Who were they?

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Hi Caz,

Oh, I think you are on the right lines here, Al, but only regarding the non Barrett hoax angle, where the red 1891 diary could have had no further purpose to serve by the time Mike was ready to take Eddie's "old book" to London - and that's allowing it ever did have a proper, thought-out practical purpose, when Mike first requested an unused or partly used diary from the 1880s, with at least 20 blank pages. Only Mike would have known his initial reasons for contacting Bookfinders and ending up making this "unusual" request, as Martin Earl remembers it. Only Mike would have known when those reasons no longer applied and why, at which point he wouldn't have cared if nothing had come of his request, or if what was found was not what he was expecting, or not fit for his original purpose.

It's very much 'stab in the dark territory' though. An attempt to source materials at least is something tangible.

I wouldn't even put it past Mike to have phoned this firm called Bookfinders on impulse, to ask if they bought Victorian diaries, only to be told that they dealt in finding any such items on request from paying customers. Not quite knowing where to go with this, but having the scrapbook firmly on his mind and not wanting to put the phone down just yet, might Mike have come up with a request for something similar on the hoof, just to test these unfamiliar book finding waters and see what would happen? I mean, who knows if the phone call went as Mike was expecting it to go, or if it took off in an unexpected direction, leaving him wanting to know more but not quite sure what? Was he in the habit of making such enquiries, or was this virgin territory for him? Was he checking out the 'selling direct' option at the same time as the publishing route, and found the latter more instantly receptive and user-friendly, not to mention the possibilities for his own unfulfilled writing ambitions?

Similarly, the fact that he chose to contact a publisher gives us something more solid to work with. The two calls fit well without much speculation. Source the material, find a buyer.

What isn't working for me, Al, is the idea that Mike would have been given the faintest clue on 9th March where the scrapbook had come from or when. He'd have been suspicious, naturally, but his concerns would be doing battle with his overwhelming desire to get his paws on it. He had to trust Eddie not to have got it from anyone who knew what they had and would miss it, and equally Eddie had to trust Mike with the book if he wanted it shown to potential buyers on his behalf.

Trust is a key word here I think. For that to be the case, the two must have known each other. If we're to believe much was at stake, would Eddy sell to the first stranger in the pub on 'trust'? Mike at this point wasn't the raving drunk he was to become. Did Eddy think Mike was a journalist, Mike was no stranger to letting the truth get in the way of a story, and anyhow it'd be essentially true? That type of scenario might facilitate trust.

I suspect if Eddie told Mike anything, it was that: "no effing bugger alive knows about it". And as far as Dodd was concerned at the time, it would have been true.

Otherwise, Eddie could have been in the same hot water as Mike, and that doesn't work for me either.

The water probably wasn't that hot. Mike could claim buying it in good faith, Eddy could deny the whole lot, which incidentally is what he did.

Love,

Caz
X

I'm not exactly sold on the Battlecrease provenance, but for it to have any legs I think it would need prior between Mike and Eddy. The idea of Eddy stealing something worth selling and offloading it sharpish to a stranger in the pub with some bond of silence is adding another level of convolution to a story that so far isn't that sound, in my opinion.

[Scott Nelson]

My emphasis:

No 'supposedly' about it, as the recorded interviews and conversations with these witnesses can confirm. Colin Rhodes and his crew are central to the various accounts, which provide all the relevant dates and details of the electrical work done between 1989 and 1992 in Maybrick's former home. I wouldn't have expected any precise dates to trip off the tongues of the individuals concerned, unless they had access to the relevant paperwork, including entries in their own diaries for example. But from the various descriptions of their work and personal movements, in combination with the timesheets and other documentary evidence, it's possible by a process of elimination to narrow this "find" down to the period between 9th March and 17th July 1992, when Eddie told Brian Rawes in the drive of Battlecrease, that he had found something "important" while working in the house. Floorboards day was Monday 9th March, and that was when Eddie was first sent there. Mike's "diary" was seen in London on Monday 13th April 1992, so that gives us a window of five weeks for the diary to have changed hands, in accordance with the Portus & Rhodes 'grapevine'.

How do we reconcile this information with the Mike/Anne creation advocates, who claim nothing diary-related ever came out of Dodd's house? Was Eddie Lyons, Colin Rhodes, or Brian Rawes full of it, confused or misinformed?

