Maybrick Diary Typescript 1992 (KS Ver.)

[rjpalmer]

[*]Was the book he gave to Ace Detective the same book Ace sold to Keith Skinner?.

As is often the case, your good friend David Barrat is several steps ahead of you and has posed these same questions.

Yes---how do we know?

You seem to be suggesting, or at least wondering about the possibility that when Keith approached Alan Gray with his desire to obtain what purported to be Barrett's copy of the Sphere History Volume II, Gray--by now disgruntled with Ripperologists--popped down to the local bookshop, found a dog-eared copy for £5, and sold it as the 'real McCoy,' pocketing £95 instant profit.

Do I have that right?

I would assume Keith would have attempt to receive some assurance from Gray that the book's provenance was legitimate, but I wasn't there; Barrat has made the interesting observation that the last known whereabouts of Mike's book was in the possession of Melvin Harris sometime around 2002.

Since Barrett and Gray had bitterly dissolved their association some years earlier, one would think that this would have also ended any casual contact between Gray and Harris. It's unclear to me. So how did Gray retrieve the book from Harris, if he did so?

It's all rather murky, but perhaps Keith has answers for you.

To the readers: The cassette is the one dated 6 December 1994, as has been stated twice. Why Tom now gratuitously refers to it as the 6 November tape, I do not know, other than business as usual.

It can be found here, but it's rough going.

Alan Gray & Michael Barrett Cassette Recordings 1994-1996 - Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums

[caz]

I wonder about the accuracy of this statement. The audio tape for 6 December 1994 certainly sounds like Gray is describing, in real time, a visit to Barrett's solicitor. There is a short break in the tape and Gray then describes The Sphere History, Volume II, as he holds it in his hand.

I've now addressed this one on another thread, where Palmer was again posting off topic.

Just for clarification, the offices [plural] on Dale Street were housed in a large building, and were not exclusively for Mr Bark-Jones, who had the misfortune to count Mike Barrett among his clients. In my experience as a receptionist and telephonist for a group of solicitors, in the early 2000s, clients always needed a timed appointment in advance to see their own solicitor, whose personal assistant would collect them from reception on arrival and escort them to their own solicitor's office. While I had to record every phone call that came into the offices, with the time, date and name, actual appointments would have had to be recorded, for obvious reasons, in the diary of the assistant. Casual visitors or potential new clients could be seen briefly if one of the solicitors happened to be free at the time, but clients who already had their own solicitor and walked in off the street expecting to see him/her, would find they'd had a wasted journey.

The 'short break' in our comedy duo's tape, followed by the book being placed in Gray's hand, suggests that he did not accompany Mike into the building to see where he was actually going, much less that he went up to Bark-Jones's office, or that of his assistant, to check that Mike was either welcome or expected. If that had been the case, the tape could have been kept running to capture their footsteps and more of Mike's chatter, until the right door on the right floor was reached.

It took a while, but the scales eventually fell from Gray's eyes, when he woke up to the reality that he should never have trusted Mike Barrett as far as he could throw him. And yet here we have Mike's antics being held up as more trustworthy than the recollections and records of his solicitor. I just don't get it. How many other witnesses, who were in a position to see right through Mike over the years, have been considered less reliable than this liar because the alternative - that Mike never told the truth about the circumstances in which he acquired the "old book" - simply can't be contemplated?

[caz]

I would assume Keith would have attempt to receive some assurance from Gray that the book's provenance was legitimate, but I wasn't there; Barrat has made the interesting observation that the last known whereabouts of Mike's book was in the possession of Melvin Harris sometime around 2002.

Since Barrett and Gray had bitterly dissolved their association some years earlier, one would think that this would have also ended any casual contact between Gray and Harris. It's unclear to me. So how did Gray retrieve the book from Harris, if he did so?

The last 'known' whereabouts of the book handed over to Gray in December 1994 was 'in the possession of Melvin Harris sometime around 2002'?

This is 'known' by whom and how? Not just by inference, I hope?

If it's unclear to Palmer, it's as clear as mud to me. I had long understood that the book now in Keith's possession went directly from Mike to Alan Gray in December 1994 - with no support for a detour to Bark-Jones's office or Melvin Harris's bank vault. The latter's comments on the old message boards indicated that he knew of its condition, but he was kept well informed by Gray, so that would be no surprise. Did Harris provide any actual evidence that he and Gray ever met up in person, or that Mike's book left Gray's possession - even temporarily - before he sold it to Keith and finally got a little something out of his disastrous relationship with Mike?

