The Diary — Old Hoax or New or Not a Hoax at All?​

[Herlock Sholmes]

The subject at hand is irrelevant since you agree with Caz on inauthenticity and also agree with her that maybe someone else forged it besides Barrett.

It's also irrelevant since it's a detail being discussed about something that I don't believe is proven in the first place, so why would I want to know the details. I know I once was convinced by someone who explained the lighter-than-air dynamics of dragon-flight to believe in dragons, but that was a long time ago. Prove your theory first to someone and then provide details when asked for them.

You're mistaken Lombro. Caz doesn't think "that maybe someone else forged it besides Barrett", she is certain that someone else forged it besides Barrett, which is our point of disagreement.

If she agrees that the diary is inauthentic, it's remarkable that she argues against every mistake in the diary, without exception, showing it to be inauthentic.

Basing a conclusion on the handwriting alone, which is ultimately a matter of opinion, is not something I agree with, so there's another area of disagreement.

Ultimately, though, you might have noticed that apart from replying to you when you're not off hunting for the Loch Ness Monster (or Ike when he's not crying in a corner somewhere), I haven't been making any positive posts about the diary recently. I spend most days replying to Caz's endless non-stop almost unreadable ramblings addressed to me, full of evidence-free speculation about what Mike and Anne would have been thinking and doing in 1992, and then scratching my head as to why most of our discussions seem to end immediately after I ask her a difficult question which never gets answered.

[Lombro2]

The subject at hand is irrelevant since you agree with Caz on inauthenticity and also agree with her that maybe someone else forged it besides Barrett.

It's also irrelevant since it's a detail being discussed about something that I don't believe is proven in the first place, so why would I want to know the details. I know I once was convinced by someone who explained the lighter-than-air dynamics of dragon-flight to believe in dragons, but that was a long time ago. Prove your theory first to someone and then provide details when asked for them.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The majority of Cryptozoologists who are in the mainstream believe there is no connection between UFOs and Sasquatch. Because the majority believe it's a biological creature.

Thank you Mr. Majority and Mr. Mainstream for pointing out that I am once again in the minority and not in the mainstream like you are.

If the analogous shoe fits you, you shouldn't try to shoehorn it onto someone else.

Any chance of discussing the subject at hand Lombro? I don’t know why you keep trying to score points over this word ‘minority.’ I simply stated something that is a fact. That in Ripperology those who believed in the diary are in a small minority. I didn’t say that it makes them bad people…I didn’t say that those in the minority shouldn’t have an opinion…I merely stated a fact.

[Lombro2]

The majority of Cryptozoologists who are in the mainstream believe there is no connection between UFOs and Sasquatch. Because the majority believe it's a biological creature.

Thank you Mr. Majority and Mr. Mainstream for pointing out that I am once again in the minority and not in the mainstream like you are.

If the analogous shoe fits you, you shouldn't try to shoehorn it onto someone else.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Of course, you do. You also believe there is a connection between Sasquatch and UFO sightings.

If some of the diary crowd weren't so damned disagreeable, I might find their support for the hoax almost endearing. It really doesn't matter that a few souls still believe in the Flat Earth or the Cottingley Fairies or a spaceship crashed in Roswell. I'm no Melvin Harris. I don't think the world will end if a few people believe in fairy stories.

I draw the line at deliberate fraud, though. People shouldn't create bogus historical artifacts, and other people should have enough sense not to promote them.

I do try to remind myself that the diary supporters are victims. Or at least once upon a time they were. They were bamboozled by the hoaxers, but these days they are mainly fooled by themselves.

The only person that should really be answering questions still lives in Liverpool. Aloof and unconcerned. Instead, we indulge in the surrogate activity of bashing each other's brains in.

I couldn’t agree more Roger. And then they try and make out it’s those on the other side that are the culprits when we’ve discussed the subject ant hand only. It should be about the subject and nothing more. We’ve had a desperate attempt at refuting ‘one off instance’ which has been categorically proven wrong and yet we have two people (well, three) who simply refuse to accept what has been shown in black and white.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'll deal with this one when I next get time to visit the boards, but you took two quotes, attributed to Keith by Shirley in her book, out of their context and isolated them for your own ends, and then accused me of doing something similar. I couldn't speak for Keith at the time, and you didn't give your readers enough context for anyone to know if Shirley had added more context herself, or was even quoting him verbatim, both accurately and in full, so it would have been unfair to expect me - or Erobitha - to give you full answers regarding both quotes, when you may only have provided half the information needed to do so. In future, selective quoting of someone's presumed position is best avoided if you expect anyone to comment fully on that person's actual position.

A little tip for you Caz. Whenever anyone moans that a quote has been taken out of context but then doesn't go on to provide the missing context, you know they are full of it.

There is no context to those quotes attributed to Keith Skinner that changes their meaning, and what you've failed to acknowledge is that in my post to Erobtiha I gave the page reference to where they can be found in Harrison's 2003 book, so anyone, including you, could have looked it up themselves.

But if you really want the entire thing, here it is within a section headed "ANNE'S STORY" regarding the recorded message she had left on 31st July 1994 in which she broke her stunning yarn about the diary having been in her family for many years having not said a single word about this to any of the researchers before that day.

"Anne has explained her actions now many times. She wrote to me with obvious distress in July 1997 saying that from the time the contracts were signed our contract had always been with Michael So far as she was concerned we were just 'the people in London'. She certainly didn't think of us as friends or even colleagues at that stage. Her life was in turmoil; as a Catholic the concept of divorce as horrific and she could not share her problems with anyone, certainly not with us.