[rjpalmer]

On 3rd April [just three days after Mike's theoretical auction find on 31st March] Doreen is again writing to Shirley, this time looking forward to hearing about their arrangements with Michael Barrett.
'I could organise a lunch I suppose…'
'But then if you weren't going to be doing it until the week after next, that Friday is in fact Good Friday…

I personally don't care to engage further, but it has been brought to my attention that the above correspondence dated 3 April 1992 was not included in what was purported to be a file of Doreen Montgomery's correspondence from March/April 1992, uploaded to these boards by Keith Skinner back in February 2018 which can be found here in Post #1133:


Acquiring A Victorian Diary - Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums

Through some error, did Keith not provide all of Doreen's correspondence, or has a new cache of correspondence emerged after all these years?

As I am constantly being accused of making slurs, etc., which I am not in fact making, let me just point to anyone inclined to paranoia that there is no hidden accusation in the above question. It's just a question, as well as a reminder that perhaps a second set of eyes (not my own) should be allowed to view all the relevant documentation.

RP

P.S. As a parting gesture, can I draw Keith Skinner's attention to the following enigma: what purports to be two signatures made by the allegedly illiterate Elizabeth Formby on the 1911 and 1921 census returns? I offer no explanation, but if Keith ever has opportunity to again sit down with Anne Graham, perhaps she can offer one? My only insight is that the 1911 return was certainly not signed by the enumerator because the handwriting is clearly not the same, and there are other returns in the same batch where the enumerator signified that he/she is signing on the occupant's behalf. I also note the misspelling in the 1921 return. Good-bye and good luck--and, not for my sake or anyone's sake, as Caroline seems to think---but or your own sake, why not cut to the chase and make that phone call? It beats the hell out of shuffling through the same tattered pile of thirty-year-old fax sheets for an answer that isn't there. But hey--free advice is generally seen as worthless as it is free.

[Mike J. G.]

Does anyone here know the original name of the Poste House - I mean the name of that public house in 1888?


Answer: the Muck Midden

To be fair, it wasn't necessarily common knowledge that the Poste House went by the name of "Muck Midden".

The bit of research I've personally done into it has led me to believe that it was not known by the Poste House name during 1888, though.

I do believe that it was an error on the part of whoever wrote the "diary." They could've chosen any other old pub, maybe the Roscoe Head, for example, but they chose a very well-known old pub simply because it's well-known, IMO, but they obviously weren't aware that it didn't go by that name at the time.

Now, it can be argued that the writer didn't actually mean THE Poste House, but simply A Poste House, which I don't buy into.

[Mike J. G.]

I see I am now being referred to as 'so-called PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR'.

Here are extracts from an article about the so-called scrapbook, just in case any new readers are inclined to believe what so-called erobitha has written about it:


Around 40 years before, in 1957, the so-called diaries of Benito Mussolini were found, and not just one diary, but thirty. At the time, the sheer quantity of diaries made people believe it couldn’t be a forgery. It turns out they all had been forged.

Again in 1983, billionaire Rupert Murdoch bought the rights and publication rights to 60 diaries by Adolf Hitler. Again the Hitler Diaries were claimed to be authentic, but it turned out that they were not Hitler’s diaries, and they were only 60 excellently crafted forgeries. Was this yet again a forgery and a hoax?

At some point, the man who brought Jack the Ripper’s diary to public attention, Michael Barrett, told writers at the Liverpool Post that he had 100% forged the diary. He said his wife did the writing while he dictated to her.

When investigated closely, the content of Jack the Ripper’s diary, many of the detailed descriptions of the five murders and the crime scenes were taken from press reports and later literature about Jack the Ripper murders. An example is the description of the murder of Mary Jane Kelly, whose limbs and some organs were described by the press disturbingly as “hung around the walls like Christmas decorations”.

The diary of Jack the Ripper describes where and how he put her limbs and organs in places about the room and how he cut off her breasts and “kissed them for a while” before leaving them on the bedside table. The descriptions are incredibly graphic, but there is nothing here that couldn’t be drawn and embellished from the rumors about Kelly’s mutilation.

In reality, according to what police records survived the Blitz in the Second World War, and based on the crime scene photos, the diaries describe a different crime scene. Yes, she was disemboweled and had organs removed, but they weren’t strewn across the room like some kind of macabre confetti or Christmas decorations like the diary depicts.

Some of the removed organs were placed beneath her head, other organs and viscera were placed on the bed where she was found near her feet, thighs, and some material from her stomach and thighs was spread to a nearby bedside table. One breast was found under Kelly’s head, and the other was located underneath the body on the bed. Not on the bedside table like the diary said.