I'm assuming Mike's book was not among Melvin's other diary-related material when he died, so why would he have had this supposedly vital evidence of a Barrett hoax in his grasp 'sometime around 2002', only to let it slip through his fingers?

I must say, if I had what I considered to be solid evidence of someone's fakery, I like to think I'd be a bit more careful with it.

[caz]

Returning to topic, has anyone found solid evidence of Barrett fakery in the typescript?

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

I'm assuming Mike's book was not among Melvin's other diary-related material when he died, so why would he have had this supposedly vital evidence of a Barrett hoax in his grasp 'sometime around 2002', only to let it slip through his fingers?

You can, of course, "assume" whatever you wish to assume, but it is often the case that the spouses of those interested in the Whitechapel Murders case, not to mention its more marginalized off-shoots, have no interest in the subject themselves, and Melvin was the sort of man who would have owned hundreds of books.

Melvin died suddenly, and unless his widow was 'up' up on the obscure and tedious details of the Maybrick Scam, she would not have recognized the book's significance. It would have been just another book on the history of English Literature on a shelf.

In other words, I doubt Melvin kept a 468-page hardbound book in a file folder titled 'Evidence of The Maybrick Hoax,' any more than Mike Barrett kept a copy the same 468-page book stuffed down his trousers on the odd chance that Alan Gray would offer him a lift to his solicitor's office.

[caz]

Well I'm glad I didn't rush to see what pearls of wisdom I might read on my return. Nothing, sadly, on the topic of this thread, but we can't have everything.

The question remains for Palmer: how does he think the book went from Alan Gray's possession to Keith's, if he imagines it was sitting unloved on Melvin's shelf when he died, to be disposed of by his widow?

This is the book which has all the hallmarks of being the same one Alan Gray was finally given by Mike Barrett in December 1994, six months after making his initial forgery claims, without a single item of supporting evidence to call his own.

The same book which was later described in some detail by Melvin Harris, while being a whole lot vaguer about when he first had sight of it, or for how long - assuming he wasn't just sent photographs by Gray, along with a copy of Mike's affidavit for good measure. By the December, Harris had assigned Gray the task of getting the goods on Barrett, from Barrett, and in January 1995 he'd have been able to contact Harris again with the good news that he had not only bagged Mike's Sphere book, but had got the daft bugger to swear a detailed, if largely unconvincing statement - in the form of a mean and spiteful affidavit that had nothing in common with the anxiety-driven one from April 1993, when his biggest fear was that Paul Dodd would claim ownership of his precious dAiRY if a light-fingered electrician, whose nearest boozer was the Saddle, was suspected of nicking it.

[rjpalmer]

The question remains for Palmer: how does he think the book went from Alan Gray's possession to Keith's, if he imagines it was sitting unloved on Melvin's shelf when he died, to be disposed of by his widow?.

Hi Caz,

this is a badly muddled question, I'm afraid. Do you care to rephrase it? The point David Barrat raised--and I have no real pony in this race--is whether it is known with certainty that the book Keith bought from Gray is the same book that Melvin spoke of as having been in his possession as late as 2002 or so.

Harris did give a detailed description of the book's binding defects--but he didn't describe the book as being marred by marginalia or highlighting, which seems like an odd omission, since Melvin was well aware of Barrett's claim of having received the whole set from a publisher and would have appreciated the importance of those characteristics.

So, it's not a question how the 'book went from Gray's possession to Keith's' --which is not in dispute--it's a question of how the book went from Harris's possession to Gray's if it is indeed the same book, and if Barrat's information about it being in Harris's possession in 2002 is correct. Do you not really understand what Barrat was asking?

Your theory, meanwhile, strikes me as self-defeating. You and Ike have the 'mental vegetable' Barrett pulling a scam slyer and more devious than anything that would have been required to fake the Maybrick Diary in the first place.

On the other hand, the idea of Mike having a 460-odd page hardback book shoved down his trousers while waddling into his solicitor's office is good for a chuckle, so I do thank you for that! You clearly must think that the ex-policeman Alan Gray was another "mental vegetable." Rather convenient for your theories, I suppose.

RP

[caz]

Hi Caz,

this is a badly muddled question, I'm afraid. Do you care to rephrase it? The point David Barrat raised--and I have no real pony in this race--is whether it is known with certainty that the book Keith bought from Gray is the same book that Melvin spoke of as having been in his possession as late as 2002 or so.

