Who were they?

[Iconoclast]

Irrelevant. Whoever found a diary for Mike for the year 1891, with printed dates throughout, didn't get the memo. Nor did Martin Earl, who offered it to Mike. More to the point, nor did Mike himself. He ordered the damned thing!

Speculation. Why would he have bought Diamine ink in that case? Did he confidently predict that no forensic scrutiny - and not even Mr. Diamine himself - would be able to positively identify it?

Last-minute forensic scrutiny of the Hitler Diaries revealed several post-1945 elements within days of the 'scoop' being announced. Ironically, three handwriting 'experts' had initially reassured Stern that the diaries were genuine, so Kujau had at least acted like a typical forger and made the handwriting look as much like Hitler's as he could. He'd been faking stuff like this for years and getting away with it by selling to private collectors, who thought they recognised Hitler's hand in the various documents and artwork. Kujau would never have offered the diaries for publication himself. That was a journalist who became involved and promised to make Kujau rich but not to reveal his source.

RJ is suggesting that the 'next hoaxer' wasn't willing to trip up over the 'same inanity' of using modern paper, but used a provably modern ink [and just kept his inky fingers crossed] and then made no attempt to reproduce Maybrick's known handwriting, before finally taking the finished article to market himself. I'm only surprised Mike didn't use his genuine 1891 diary and assume nobody would notice. If it didn't matter to the 'next hoaxer' that the handwriting was all wrong for Maybrick, why would it have mattered to him that Maybrick was dead before his diary was printed?

Cue another silly post by RJ, where the 'next hoaxer' had every reason to predict that, ten years after the Hitler Diaries fiasco, he would have no trouble getting his own efforts published and having a best seller to boot, with none of the consequences faced by Kujau. The ink and handwriting wouldn't matter a jot this time, but the age of the paper? Crikey, that had better be right or they'd have him by the balls in next to no time.

Love,

Caz
X

You do so make me laugh, Caz!

Man learns from failed Hitler fiasco that all that is required is genuine Victorian paper for a Jack the Ripper hoax! How did that work out for him, I wonder?

Well, we know, don't we? It flipping well turns out that you have to get the ink right. And you have to get the handwriting 'right'. And you have to get all the details right. And you have to include all the details readers assume would be mentioned. Et cetera!

Mike and Anne Barrett got the first bit right (but - Lord - how they pushed it to the very edge by doing so only as late as March 31, 1992, where they miraculously purchased a genuine Victorian scrapbook at the very last chance they had) but they made very little effort whatsoever to get any of the other bits right. They were hopeless hoaxers, no?

On the subject of the last minute.com auction purchase, I assume that they were regulars at Outhwaite & Litherland in the run-up to that infamous last minute salvation? They probably had their own seats reserved by the staff, so often did they appear hoping to find a genuine Victorian document to write their hoax into. Mike's hoax? Anne's hoax? I've lost track, by the way!

Keep the gags coming, Caz - you're a stand-up gal, you really are!

Ike

[caz]

He asked for a blank diary. A blank diary to most people is a blank diary. No lettering, no dates---it's a cover with blank pages. Omlor, Phillips, and Orsam, among many others, have thrown up photo after photo showing blank diaries with no individual dates stamped on them.

Irrelevant. Whoever found a diary for Mike for the year 1891, with printed dates throughout, didn't get the memo. Nor did Martin Earl, who offered it to Mike. More to the point, nor did Mike himself. He ordered the damned thing!

Mike wanted a blank diary from 1880-1890 for one reason only: so the paper would pass any forensic scrutiny.

Speculation. Why would he have bought Diamine ink in that case? Did he confidently predict that no forensic scrutiny - and not even Mr. Diamine himself - would be able to positively identify it?

It had been widely reported in the news that the Hitler Diary fiasco failed, in part, because the Bundesarchiv had quickly determined that the diaries were written on modern paper. The next hoaxer that came down the pike wasn't willing to trip up over that same inanity.

Last-minute forensic scrutiny of the Hitler Diaries revealed several post-1945 elements within days of the 'scoop' being announced. Ironically, three handwriting 'experts' had initially reassured Stern that the diaries were genuine, so Kujau had at least acted like a typical forger and made the handwriting look as much like Hitler's as he could. He'd been faking stuff like this for years and getting away with it by selling to private collectors, who thought they recognised Hitler's hand in the various documents and artwork. Kujau would never have offered the diaries for publication himself. That was a journalist who became involved and promised to make Kujau rich but not to reveal his source.