The inaccuracies in the description of the brutal slaying of Mary Jane Kelly casts a large shadow of doubt on the authenticity of Jack the Ripper’s diary. If it is supposed to be written by Jack the Ripper, it should have intimate knowledge of exactly how her body was left, and it would match how the police found and recorded the scene. There is a public house mentioned in one entry called the “Post House,” but the pub had a completely different name when Jack the Ripper was active.


https://www.historicmysteries.com/ripper-diary/

{13 Miller's Court}


Inside a dirty room at Miller's court Between 2am and 8, it's thought
Mary Kelly was taken clean apart

Her body laying naked in the middle of the bed
Her face peeled down across her cold forehead
The surface of her abdomen, covering her guts
Removed, cut out, depleted, such elaborate cuts

Belly emptied of its viscera
Breasts cut off and put aside
The tissues of her neck were severed
A decapitation had been tried

The liver was found between her feet
Her intestines by her right-hand side
The uterus and kidneys beneath her head
Her stripped down legs both splayed out wide

What ever became of poor Mary Jane
Between the hours of 2 and 8
Walls and floor all splashed with gore
In a frenzy of unbridled hate

[caz]

The issue is that the electricians didn't see the diary firsthand, either.

Well Eddie presumably did, unless he let Mike peel off its brown paper wrapping while he coyly looked the other way.

A second electrician mentioned the brown paper in early 1993, several months before it entered the public domain via Shirley's first book.

Doreen's assistant saw the diary in its brown paper wrapping when Mike arrived with it on 13th April 1992.

To pinch RJ's own words to ero:

'If, for the first time, you actually think it through, perhaps this will eventually dawn on you.'

And while I'm at it, here are RJ's own words posted on another topic back on 1st October 2021:

'But check, re-check, question 'certainties,' don't get bullied into accepting the party line without independent confirmation.'

So I will expect to see some independent confirmation of the auction theory, before I consider whether the red diary trumps the brown paper.

[caz]

I'm welling up over here, RJ. Such an outpouring of raw emotion. So strong and brave.

RJ and Orsam keep threatening to walk away from this debate, often citing some bizarre argument that their intellect should not be stooping to such low levels. Yet, they keep coming back. Why is that?

Most people have done exactly what RJ suggests. They do not engage in the debate. They drew their lines in the sand a long time ago. They don't engage.

I will let you into a little secret, readers. Somewhere deep within both RJ and Orsam is a niggling voice, A voice they can't quite kill. They almost beg for us "deluded nutters" to provide that perfect answer, killing it stone dead. But try as we might, we just can't kill the beast.

The voice whispers in the dead of night, waking them from their restless slumber, "But what if?"

That voice is what keeps them coming back to the table. Like so many others, if they truly believed that there could be no truth in Maybrick being JtR in the slightest, they would be having endless nights of glorious sleep. That voice would be no more.

Afternoon ero,

This one got me wondering just how many people actually believe - apart from RJ and the good lord - that Mike only acquires the scrapbook from an auction sale on Tuesday 31st March 1992, just thirteen days before his finished Battlecrease diary makes its debut in London. There is zero evidence for it and even Mike dated the auction back to January 1990, claiming that he kept the ticket which proved it, which presumably he could have checked before swearing his affidavit. If he later corrected the year of creation to 1991 on the draft affidavit, he missed a second chance to check the ticket, if the date on it was in fact 31st March 1992. He claimed in April 1999 that he had brought this ticket with him to the old Smoke & Stagger, so was he lying about that? Or was he just lying about the date on it?

I don't recall any of the one-liner fans embracing the April Fool's Day creation theory in so many words, let alone with unbridled enthusiasm. Most are happy just to repeat, parrot fashion, that the diary is obviously a Barrett product, period. They never seem to comment on the period over which they personally think it was done. It's as if they haven't bothered to think through this rather crucial aspect for themselves or, having done so, don't want to touch it. Even on the surface it surely must come across as somewhat improbable. Best to stick with a post-1987 Barrett fake, and give themselves a decent five-year window, than to put an X on the ballot form against the 'early April 1992 or never' option.

Finally, I wonder what Melvin Harris would say if he could see the way his early hoax busting efforts have shifted over the years, based on a tiny 1891 diary, to a tiny 24-hour window of opportunity for the scrapbook to have been seen and snapped up, during the same week in which Mike was in contact with Doreen about the arrangements for showing it to her?

Would Mighty Mel be embracing it enthusiastically, or backing away slowly, as he did from his own D'Onston theory if and when he came to his senses?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Master forger Mike Barrett, with no history of ever forging anything before in his entire life, sets broad parameters for the diary type and date range. Surely, a forger would know this is the most important thing to focus on if the hoax is to get passed the sniff test. These are the elements he needed to be really specific about. He wasn't.

Twenty blank pages is an odd request. Mike did odd things. Mike thought odd things. Mike said odd things. For all we know, Mike thought he could write gibberish on those pages and pass it off as being the very thing he had witnessed.

