Yes, I believe it is an anachronism and the diary's unbonded ink and the reference to a police inventory list not published until 1987 justifies that belief.

And for future reference: there's three things I don't care to argue with you about, Gary: East End butchers, Boris Johnson, and Lord Orsam.

Lechmere is fine by me.

Okay, back to the baseball game.

I hate to say it but after reading that except from the diary, it sounds like some badly written paperback. A little bit over dramatic, in that just obvious sense, to be real me thinks. Pretty laughable to be honest. Someone trying that little too hard. I'd imagine in reality it would have been far more mundane.

[Iconoclast]

I hate to say it but after reading that except from the diary, it sounds like some badly written paperback. A little bit over dramatic, in that just obvious sense, to be real me thinks. Pretty laughable to be honest. Someone trying that little too hard. I'd imagine in reality it would have been far more mundane.

Losmandris,

As you know the inner workings of the human mind so very keenly, perhaps you could re-write for us the passage you refer to in a style you would have found acceptable of a narcissistic, cuckolded, drug-fuelled, Liverpool cotton merchant just so that we're clear about how it ought to have read if it was genuine? It sounds like you know exactly what you were expecting so it shouldn't take you long.

And - if you say that you only know what doesn't sound right - with what do you compare it to know so intuitively that it is wrong, that it could not possibly have been written by the actual killer?

So that's two things we need back from you before we can even begin to consider your argument as having any grounds whatsoever.

Looking forward to it, though I have bought a very very large book with tiny printing in to fill the days and weeks I now anticipate lie ahead of me.

What I'm really trying to say, I guess, is that your opinion counts for **** all in the detective stakes and should never be offered as proof of anything other than that you know **** all else about the case.

Opinions are like that, you see.

Ike

[Losmandris]

Losmandris,

As you know the inner workings of the human mind so very keenly, perhaps you could re-write for us the passage you refer to in a style you would have found acceptable of a narcissistic, cuckolded, drug-fuelled, Liverpool cotton merchant just so that we're clear about how it ought to have read if it was genuine? It sounds like you know exactly what you were expecting so it shouldn't take you long.

And - if you say that you only know what doesn't sound right - with what do you compare it to know so intuitively that it is wrong, that it could not possibly have been written by the actual killer?

So that's two things we need back from you before we can even begin to consider your argument as having any grounds whatsoever.

Looking forward to it, though I have bought a very very large book with tiny printing in to fill the days and weeks I now anticipate lie ahead of me.

What I'm really trying to say, I guess, is that your opinion counts for **** all in the detective stakes and should never be offered as proof of anything other than that you know **** all else about the case.

Opinions are like that, you see.

Ike

That's the thing Ike. I could try but I feel it would be just as bad as the clearly second rate writer who wrote that paragraph. As far as my opinion goes, that's your opinion entirely. I am just calling it as I see it. I could be wrong of course but based on probability and from what I have heard about the provenance of the diary. I would guess it is a 99.9% chance that it is fake. That paragraph kind of sealed it for me.

I get it though. If you really will something to be real in your eyes it will eventually become real. I totally respect your opinion on that. I hope it brings the fulfillment you need!

[Iconoclast]

That's the thing Ike. I could try but I feel it would be just as bad as the clearly second rate writer who wrote that paragraph. As far as my opinion goes, that's your opinion entirely. I am just calling it as I see it. I could be wrong of course but based on probability and from what I have heard about the provenance of the diary. I would guess it is a 99.9% chance that it is fake. That paragraph kind of sealed it for me.

I get it though. If you really will something to be real in your eyes it will eventually become real. I totally respect your opinion on that. I hope it brings the fulfillment you need!

**** me, I didn't realise you gave your name at the foot of your post, Tristan. Lot easier than Lostmandrake or whatever the hell your username is.

At least answer me this (it's mega-massively simps, mate): Why would you expect James Maybrick to be anything other than a 'second rate writer'? Aside from merchanting cotton (******* easy life), what classics of literature did he bash out on his old Remington?

Ike

[Iconoclast]

THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCE HOSTED BY LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY SEPTEMBER 14th 15th and 16th 1998 Professor David Canter PhD, author of "criminal shadows" and Director of the Centre for Investigative Psychology at the University.

Interviewer: So is it relevant today? Is there anything the criminal psychologist of today can learn from it?

Dr Cantor: Well I think it forces us to think more clearly about the thought processes that a criminal goes through, and what the genuine thought processes are of somebody who is really violent and how they may differ from somebody who is pretending to be thinking about those processes. If it enables us to be clearer in our own minds about what those particular processes are then we’ll have learnt something from it.

But maybe all you (yes, all of you) armchair experts in Victorian literature think otherwise.

Get a ******* grip, man.

Ike

[Aethelwulf]

Get a ******* grip, man.

Ike

Pot and kettle here Ike. I refer readers to Appendix 2 of Society's Pillock as an example of your pure fantasist horses**t.

[Yabs]

Hi Ike.

Yet in other answers the good Dr doesn’t seem convinced in terms of the writers connection with JTR.

Interviewer:
What does the diary say that makes you think as a psychologist that it was written by him though?

Dr Canter:
I’m not sure that I’m absolutely convinced that it was written by the person who did those killings in Whitechapel. It certainly was written by somebody who knows what it feels like to be angry and vicious – and somebody who can develop through the stages of thought that a vicious criminal will go through. It starts off with an exploration of what it might feel like, and what the particular mood might be, and it then develops from that into an almost enjoyment of the activities it reports that it has gone through. So that is a very subtle sort of development of the thought processes in the document. The other interesting thing, and important point, is it is not a diary in the usual sense – it’s not dated with what happened on any particular day – it’s a series of meandering thoughts that surround the different events.


Maybe we could describe Barrett as someone who could be angry and viscous. I don’t know.

[Iconoclast]

Pot and kettle here Ike. I refer readers to Appendix 2 of Society's Pillock as an example of your pure fantasist horses**t.

To be clear, it is rather obvious that if it turns out that James Maybrick was not Jack the Ripper, then a remarkable coincidence has happened yet again, but ultimately I was very wrong.

If it turns out that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper, of course, people will describe me as a ******* genius. And what will they say of the likes of you in that event, I wonder?