RJ is suggesting that the 'next hoaxer' wasn't willing to trip up over the 'same inanity' of using modern paper, but used a provably modern ink [and just kept his inky fingers crossed] and then made no attempt to reproduce Maybrick's known handwriting, before finally taking the finished article to market himself. I'm only surprised Mike didn't use his genuine 1891 diary and assume nobody would notice. If it didn't matter to the 'next hoaxer' that the handwriting was all wrong for Maybrick, why would it have mattered to him that Maybrick was dead before his diary was printed?

Cue another silly post by RJ, where the 'next hoaxer' had every reason to predict that, ten years after the Hitler Diaries fiasco, he would have no trouble getting his own efforts published and having a best seller to boot, with none of the consequences faced by Kujau. The ink and handwriting wouldn't matter a jot this time, but the age of the paper? Crikey, that had better be right or they'd have him by the balls in next to no time.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Well, RJ, one would have to be properly absorbed into the mind of the man who did it all back in March 1992 to properly understand his motivations and none of us were and none of us can be, but I feel the most rational reason why a man would order an 1880-1890 diary and even eventually agree to purchase (I use the term lightly) an 1891 diary would be to say, "Here's that Victorian diary I got off Eddie Lyons" to whomsoever may have come knocking at his door for it.

If his motivation was to create a hoaxed James Maybrick journal detailing the crimes of Jack the Ripper, then one would have to assume that he would not have run the risk of receiving a diary for a year in which James Maybrick was most noticeable for being long dead.

But why didn't he just seek an undated Victorian notebook, I hear you ask? Well, I don't know why, especially given that that was more or less what he had received from Lyons; but I have to say that the critical bit - for me - is not the type of document he asked for but rather the time period he specified for the type of document he asked for. It is simply impossible to rationalise why a man seeking to hoax a 'diary' of Jack the Ripper would specify a year during which his foil was six feet under.

I put it to you - to iterate - that that is impossible to rationalise, and therefore your hoax theory (and it is your hoax theory) falls flat on its face due to the one thing you cling to the most, that little maroon diary.

No reference to page size, or the need for the unused pages to be both consecutive and undated, but any 'diary' dating from 1880-90 will do, is surely not what anyone with two brain cells would have requested if the object was to obtain an old book to house the thoughts of James Maybrick over two years, between February 1888 and his death in May 1889, while resident in Battlecrease House.

On the other hand, what Mike asked for around 9th March 1992 - but didn't get - was more akin to "the old book" he took to London on 13th April. Only the last page of writing was dated, and 1889 was close to the end of the decade. There was no clear indication of when the first surviving page was meant to have been written, and with many pages removed from the front of the book, the casual observer might have allowed for a date range from 1880. The book had more than 60 surviving pages of writing, followed by 17 unused pages. In fact, one could argue that the advert was generated by someone who had seen this very scrapbook and had it in mind, but was ignorant concerning who might have written it or the period it covered. This is obviously not possible if Mike knew exactly what he was doing and why, but had yet to set eyes on the prize in an auction sale at the end of the month, and turn it into what he had originally described and requested.

Whether the red diary was ordered in the process of trying to create a hoax, or in the process of handling and placing an item of suspected stolen property, it would still represent something 'dodgy' going on in Mike's world at the time. It's not as if we are seeking an innocent explanation, or trying to get this liar off the hook for all his many misdeeds. It's taking a cool and measured approach to what the evidence indicates about the extent of Mike's diary knowledge on 8th March 1992.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Shirley Harrison reported that when Mike's mother read The Diary of Jack the Ripper she threw Mike out of her house (he'd been camping on the sofa, apparently).

That's a rather strange reaction. But, as they say, who knows what a man is capable of more than his own mother?

How does RJ imagine this even begins to suggest a suspicion on Mike's mum's part, that her barely literate son might have written the diary, which Shirley Harrison argued was Maybrick's work?

This line of thought is beyond desperate.

Why would anyone have known if Mike and Anne were writing the diary in the privacy of their own tiny home on Goldie Street? This line of thinking seems a little...desperate.

That wasn't my line of thinking, so RJ's selective hearing is back on.