Well, Jay, we do have very clear evidence that Mike did think he could write gibberish, long after the diary was in the public domain, and pass it off as being what was written on the missing pages at the front of the diary! The gibberish was clearly all his own work this time, despite having claimed that the 63 surviving pages were in Anne's handwriting.

Cue RJ, coming back for the millionth time from his latest retirement party, in the corner with Orsam and herring canapés, to theorise that this is why those pages had to be ripped out, before Anne took over. Of course!

The only mystery would then be why Mike kept those damning early pages but not the auction ticket.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I doubt that there are ten people in the solar system who care about the precise details, maybe less than that, but since you brought it up and are making an issue out of it, the 12th March 1992 does not appear to be correct.

Here is the full exchange between David Barrat (Orsam) and Keith Skinner on the 'Acquiring a Victorian Diary' thread back when there was some semblance of cooperation between various researchers:


David Orsam, 23 Feb 2017 (#10)

One question that might be asked is: when did Martin Earl submit the advertisement to Bookdealer?

Well Bookdealer was published every Thursday and the instruction to advertisers of "Books Wanted" was this:

"Lists to appear once only should be addressed to Bookdealer, PO Box 1082, Winscombe, Avon BS24 6BX to arrive first post Wednesday for inclusion in the next week's issue."

What I think this means is that to get his ad into the issue dated 19th March 1992, Martin Earl needed to get his list to Bookdealer by first class post on Wednesday 11th March 1992. This in turn means that the latest he could have sent his list by first class post would have been on Tuesday 10th March 1992.

Given that Mike Barrett spoke to Doreen Montgomery on 9th and 10th March, then if we assume that the advert was placed in response to his conversations with Doreen, Mike wasted no time in contacting Martin Earl. In fact, if I have correctly interpreted the Bookdealer's instructions, he must have done so almost immediately after speaking to Doreen.

Keith, 22 Jan 2018 (#591)

On December 8th 2004, BOOKDEALER sent me photocopied pages from the March 19th 1992 issue and on their compliment slip they wrote:-

This issue went to press on the 12th March 1992. The previous issue would have gone to press on the 5th March 1992. Therefore, the copy had to have been received by us, either via the post or by fax, some time between the 6th and 12th March, 1992. The ad only appeared in this issue – it was not in Issue No 1043, nor in Issue No 1045.

Orsam, 22 Jan 2018 (#592)

Thanks for this information Keith. I believe it confirms what I said in #10 namely:

Martin Earl needed to get his list to Bookdealer by first class post on Wednesday 11th March 1992. This in turn means that the latest he could have sent his list by first class post would have been on Tuesday 10th March 1992.

That, at least, is if the Bookseller's rule that lists needed to be received by first post on the Wednesday prior to going to press was strictly applied (and I would certainly have thought that dealers would have wanted to ensure that their lists were received by no later than the Wednesday morning).

A bit of a shame that there doesn't appear to be a record of the date that Mike Barrett first contacted Martin Earl.

Keith, 23 Jan 2018 (#595)

Bookdealer stated on their compliment slip to Keith :-

“This issue went to press on the 12th March 1992. The previous issue would have gone to press on the 5th March 1992. Therefore, the copy had to have been received by us, either via the post or by fax, some time between the 6th and 12th March, 1992. The ad only appeared in this issue – it was not in Issue No 1043, nor in Issue No 1045.”

There is a fax number on Martin Earl’s (H.P. BOOKFINDERS) letter to Shirley Harrison, dated 23.6.1999. Which is not to say that he had one in March 1992.

Orsam, 23 Jan 2018 (#603)

Well that may be what they said to you in 2004 but in 1992 their instructions to dealers (posted in full below) seem to me to be perfectly clear. They state:

"Lists to appear only once should be addressed to Bookdealer, PO Box 1082, Winscombe, Avon BS24 6BX to arrive first post Wednesday for inclusion in next week's issue."

There is no indication in the instructions that any other method of transmission is acceptable.

In early 1992, Martin Earl's advertisements in Book and Magazine Collector and his entries in Bookdealer contain two telephone numbers but no fax number (which is not to say he didn't have one). Given the relatively poor quality of fax transmissions that I remember in the early 1990s, I would have thought that, for the purposes of accuracy, most dealers would have wanted to post their lists in hard copy format. Perhaps emergency late requests were accepted by fax but there is nothing to indicate that this is the case in the instructions, as you can see.

One other thing about Bookdealer's instructions is that it is stated that lists were printed in the next issue "Strictly in the order received". In the 19th March 1992 issue, the lists for 'Books Wanted' commenced on page 9 and concluded on page 156. Martin Earl's list featured on page 69.

