Who were they?

[erobitha]

But in all likelihood the diary was written by the Barretts. If your going to argue the Barretts didn't write the diary atleast suggest an alternative writer.

Finally John a sentiment I can get along with!

Right now, evidence against an alternative author is very slim but I am open-minded to what or who that looks like.

Who wrote it and why should be of interest to anyone interested in the Jack the Ripper story.

I simply cannot buy a Barrett or Graham concoction based on what little evidence has actually been produced.

Outside of the possibility of Maybrick himself, I do have some other thoughts on potential candidates but I won’t speculate on anything just yet.

My theory has always been both the watch and scrapbook came out of Battlecrease on the 9th March 1992 via Eddie Lyons and that has not changed.

[Scott Nelson]

Then why would Eddie attempt to sell the diary himself?

I don't believe Eddie ever had the Diary.

[John Wheat]

Finally John a sentiment I can get along with!

Right now, evidence against an alternative author is very slim but I am open-minded to what or who that looks like.

Who wrote it and why should be of interest to anyone interested in the Jack the Ripper story.

I simply cannot buy a Barrett or Graham concoction based on what little evidence has actually been produced.

Outside of the possibility of Maybrick himself, I do have some other thoughts on potential candidates but I won’t speculate on anything just yet.

My theory has always been both the watch and scrapbook came out of Battlecrease on the 9th March 1992 via Eddie Lyons and that has not changed.

Are you saying Eddie Lyons wrote the diary?

[erobitha]

Are you saying Eddie Lyons wrote the diary?

No John, I'm not.

[John Wheat]

No John, I'm not.

Because it wasn't Maybrick and if your saying it wasn't the Barretts then Eddie Lyons might be a good alternative call.

[Iconoclast]

I'm not specifically calling the writer an idiot though.

You may not have been specifically calling Owly an idiot but let me remind you what you wrote:

Garbage. Only an idiot would believe the diary was written by James Maybrick.

Now, I have been consistent in my argument that the Victorian scrapbook (and therefore the watch) were the possessions of James Maybrick. So - by your definition - that makes me an idiot.

I'm not challenging the fact that you were calling me an idiot (absolutely against House Rules, you'll recall) - as long as you don't call me a Mackem or a Hibee, I couldn't give a tinker's cuss what you call me, but you can't call anyone else who believes Maybrick wrote the scrapbook an idiot and you set yourself up for that proposition by what you said.

Technically, you get out of gaol on this one as there's basically no-one other than I who thinks James Maybrick wrote the Victorian scrapbook, but my largesse should not be your opportunity to break House Rules (poacher turned gamekeeper, I know). The fact that I couldn't give a tinker's cuss is not a Get Out of Gaol card for breaking House Rules. Next time, I suggest you say "That idiot Ike is an idiot for believing James Maybrick wrote the Victorian scrapbook" and that way we'll all be happy.

[Scott Nelson]

So the blindingly problematic issue with that little idea, Scotty, is that in all the numerous times Barrett tried to convince the world that he was a master forger and had created the text of the Victorian scrapbook and in all the myriad versions of his spectacular subterfuge that he gave and as sometimes desperate as he was to cripple Paul Feldman's scrapbook-related enterprises, he never once, not once, not even vaguely, not even vaguely tangentially mentioned that he had thought to bring such an escapade to the world BECAUSE of its timeliness with the work done on Battlecrease House on March 9, 1992.

That is a massive problem with your theory because if your theory were true then Mike Barrett was prompted to act on March 9, 1992, by the unexpected discovery that Eddie Lyons had been working on the floorboard at Battlecrease House that morning, and yet he never once mentioned it subsequently. Not once. Not ever.

If your theory were true, it should have been the very first words out of his mouth when he was in full confessional mode. So either you're wrong or else he kept that particular powder dry for a later date which never arrived, not even in 1999 at the Cloak & Dagger Club, and not even in the early 2000s when interviewed for the last time (by the Inside Story team).

Hey Ike, Barrett said first that he got the Diary from Devereux, which I think he did. When he met Lyons in the pub on March 9th, I think Lyons told him he came from the house, not to assist in lifting floorboards, but to help with cleanup activities. While there, colleagues may have told Lyons that they heard a Diary had been found (months, years?) earlier --not necessarily found by P&R workers, but it was found by someone known to the (then) current P&R staff. (One of the P&R workers may have worked for another contractor who did work on Dodd's house at an earlier date). That bit of information, or hearsay, was enough to give Mike the backup he needed for a Battlecrease origin in case he decided to use it. Confidently, he then contacted the Crew that day. As it turned out, Mike never had to use the story because of his own grandiose aspirations of fame. He just changed his story over time and may have even forgotten being told of the Battlecrease connection.

[rjpalmer]

I'm not saying he's infallible. Merely that his opinion on a piece of creative writing holds far more weight for me than that of a couple of random amateur sleuths on an internet message board.

Well, I can't argue with that one. Bruce Robinson certainly got it right.

A piece of creative writing.