Harris did give a detailed description of the book's binding defects--but he didn't describe the book as being marred by marginalia or highlighting, which seems like an odd omission, since Melvin was well aware of Barrett's claim of having received the whole set from a publisher and would have appreciated the importance of those characteristics.

So, it's not a question how the 'book went from Gray's possession to Keith's' --which is not in dispute--it's a question of how the book went from Harris's possession to Gray's if it is indeed the same book, and if Barrat's information about it being in Harris's possession in 2002 is correct. Do you not really understand what Barrat was asking?

Your theory, meanwhile, strikes me as self-defeating. You and Ike have the 'mental vegetable' Barrett pulling a scam slyer and more devious than anything that would have been required to fake the Maybrick Diary in the first place.

On the other hand, the idea of Mike having a 460-odd page hardback book shoved down his trousers while waddling into his solicitor's office is good for a chuckle, so I do thank you for that! You clearly must think that the ex-policeman Alan Gray was another "mental vegetable." Rather convenient for your theories, I suppose.

RP

"There are no badly muddled questions; only badly muddled answers" - or something like that.

It's difficult for anyone to say whether the book handed to Gray by Mike in December 1994, which Gray handed to Keith ten years later, in 2004, was physically in Melvin's possession, as he allegedly claimed, 'as late as 2002'. I have seen no other evidence for it changing hands again, or being sent anywhere in the post, between 1994 and 2004, nor any evidence that Melvin and Alan Gray ever met up in person.

We do know that on 19th January 1995, Shirley Harrison was expecting to meet Alan Gray in Liverpool, but he sent her a note on the day with apologies for cancelling, as he was 'advised there is a conflict of interest here'. Three guesses who was advising him.

I have in my timeline an entry based on a casebook post by Melvin Harris dated 10th October 2000, in which he writes: 'Mrs Harrison tried to get possession of this book from Mr Gray but he refused to play ball.' The actual book has a note by Gray, stating: Mrs HARRISON THU 19 JAN 1995 TRIED TO GET HOLD OF BOOK.

That wasn't strictly true because Gray and Harris had evidently conspired to make sure Shirley didn't get anywhere near it. It's not hard to see that it was also Melvin pulling the strings where Gray's 'refusal to play ball' was concerned. If Melvin was so anxious to keep Mike's Sphere book well away from the 'opposition', so soon after this piece of hard evidence had been obtained, it does rather suggest that he had his reasons for not openly describing every characteristic at a later date. That doesn't answer the question of where the book was, between December 1994 and August 2004, but we can't have everything, and the only person or persons who would have known are no longer with us.

I wonder if Palmer has ever visited Liverpool's fair city in December? I should imagine a chancer like Mike, who seemed to walk everywhere or take a bus, would have had the nous to get himself a good thick overcoat, or sturdy raincoat, for those freezing winter days outdoors. I don't think he'd have had too much trouble secreting the book which Gray was fully expecting to be in the solicitor's office, awaiting collection.

The comparison Palmer seeks to make, between the Mike known by real people in the real Liverpool of the 1980s and 1990s, and an individual who could focus on ripper and Maybrick research for more than ten minutes at a time, keeping their trap shut all the while, until their fake diary was completed to their satisfaction, may sound simple enough in theory, but while some of those people in Liverpool would no doubt have thought it was "all a load of nonsense", because Mike Barrett was in the driving seat and everyone knew he was a proper scally, I have yet to hear of anyone who actually believed he had a literary hoax in him, waiting patiently to show its face.

[Iconoclast]

I have yet to hear of anyone who actually believed he had a literary hoax in him, waiting patiently to show its face.

Despite what Lord Orsam and RJ Palmer would love us all to believe, Mike may well have had a glittering - nay, stellar - career as an incisive, no nonsense journalist for Celebrity and Chat, but he does not appear to have fooled a single person, ever, not once, never, that he was the spiritual reincarnation of Hemingway. Not a single soul seems willing to stand up for Mike Barrett as any kind of author at all - of hoaxes, especially, nay, nay, and thrice nay the resounding silence seems to say.

I find that hard to reconcile with what O and P like to argue. I wonder why they try so hard to spin it so differently?

PS Oh - and don't forget those puzzles he submitted to Look-In magazine!