[Orsam then reproduces an image of Bookdealer's instructions for sending in adverts]

At that point, there was no further response from Keith.

Keith then returned briefly to the topic a few weeks later in a post addressed to John G as follows:

Keith, 1 March 2018

It is not known precisely when Mike Barrett contacted Martin Earl of H.P.Bookfinders who placed the advertisement for a Victorian Diary with Bookdealer – and which appeared in their issue of March 19th 1992. Bookdealer confirmed with me (8.12.2004) that this particular issue went to press on March 12th 1992 and therefore the copy had to have been received by them, either via the post or by fax, some time between the 6th and 12th March, 1992. According to Bookdealer the advertisement only appeared in the issue of 12th March 1992 and was not in the issue before or afterwards.

---

From the above, the request apparently had to have reached Earl by 11 March (or probably even the 10th) and not 12 March. It doesn't appear that Keith agreed or understood this assessment, but what Orsam writes makes sense to me.

Either way, as Orsam noted, Barrett must have made this remarkable request within hours of hanging up with Doreen Montgomery, which in my opinion, supports Barrett's claim that the diary did not physically exist when he sold Montgomery on the idea. Others apparently believe Mike, with this vague request for a blank or partially blank Victorian Diary, was attempting to acquire a "doppelgänger" to show to the police or to the original owner if they came knocking, which to mind my, is completely bonkers. According to your theory (or what I think is your theory) Barrett didn't even have ownership of the book at that point. Not that there is any evidence Eddie had such a book or that Eddie even knew Barrett.

But believe what you want to believe.

It no longer interests me. At the moment, I'm more concerned with the millions of people who think climate change is a myth and that Dotard J. Moneydiaper is a stable genius.

FINIS.

Right you are, RJ. Many thanks for all the time and effort you put in to score this very palpable hit. Before I go down the garden to eat worms, I will happily change what I wrote from:

'Mike's request had to be made by 12th March 1992' to:

'Mike's request had to be made before 12th March 1992'.

None of us knows, by the way, exactly when Mike became the proud owner of the scrapbook he showed Doreen on 13th April 1992. So I don't know if he had it on 9th March 1992, or at a later date. At least I have a bigger window of opportunity, between 9th March and when Mike called Doreen again to discuss the arrangements for her to see what he had. All you have is the day of the awesome auction, on Tuesday 31st March 1992, because you have allowed yourself to be painted into a tight corner with only a smelly old red herring for company. I hope you took the room spray with you.

[caz]

Good Gawd, Caz. You'll read an insult and a conspiracy into anything. David Barrett tracked down the paperwork and revealed it to this forum years ago. From the reaction he received, people clearly hadn't heard of it. That's all I was referring to.

Apparently, Keith had also earlier tracked down this information, but from what he told us, it was the property of Bruce Robinson. It seems that he revealed some of the information at a conference in Liverpool, but that's all I know.

You now say that he also 'did the math.' Does it matter? No snub to Keith was intended, but no doubt you'll make it a snub anyway.

Just to let you know, I've skimmed some of your latest barrage of posts very rapidly, but feel no need to read further, let alone respond further. So, if you're writing to me, you'll be writing to the ether.

Yes, you apparently believe the diary is a mysterious document found under James Maybrick's floorboards. Wonderful. Don't let me stop you.

Nonsense. I didn't use the expression 'did the math'. I'm British.

[caz]

More poor reading comprehension and illogic from Jay Hartley. Who would have thought?

Who will deny, based on Martin Earl's ad, that Mike Barrett wouldn't have been completely happy with receiving an entirely UNUSED diary?

It's undeniable.

Truly funny. What is undeniable is that more proof reading is required by RJ, who suggested above that nobody would deny that Mike wouldn't have been happy to receive an entirely unused diary. I think he meant to ask who would deny that Mike would have been entirely happy - except that once again he ignores that a diary with nary a date to be seen - unused, used or partly used - is NOT a diary. Mike asked for a diary, so why would he have been happy to receive something that wasn't a diary?

That's the point that RJ was dancing around here.

Based on Earl's ad, an entirely blank diary would have been peachy.

But it would have a date somewhere if it was a diary - blank or not. And asking for a date range of 1880-1890 was asking for a year with a date or dates that would almost certainly need to be expertly excised, removing all trace of it having been a diary, before Mike could turn it back into the "diary" he was supposedly hoping to hoax. And do you know what? That's what Mike was sent: a diary, but for the year 1891, with printed dates throughout. That's what happens when you request a diary.

The truth is, the 1891 diary had passed its use-by date when Mike resumed contact with Doreen, giving her his real name this time. By Friday 3rd April 1992, arrangements were already being discussed for Mike to bring his 1888-9 diary to London. It's quite possible that when Mike saw the tiny red diary that was found for him, it was so ordinary looking, and so totally at odds with the one he had called Doreen about on 9th March, that he now believed he really did have something unique and "important".