I wasn't talking about an actual creation in their home, but the fact that no suspicions have ever been heard from anyone who associated with Anne or Mike in all the years leading up to 1993, when the first claims of a modern fake hit the papers, followed by the book's publication, that one or other of them might have been willing or capable of creating something like this.

As with the McCanns, armchair critics and keyboard warriors are no substitute for people with local or intimate knowledge of the individuals suspected or accused of a very specific type of offence.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Well, forgetting the fact that there is utterly no evidence that Eddie found the diary, or even knew Barrett, let alone sold the diary to him, let's think it over.

Utterly no evidence? None so deaf as those with selective hearing, eh?

According to your own theory, Mike 'waved' Martin Earl's invoice for a tiny, blank or nearly blank memo book 'under Eddie's nose'--and this was enough for Eddie to relinquish the priceless Diary of Jack the Ripper for twenty-five quid. A most curious method of assessing the value of a document...

No, that is not a theory I currently entertain, but RJ would know that if he didn't have highly selective hearing.

Instead, Eddie hung on to The Diary of Jack the Ripper (yes, I refuse to use your convenient phrase 'the old book')...

As RJ would know, if he didn't suffer from chronic selective hearing, it is not my phrase, convenient or otherwise, but one that has been used routinely by more than one interviewee who has spoken about "the old book" found by Eddie Lyons during a wiring job. Keith's partner, who was present at some of the interviews, later remarked on the use of the phrase long before I did. So I will continue to refer to it as "the old book" [which it clearly is, as opposed to a diary] in the context of Eddie's find, and if it pains RJ to hear it, he can just switch on his selective hearing again.

...patiently waiting to sell it to an unemployed and penniless drinker, whose wife held the purse strings, and, not irrelevantly, a man with the loosest set of lips in all of Merseyside. A most curious choice for a customer of stolen goods.

And when was Eddie meant to have learned all this about Mike? "Nice old book you got there, lad. Jack the Ripper, eh? Nobody's going to fall for that! Where did you get it? Is it dodgy? Okay, 'nuff said. I tell you what. Everyone around here knows about my contacts in the auntie queer... old book world and what have you, so I'm your man if you need to find a discreet buyer. I'm happy to look after that side of things for you. Oh, and before I nip off to make a very important phone call, there's a chap called Roger, writing on the internet thirty years from now, who expects me to warn you that I'm an unemployed and penniless drinker, whose wife holds the purse strings and, best of all - and this will make you chuckle - I'm a man with the loosest set of lips in all of Merseyside. Couldn't be further from the truth, lad. Trust me. You won't be sorry".

If you want to go with that story, feel free. I don't think historians will be queuing up around the block to accept it. It's destined to end up in the same Ripperological rubbish bin that holds Joseph Sickert's stories and the theories of William Le Quex.

No, I'm happy to go with RJ's take on things. He's much better at Mersey Ferry tales.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

I wonder, dear readers, how much less obviously-a-fraud the Victorian scrapbook would appear to those on this site without Muddy the Mud Boy's constant re-imagining of the details to suit the detractors' arguments?

[Iconoclast]

Why the exclamation mark (!), if I might ask?

I'm always curious why Team Diary thinks it significant when Barrett gets a year wrong, as if this is some extraordinary occurrence? Should we find meaning in this, and perhaps use it to ignore the fact that there is nonetheless documented evidence that Barrett went shopping for a blank diary--'with at least 20 blank pages'--in the weeks before any trustworthy eyes saw the Diary?

I wouldn't think so, yet again and again we see a strange obsession about the dates given by an alcoholic when we have better information at our disposal. I always think I can hear a walnut shell scooting across the table when this happens...

Let me just remark that some weeks ago I came across the following message to me from KS. I thought I'd better clip it:




Yes, I did indeed notice that KS had the wrong year, but it never occurred to me that this was anything more than a mild, garden variety mistake that could happen to anyone. I certainly did not conclude from it that the events Keith was describing did not happen.

It has possibly been noted at least a dozen times by David Barrat that in the handwritten draft of Mike's sworn affidavit the zero in the year 1990 had been crossed through and replaced with a 1. This means Barrett was only a few months off in his reckoning. Barrat also notes that Mike corrected this error during the infamous Cloak and Dagger interview. There is nothing here that should interest us. It's just more shuffling of the walnut shells.





Nor am I convinced.