[Iconoclast]

Hey Ike, Barrett said first that he got the Diary from Devereux, which I think he did. When he met Lyons in the pub on March 9th, I think Lyons told him he came from the house, not to assist in lifting floorboards, but to help with cleanup activities. While there, colleagues may have told Lyons that they heard a Diary had been found (months, years?) earlier --not necessarily found by P&R workers, but it was found by someone known to the (then) current P&R staff. (One of the P&R workers may have worked for another contractor who did work on Dodd's house at an earlier date). That bit of information, or hearsay, was enough to give Mike the backup he needed for a Battlecrease origin in case he decided to use it. Confidently, he then contacted the Crew that day. As it turned out, Mike never had to use the story because of his own grandiose aspirations of fame. He just changed his story over time and may have even forgotten being told of the Battlecrease connection.

Hmmm, it sounds neat but - as I read it back again - it seems to require that Barrett wrote the version we got (which is, as I recall, your theory) and that's very much where we diverge as there is no way on God's good earth (and mine) that Michael T. Barrett wrote a word of that document. If it had said 'The End' at the end, I may have been tempted to agree but the rest of it is too left-field of what the human brain would have come up with to have been a) written by Barrett or b) written by anyone who wasn't Jack T. Ripper.

Let me ask you and my dear readers a thought experiment sort of questionny thing: If there had been a competition in 1991 to create a 'diary' of Jack R., how many versions of it would have looked even vaguely like the version which sort of won the competition we never held? Imagine there were ten million entries from around the world (or just Liverpool if you prefer) - what percentage would be written in the style the Victorian scrapbook is written? You might argue that there would be countless thousands of old scrapbooks with their front pages removed, but the text? How many entrants would have thought to write the doggerel, and then cross loads of entries out?

Oh, and how many people would have chosen celebrity 'murder' victim and reasonably prosperous cotton broker James Maybrick as their foil?

By the way, I was in Liverpool yesterday on my way to a convention, and as I approached the venue, there was a signpost pointing to 'Aigburth'. Oh, how tempted was I to take a diversion to the last home of the world's most famous serial killer?

Ike

[Aethelwulf]

Let me ask you and my dear readers a thought experiment sort of questionny thing: If there had been a competition in 1991 to create a 'diary' of Jack R., how many versions of it would have looked even vaguely like the version which sort of won the competition we never held? Imagine there were ten million entries from around the world (or just Liverpool if you prefer) - what percentage would be written in the style the Victorian scrapbook is written? You might argue that there would be countless thousands of old scrapbooks with their front pages removed, but the text? How many entrants would have thought to write the doggerel, and then cross loads of entries out?

Oh, and how many people would have chosen celebrity 'murder' victim and reasonably prosperous cotton broker James Maybrick as their foil?

By the way, I was in Liverpool yesterday on my way to a convention, and as I approached the venue, there was a signpost pointing to 'Aigburth'. Oh, how tempted was I to take a diversion to the last home of the world's most famous serial killer?

Ike

What total drivel

[John Wheat]

What total drivel

Par for the course with Ike.

[FISHY1118]

Par for the course with Ike.

Ive no idea what his on about .

[StevenOwl]

But in all likelihood the diary was written by the Barretts. If your going to argue the Barretts didn't write the diary at least suggest an alternative writer.

You say that in all likelihood the scrapbook was written by the Barretts, and yet Mike himself when he was in master forger mode couldn't produce any proof to back up his own claims of authorship. I'm unable to suggest an alternative to Barrett as penman (or woman), because from where I'm sitting there isn't a shred of hard evidence against anyone. I'm still here because I'd dearly love to know who wrote it, when they wrote it, and why they wrote it. If pushed I'd suggest someone very close to Maybrick wrote the Diary and hid it in Battlecrease, but the only reason I currently prefer that suggestion is because of the similarity between the distinctive Bs used whenever Battlecrease is written in the Diary, and the Bs on the hand-labelled bottles of brandy removed from Battlecrease by the police in 1889 as evidence against Florence Maybrick.

[c.d.]

If pushed I'd suggest someone very close to Maybrick wrote the Diary and hid it in Battlecrease, but the only reason I currently prefer that suggestion is because of the similarity between the distinctive Bs used whenever Battlecrease is written in the Diary, and the Bs on the hand-labelled bottles of brandy removed from Battlecrease by the police in 1889 as evidence against Florence Maybrick.

I read "Did She Kill Him." An excellent book even without the JTR connection. In the book, the details of an extremely thorough search of the entire house are described. The diary was not found as a result of the search. So either it was not there at the time or it was missed.

Just saying. I have no dog in the fight.

c.d.

[StevenOwl]

If pushed I'd suggest someone very close to Maybrick wrote the Diary and hid it in Battlecrease, but the only reason I currently prefer that suggestion is because of the similarity between the distinctive Bs used whenever Battlecrease is written in the Diary, and the Bs on the hand-labelled bottles of brandy removed from Battlecrease by the police in 1889 as evidence against Florence Maybrick.

I read "Did She Kill Him." An excellent book even without the JTR connection. In the book, the details of an extremely thorough search of the entire house are described. The diary was not found as a result of the search. So either it was not there at the time or it was missed.

Just saying. I have no dog in the fight.

c.d.

Interesting. I lean towards a Battlecrease provenance only because to me it seems more plausible than Barrett(s) writing it, Tony D giving it to Mike, or Anne's "been in the family for decades" story.