RJ doesn't know what was discussed over the phone when Mike first called Doreen again following his alleged trip to York. Shirley said that Mike had expected Doreen to come up to Liverpool to see the diary - which would have been interesting, to say the least, if she'd hopped on the next train to Lime Street on Monday 30th March, and all Mike had to wave at her was a tiny red object, because the auction sale wasn't until the Tuesday.

Monday 30th March 1992
Letter from Doreen to Shirley:
Dear Shirley,
Our Ripper friend finally got back in touch this afternoon and the good news is that he still very much wants us to check out his diary. He was actually expecting me to drop everything and get on the train to Liverpool to see it! I explained that he will have to bring it down to London, so we can all meet up in my office and take photocopies etc. He is going to discuss this with his wife as she works full time and they have a daughter at primary school.
Worst case scenario, Michael says he may have to leave it until the Easter holidays and come down without his wife, who is called Anne. In the meanwhile he is going to start work on a transcript of the diary, which he will also bring with him assuming it is finished in time. He tells me there are 63 pages!
By the way, he tells me his real name is Michael Barrett. He says he only used the name Williams initially, because he had to know he could trust us. Imagine!
Source: wouldn't RJ like to know?

[rjpalmer]

Yes, let's think about this one as it could be rather important. Keith Skinner was the first researcher to ascertain from Martin Earl that Mike's request had to be made by 12th March 1992, in order for the advert to appear in print on 19th. RJ tries repeatedly to diminish the work Keith did by implying that we have a Barrat to thank for what we know about a Barrett's desire to own a tiny 1891 diary. It's petty but predictable.

I doubt that there are ten people in the solar system who care about the precise details, maybe less than that, but since you brought it up and are making an issue out of it, the 12th March 1992 does not appear to be correct.

Here is the full exchange between David Barrat (Orsam) and Keith Skinner on the 'Acquiring a Victorian Diary' thread back when there was some semblance of cooperation between various researchers:


David Orsam, 23 Feb 2017 (#10)

One question that might be asked is: when did Martin Earl submit the advertisement to Bookdealer?

Well Bookdealer was published every Thursday and the instruction to advertisers of "Books Wanted" was this:

"Lists to appear once only should be addressed to Bookdealer, PO Box 1082, Winscombe, Avon BS24 6BX to arrive first post Wednesday for inclusion in the next week's issue."

What I think this means is that to get his ad into the issue dated 19th March 1992, Martin Earl needed to get his list to Bookdealer by first class post on Wednesday 11th March 1992. This in turn means that the latest he could have sent his list by first class post would have been on Tuesday 10th March 1992.

Given that Mike Barrett spoke to Doreen Montgomery on 9th and 10th March, then if we assume that the advert was placed in response to his conversations with Doreen, Mike wasted no time in contacting Martin Earl. In fact, if I have correctly interpreted the Bookdealer's instructions, he must have done so almost immediately after speaking to Doreen.

Keith, 22 Jan 2018 (#591)

On December 8th 2004, BOOKDEALER sent me photocopied pages from the March 19th 1992 issue and on their compliment slip they wrote:-

This issue went to press on the 12th March 1992. The previous issue would have gone to press on the 5th March 1992. Therefore, the copy had to have been received by us, either via the post or by fax, some time between the 6th and 12th March, 1992. The ad only appeared in this issue – it was not in Issue No 1043, nor in Issue No 1045.

Orsam, 22 Jan 2018 (#592)

Thanks for this information Keith. I believe it confirms what I said in #10 namely:

Martin Earl needed to get his list to Bookdealer by first class post on Wednesday 11th March 1992. This in turn means that the latest he could have sent his list by first class post would have been on Tuesday 10th March 1992.

That, at least, is if the Bookseller's rule that lists needed to be received by first post on the Wednesday prior to going to press was strictly applied (and I would certainly have thought that dealers would have wanted to ensure that their lists were received by no later than the Wednesday morning).

A bit of a shame that there doesn't appear to be a record of the date that Mike Barrett first contacted Martin Earl.

Keith, 23 Jan 2018 (#595)

Bookdealer stated on their compliment slip to Keith :-

“This issue went to press on the 12th March 1992. The previous issue would have gone to press on the 5th March 1992. Therefore, the copy had to have been received by us, either via the post or by fax, some time between the 6th and 12th March, 1992. The ad only appeared in this issue – it was not in Issue No 1043, nor in Issue No 1045.”