And once I saw Martin Earl's advertisement with my own eyes, Anne's already questionable rationale truly smelled to high heaven.

Yet, just take a look at the fierce, accusatory resistance that Ike gives me for drawing this conclusion...or even raising it as a valid issue. Only a daft reject from the Lord Orsam's Clown Car would dream of drawing any conclusions from it, so I'll scoot over and let you in if you like, Keith. There's plenty of room for both of us!

It's quite a juggling act. We are told by a number of theorists--though not necessarily by Ike who tends to shift the walnut shells around as rapidly as possible--that Anne lied and lied repeatedly to not only Keith, but to Feldman, Doreen, Shirley, Carol etc., about having seen the diary as a teenager and having hid it from Mike for years, etc. etc.

Yet, question anything Anne says in any other context, and suddenly she as honest as the Virgin Mary.

To be blunt, it's difficult to get one's head around.

Enjoy your summer, boys.

P.S. Seeing that Ike has KS within earshot, this would be a handy time to confirm what evidence there is that Martin Fido was secretly on the fence about the diary's authenticity but didn't reveal this out of fear of reprisal from the academic community. I trust Ike's readers will be eager to gauge the accuracy of this allegation.

Crikey, RJ - 272 words on the pretty irrelevant subject of a stray exclamation mark! It would be tempting to think you were deflecting a little there which is surely not like you. I mean, I think Lincoln's Gettysburg address wasn't very much longer, was it?

Just to clarify a little more detail around the mooted 'leaking' of the small maroon 1891, Melvin Harris obviously knew too by January 5, 1995, so between him and Mike, it would inevitably reach Feldman's ears and then Anne's. So technically, Mike had 'leaked' its existence before Anne was asked about it, so Keith's knowledge of it was clearly not dependent upon his simultaneous knowledge of Mike's little-publicised January 5, 1995, affidavit. By giving Keith the cheque, Anne gave him the means to find out all anyone knew to date at that time about the maroon diary, so there was no more for Mike (or anyone else) to 'leak' after that. She may or may not have known about the advert or she may have known about the advert but not its contents, but that's very much consistent with the point. If she knew Mike was trying to obtain a book to house their hoax, she was handing Keith the means to find potentially damning details about his efforts. You will spin it some other way (or rival Kennedy's Berlin address with a long diatribe on 'Ich bin ein comma' or some other such call-to-arms for all grammarians the world over to rise up against their oppressors) but nothing that you say can introduce any sort of subterfuge into Anne's actions (and yet through your own unique Muddy Address, you will strive to, I have absolutely no doubt).

For the record, I have Keith's notes regarding his waterboarding of Anne in August 1995:

"Anne's recollections re Victorian diary - thinks it was pre Doreen - thinks Mike got it by phoning up Yellow Pages - he wanted to see what a Victorian diary looked like. All Anne can clearly remember is having to pay £20 for it - is going to search her cheque stubs. 3.30PM - Anne phoned back - has been looking at statements and old cheque books. Between 17th May 1992 and 21st May 1992 there is a stub which says £25 book. Anne is going to see whether bank can identify who cheque was payable to."

Looks like I was wrong about Anne having to get a duplicate statement - but, rather, that she needed a copy of the cheque.

Yet, Caroline Brown has reported (many times, I might add) that Keith first learned about Mike Barrett's affidavit on 22 January 1997. (If you doubt this, chase down the appropriate posts for yourself, or see the "Silence of Ann" at Orsam Books).

None of this makes any odds given that Keith has now clarified that he learned of the 1891 maroon diary from Paul Feldman who had heard it from Mike. Keith has assured me that Feldman made no mention to him (Keith) of Mike's January 5, 1995, affidavit which explains why Keith was still in the dark about that affidavit until a few days over two years later (January 22, 1997). The issue of why Anne did not mention it to Keith is the stuff of other threads or else this thread but not right now (I'm trying to reduce any possible encouragement for you to deflect, Muddy).

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Hi Ike,

I'll start by stating for the record, I have the utmost respect for Keith Skinner. Like probably every poster on this forum, his books sits on my shelf along side Sugden and Begg for good reason. But you've highlighted what, for someone like myself who isn't too heavily invested in the Maybrick diary, is an ongoing source of frustration. If we knew what he knew. Keith's had full access to all the interviews with everyone connected with the Battlecrease provenance, reached the conclusion that that seems to be the most plausible source for the diary, and has stood by that belief ever since. But he's never actually put it out there, in full, and let's face it, never will. So all we on the outside get are occasional extracts and are expected to take everything at face value. That's not good enough. And as you rightly point out, your assuming he hasn't changed his mind. We don't know because we don't hear from him, which is a great shame.