There is a fax number on Martin Earl’s (H.P. BOOKFINDERS) letter to Shirley Harrison, dated 23.6.1999. Which is not to say that he had one in March 1992.

Orsam, 23 Jan 2018 (#603)

Well that may be what they said to you in 2004 but in 1992 their instructions to dealers (posted in full below) seem to me to be perfectly clear. They state:

"Lists to appear only once should be addressed to Bookdealer, PO Box 1082, Winscombe, Avon BS24 6BX to arrive first post Wednesday for inclusion in next week's issue."

There is no indication in the instructions that any other method of transmission is acceptable.

In early 1992, Martin Earl's advertisements in Book and Magazine Collector and his entries in Bookdealer contain two telephone numbers but no fax number (which is not to say he didn't have one). Given the relatively poor quality of fax transmissions that I remember in the early 1990s, I would have thought that, for the purposes of accuracy, most dealers would have wanted to post their lists in hard copy format. Perhaps emergency late requests were accepted by fax but there is nothing to indicate that this is the case in the instructions, as you can see.

One other thing about Bookdealer's instructions is that it is stated that lists were printed in the next issue "Strictly in the order received". In the 19th March 1992 issue, the lists for 'Books Wanted' commenced on page 9 and concluded on page 156. Martin Earl's list featured on page 69.

[Orsam then reproduces an image of Bookdealer's instructions for sending in adverts]

At that point, there was no further response from Keith.

Keith then returned briefly to the topic a few weeks later in a post addressed to John G as follows:

Keith, 1 March 2018

It is not known precisely when Mike Barrett contacted Martin Earl of H.P.Bookfinders who placed the advertisement for a Victorian Diary with Bookdealer – and which appeared in their issue of March 19th 1992. Bookdealer confirmed with me (8.12.2004) that this particular issue went to press on March 12th 1992 and therefore the copy had to have been received by them, either via the post or by fax, some time between the 6th and 12th March, 1992. According to Bookdealer the advertisement only appeared in the issue of 12th March 1992 and was not in the issue before or afterwards.

---

From the above, the request apparently had to have reached Earl by 11 March (or probably even the 10th) and not 12 March. It doesn't appear that Keith agreed or understood this assessment, but what Orsam writes makes sense to me.

Either way, as Orsam noted, Barrett must have made this remarkable request within hours of hanging up with Doreen Montgomery, which in my opinion, supports Barrett's claim that the diary did not physically exist when he sold Montgomery on the idea. Others apparently believe Mike, with this vague request for a blank or partially blank Victorian Diary, was attempting to acquire a "doppelgänger" to show to the police or to the original owner if they came knocking, which to mind my, is completely bonkers. According to your theory (or what I think is your theory) Barrett didn't even have ownership of the book at that point. Not that there is any evidence Eddie had such a book or that Eddie even knew Barrett.

But believe what you want to believe.

It no longer interests me. At the moment, I'm more concerned with the millions of people who think climate change is a myth and that Dotard J. Moneydiaper is a stable genius.

FINIS.

[rjpalmer]

Good Gawd, Caz. You'll read an insult and a conspiracy into anything. David Barrett tracked down the paperwork and revealed it to this forum years ago. From the reaction he received, people clearly hadn't heard of it. That's all I was referring to.

Apparently, Keith had also earlier tracked down this information, but from what he told us, it was the property of Bruce Robinson. It seems that he revealed some of the information at a conference in Liverpool, but that's all I know.

You now say that he also 'did the math.' Does it matter? No snub to Keith was intended, but no doubt you'll make it a snub anyway.

Just to let you know, I've skimmed some of your latest barrage of posts very rapidly, but feel no need to read further, let alone respond further. So, if you're writing to me, you'll be writing to the ether.

Yes, you apparently believe the diary is a mysterious document found under James Maybrick's floorboards. Wonderful. Don't let me stop you.

[caz]

Why did Mike Barrett want this 'surrogate' diary to be unused?

Note that Tom Mitchell entirely avoids this question. He can't explain it.

The same is true of Caroline, who likes to pretend or to insinuate that Mike wanted a diary with twenty blank pages so he could waive an invoice under Eddie's nose.

How many times does RJ need to be reminded that I had made it quite obvious that this invoice waving [I think Mike 'waived' the invoice by ignoring it and letting Anne settle it] was merely one example of where I was thinking aloud, or spitballing. He knows that it has also been a very long time since I did this, and the only one obsessively repeating my spitballing to this day is RJ himself, who also misrepresents my position both then and now, with his nonsensical claim that 'Caroline... likes to pretend [present tense] that' this was why Mike wanted an 1880s diary. He must think his one-liner fans are too thick to notice that only Mike himself could have known what he wanted it for, or could have 'pretended' it was for any other purpose.