Personally, I'd be open to seeing his full explanation for believing in the Battlecrease provenance, let's face it, Mike Barrett did a poor job of exposing his own hoax, so maybe there is something in it? I don't know, and I'll never reach that conclusion until all the interviews are made available.

Hi Abe,

I was referring solely to Keith's awareness of the timesheets for March 9, 1992, which he was unable to discuss or publish due to it being Bruce Robinson's research material for They All Love Jack. Robert Smith first published this information in his first 25 Years.

For the record, there is more testimony out there that strongly supports a Battlecrease provenance for the scrapbook and some of it has certainly already been published. One of the most compelling testimonies comes from Tim Martin-Wright who reported in 1994 (?) that he had been offered the opportunity to buy the 'diary of Jack the Ripper' in 1991 or 1992 (he hasn't been able to formally confirm the year) but that he missed out because "it was sold on a pub in Anfield". Martin-Wright has impeccable credentials and makes a totally trustworthy witness. His story was recounted - as I recall - in Ripper Legacy: Inside Story.

Overall, the evidence pointing to Battlecrease House makes Anne's provenance profoundly weaker in comparison.

I believe that all of this will be made available in good time.

[Iconoclast]

It is the only diary I have heard of that does not contain a single date.

I cannot tell whether you are having a laugh or not, I really can't. It's really hard to work out as normally you're super-sensitive and unbearably serious and then you go and post what looks for all the world like some sort of weak joke? So I'm not sure whether your post requires an answer?

Okay, I'm going to go with the assumption that you are serious so - in response - if you could just remind us where in the Victorian scrapbook it claims to be a diary that would allow us to clarify things for you.

Cheers.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Well there's a lot to unpack there, RJ, except that we aren't Keith Skinner so unless he emails me with a comment, I can't answer for him. Nevertheless, he has famously stated that if we all knew what he knew (about the timesheets for March 9, 1992) that we would all draw the conclusion that the scrapbook came out of Battlecerease House. I can't see any reason why he would have changed his mind in the intervening years so I suspect (assume) that he does believe it came out of Battlecrease but - for it to have been the Jack the Ripper's authentic confessional - it would have had to miraculously come out of James Maybrick's old home but have been written by Monty Druitt so I take it as read that he thinks it came out of Battlecrease House on the morning of March 9, 1992, but that he doesn't believe it is the authentic work of Jack the Ripper (whoever Jack was).

Hi Ike,

I'll start by stating for the record, I have the utmost respect for Keith Skinner. Like probably every poster on this forum, his books sits on my shelf along side Sugden and Begg for good reason. But you've highlighted what, for someone like myself who isn't too heavily invested in the Maybrick diary, is an ongoing source of frustration. If we knew what he knew. Keith's had full access to all the interviews with everyone connected with the Battlecrease provenance, reached the conclusion that that seems to be the most plausible source for the diary, and has stood by that belief ever since. But he's never actually put it out there, in full, and let's face it, never will. So all we on the outside get are occasional extracts and are expected to take everything at face value. That's not good enough. And as you rightly point out, your assuming he hasn't changed his mind. We don't know because we don't hear from him, which is a great shame.

Personally, I'd be open to seeing his full explanation for believing in the Battlecrease provenance, let's face it, Mike Barrett did a poor job of exposing his own hoax, so maybe there is something in it? I don't know, and I'll never reach that conclusion until all the interviews are made available.

[erobitha]

It is the only diary I have heard of that does not contain a single date.

Apart from the one at the very end.

We use the word diary as short hand but it is a journal in a scrapbook.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I think John wheat said it best " The diary is a fake "

I've yet to read any evidence on this thread that changes that sentiment.

It is the only diary I have heard of that does not contain a single date.

[FISHY1118]

I think John wheat said it best " The diary is a fake "

I've yet to read any evidence on this thread that changes that sentiment.

[rjpalmer]

Oh - peachy - Keith has emailed me with the following!