Let me put the following in bold, for it is important.

To anyone who is being fair-minded and analytical, Mike would have been happy if Martin Earl supplied him with an entirely unused (ie., blank) diary.

Bear that in mind, because people here (not me) like to muddy that fact.

What about the small fact that Mike had specifically requested a diary dating from 1880-1890?

Would Mike have been happy if Martin Earl had supplied him with an entirely unused diary for the year 1880? 1881? 1882? 1883? 1884? 1885? 1886? 1887? 1890?

Was Earl expected to find him a blank 'diary' for the year 1888 or 1889? Or one covering the whole decade, perhaps? How about an undated blank diary, that could not provably be dated to the 1880s because, erm, let me think, it was undated? Maybe Mike thought he would get a blank book with 'MY DAiRY, 1880 TO 1890' engraved helpfully on the front cover?

Before this order to Martin Earl was placed (and David Barrat has proved that the order must have been phoned-in almost immediately after Mike talked to Doreen) Mike already knew that the alleged diary (I say alleged, because there is no compelling evidence that it even existed yet) was to be The Diary of Jack the Ripper, because he said so in his phone call to Doreen.

Yes, let's think about this one as it could be rather important. Keith Skinner was the first researcher to ascertain from Martin Earl that Mike's request had to be made by 12th March 1992, in order for the advert to appear in print on 19th. RJ tries repeatedly to diminish the work Keith did by implying that we have a Barrat to thank for what we know about a Barrett's desire to own a tiny 1891 diary. It's petty but predictable.

More importantly, there is no evidence that when Mike called Doreen, he knew much more than the fact that his "diary" would have the name Jack the Ripper handwritten on the last used page, along with a date in 1889. If he knew by then that Jack could be identified as James Maybrick within its pages, he chose not to mention it to Doreen, but then he asked Martin Earl to find him a diary dating from 1880-1890, for all the world as though he didn't have a blessed clue whose diary he or Doreen would shortly be dabbling with.

[caz]

I think Al you are trying to to attack this rationally and I applaud you for that.

My question is simple. Why would Mike source a a Victorian diary around the exact time Eddie was at Battlecrease for a provenance he never used?

If you follow RJ’s line of reasoning it’s because Eddie somehow alerted Mike in a pub 8 miles from Battlecrease that he had been working in Maybrick’s old house that morning.

What coincidental luck that is for Mike. He a gifted writer of note (not) and established hoaxer (not) can now kick into action the diary idea he and Anne had been concocting. In fact he was so excited by this coincidence he called Doreen immediately to test the waters of a buyer in London. What luck.

Except at no point did Mike ever allude to the Battlecrease provenance. So why wait until that one day in March when Eddie was at Battlecrease to do anything if you don’t even use that fact that supposedly triggered your desire to finish the hoax in a matter of days. Why does the timing of Eddie at Battlecrease even matter in that scenario?

Therefore, to me, the only logical thing is Mike thought he should get himself some kind of insurance policy in case this thing proves to be nicked. Either he himself will use it or potentially he might give it to Eddie to protect both of their own interests. I doubt Eddie even knew Mike bought the 1891 diary.

If the evidence was that Mike tried sourcing a Victorian diary weeks or even months before I would agree it would be pretty damning. He tried sourcing it around the 9th of March so it had to be connected to an event that day that triggered his desire to get one.

Hi Jay,

Slowly catching up with some older posts, I actually think it would have been very unwise for Mike to have called London on that day about his Battlecrease diary, if he had known about the work done there that morning. And that would apply, whether he had just seen the old book in the Saddle, or had yet to find a book in which to transfer his hoax from the word 'prosser'.

We know how much he resented and resisted the rumours in early 1993 of it coming out of the Maybrick house, so it would have done him no good at all to have made a calculated connection on 9th March 1992 between the house and his earliest known mention of having the diary. If anyone else had picked up on that connection it could so easily have resulted in the owner immediately putting in a legal claim for ownership, regardless of whether it had been lurking in his house without his knowledge or had been created on the Barretts' dining room table.

Who is going to argue that Paul Dodd would not have had a damned good case, if the 9th March 'coincidence' had been exposed at the earliest opportunity? Who would then have found in Mike's favour if he had tried to put in a counterclaim, using either his unprovable Devereux story or the same guff he put in his affidavit in January 1995?

It only works if Mike made that first call to Doreen's office on the afternoon of 9th March, never imagining in a million years where Eddie had been that morning, and if Eddie had no clue that Mike had got straight on the blower to London, leaving a record of the call via Doreen's first letter to Michael 'Williams'. Neither knew what the other knew.

Love,

Caz
X