PF [Paul Feldman] phoned and asked me to make a note that last week, before he went to Liverpool, Mike Barrett had phoned saying Ann had bought a Victorian diary in 1991 (!) for which he (Barrett), had the receipt.

Why the exclamation mark (!), if I might ask?

I'm always curious why Team Diary thinks it significant when Barrett gets a year wrong, as if this is some extraordinary occurrence? Should we find meaning in this, and perhaps use it to ignore the fact that there is nonetheless documented evidence that Barrett went shopping for a blank diary--'with at least 20 blank pages'--in the weeks before any trustworthy eyes saw the Diary?

I wouldn't think so, yet again and again we see a strange obsession about the dates given by an alcoholic when we have better information at our disposal. I always think I can hear a walnut shell scooting across the table when this happens...

Let me just remark that some weeks ago I came across the following message to me from KS. I thought I'd better clip it:




Yes, I did indeed notice that KS had the wrong year, but it never occurred to me that this was anything more than a mild, garden variety mistake that could happen to anyone. I certainly did not conclude from it that the events Keith was describing did not happen.

It has possibly been noted at least a dozen times by David Barrat that in the handwritten draft of Mike's sworn affidavit the zero in the year 1990 had been crossed through and replaced with a 1. This means Barrett was only a few months off in his reckoning. Barrat also notes that Mike corrected this error during the infamous Cloak and Dagger interview. There is nothing here that should interest us. It's just more shuffling of the walnut shells.

I was never fully convinced by Anne's explanation that Mike had probably bought it to see what a Victorian diary looked like.

Nor am I convinced.

And once I saw Martin Earl's advertisement with my own eyes, Anne's already questionable rationale truly smelled to high heaven.

Yet, just take a look at the fierce, accusatory resistance that Ike gives me for drawing this conclusion...or even raising it as a valid issue. Only a daft reject from the Lord Orsam's Clown Car would dream of drawing any conclusions from it, so I'll scoot over and let you in if you like, Keith. There's plenty of room for both of us!

It's quite a juggling act. We are told by a number of theorists--though not necessarily by Ike who tends to shift the walnut shells around as rapidly as possible--that Anne lied and lied repeatedly to not only Keith, but to Feldman, Doreen, Shirley, Carol etc., about having seen the diary as a teenager and having hid it from Mike for years, etc. etc.

Yet, question anything Anne says in any other context, and suddenly she as honest as the Virgin Mary.

To be blunt, it's difficult to get one's head around.

Enjoy your summer, boys.

P.S. Seeing that Ike has KS within earshot, this would be a handy time to confirm what evidence there is that Martin Fido was secretly on the fence about the diary's authenticity but didn't reveal this out of fear of reprisal from the academic community. I trust Ike's readers will be eager to gauge the accuracy of this allegation.

[Iconoclast]

Oh - peachy - Keith has emailed me with the following!

Had it leaked? I'd have to check my notes but I don't recall the diary being mentioned until Mike's January 1995 affidavit? [IKE]

I thought the same as you. Here's my note from July 5th 1995...

PF [Paul Feldman] phoned and asked me to make a note that last week, before he went to Liverpool, Mike Barrett had phoned saying Ann had bought a Victorian diary in 1991 (!) for which he (Barrett), had the receipt. PF asked Anne about it - and Anne said, yes, she had bought a Victorian pocket diary - and still has it. I believe we later established that Mike had been round to see Anne in December 1994 asking for the red diary? But as far as I can see Anne did not have to do anything when I later chatted to her about the diary in August 1995. It was only because she kept her old cheque books and bank statements that Shirley and I were able trace Martin Earl, but Anne could simply have said she had thrown away all of her documentation. Had she done so I would have left it at that most likely even though I was never fully convinced by Anne's explanation that Mike had probably bought it to see what a Victorian diary looked like. By the time of my C&D interview with Mike in April 1999 I was under the impression that the red diary had been purchased in May 1992 because that was where the evidence of the cheque stub and bank statement and a photocopy of the cheque itself led me. It was not until later on in 1999 that Shirley and I were able to establish that Mike had made the enquiry in March 1992. But it was still a puzzle as to why Mike had left it so late to find out what a Victorian diary looked like if it had been in his possession since Spring 1991? To this day I'm not even sure if Anne ever knew about that advertisement which Mike had placed? I only got to it in December 2004 whilst working for Bruce [Robinson].

Best Wishes

Keith