"I also worried that the research waters had been muddied, but I was extremely relieved to learn later how closely Keith had been involved with the unravelling of the plot because I trust his integrity implicitly. Keith has said to be on many occasions, "I was involved from the very first and I was present at most of the meetings of Paul and Billy. If the story had been forced I would have detected it by now. If I had detected it I would have exposed it.

'Those who believe Anne is lying, or that she has been bought by Paul must include me in the plot as well," he claims. In his inimitable, pernickety way he has, at times, tested Anne's patience with his minute cross-examination of every second of the journey that led her to make the confession. Keith's honesty and fervour is very persuasive. Anne's defection and seeming obliviousness to her professional and personal responsibility to us and indeed to the Devereux family distressed me, but on balance I see now how it could have happened."

Is that enough for you or do you want me to reproduce the entire book?

And, by way of reminder of the context for my exchange with Erobitha into which you interjected yourself, this all came about because Erobitha posted in #1164:

"I trust Keith’s view and interpretation of how Anne interacted with him. That’s first-hand experience which cannot be so easily brushed off as some might think. It needs to be considered. She actively assisted Keith with many things related to the research on the diary."

The point at issue is whether Keith's view and interpretation of how Anne interacted him can be trusted. The evidence suggests it cannot. I was pointing out that he trusted Anne's story before, and pretty much staked his own reputation on the fact that she was telling the truth, according to the quote attributed to him by Shirley Harrison.

If you have anything sensible to say about any of this do go ahead but please spare us the constant moaning and smear attempts.

[rjpalmer]

Of course, you do. You also believe there is a connection between Sasquatch and UFO sightings.

If some of the diary crowd weren't so damned disagreeable, I might find their support for the hoax almost endearing. It really doesn't matter that a few souls still believe in the Flat Earth or the Cottingley Fairies or a spaceship crashed in Roswell. I'm no Melvin Harris. I don't think the world will end if a few people believe in fairy stories.

I draw the line at deliberate fraud, though. People shouldn't create bogus historical artifacts, and other people should have enough sense not to promote them.

I do try to remind myself that the diary supporters are victims. Or at least once upon a time they were. They were bamboozled by the hoaxers, but these days they are mainly fooled by themselves.

The only person that should really be answering questions still lives in Liverpool. Aloof and unconcerned. Instead, we indulge in the surrogate activity of bashing each other's brains in.

[Lombro2]

Thanks for the deep insight into something we consider complete bull crap.

[rjpalmer]

My stunts? Palmer's the one manipulating one of Anne's lies to make it work for him as a truth.

Whoa there. Hypocrisy much?

We've seen you refer to Mike's tall tale of pestering Tony Devereux on the phone, changing it to Mike pestering Eddie Lyons.

So, you are fully aware of the concept of someone telling disguised truths when telling a lie. You just don't like it when anyone else suggests it--especially me.

Anne Graham made a blatant contradiction.

She denied helping Mike write the diary, telling Shirley Harrison--and others--that the idea of her collaborating with Mike in 1991-1992 was laughable ("absolute rubbish") because their marriage was on the rocks.

Harrison, American Connection p. 293:




Yet, Dear Readers, on another occasion, during what Ike calls the "tea and cake" conference, Anne Graham defends her barmy story of giving the diary to Tony Devereux, telling Keith that she and Mike WERE going to write a story together. Commonly known as "collaboration."

AG: You see, I had to be very subtle in my approach in as much that I couldn’t say to him, we don’t get it published, we write a story around it. I just sort of give it to him bit by bit to try and make him understand it’s come from his idea, it was his idea. But I couldn’t do it! I had managed to manipulate him every, years, so many things, I just [inaudible] this one [laughs ruefully].

So which was it? The idea of their collaboration was "absolute rubbish" or she planned on manipulating Barrett into a writing a story together?

The woman couldn't keep her story straight, but no one seems to have noticed.

Of course, I think the idea that Anne gave the diary to Tony is a complete lie. But I also think that, in giving her rational to Keith and Shirley, she is describing the creation of the Maybrick text in a roundabout way.

If you don't accept it, that's your prerogative. I offer insight, but I realize not everyone is in the market for that commodity.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I can see why you think bringing up our own life experiences is 'best avoided', when challenging any argument made, which relies on speculation about Mike's or Anne's, but thankfully you don't get to decide that for others.



Others, besides Lombro2, have remarked on this away from the boards without my saying a word - all of them male. So claiming to detect personal emotions like 'really upset' or 'angry' in my posts is very much 'best avoided', if you don't want your posts to come over like the worst of Messrs Palmer and Awesome combined [Awesome, sounds a bit like... oh, never mind] to both male and female readers alike. You are meant to be clinically assessing the meat of the post - you know, in relation to the facts, the evidence and the context - not making inappropriate and ill-advised remarks about the poster's emotional state or stamina, if you don't want to be judged accordingly. Claiming emotions for others, which they are not feeling and won't ever be provoked into feeling by reading your posts, can look like attempted gaslighting.

As I previously wrote, you shouldn't be taking lessons in mind reading and mind control from Palmer, who thinks I'm also easily 'intimidated' and prone to 'hysteria' - typically conditions attributed to females, and often by males who set out to intimidate them and then imagine the hysteria that follows.

So neither of you seem able to tolerate your arguments being trampled into the dust by a female of the species or a male you consider to be of inferior intellect.

Better now?

Didn't think so.

Yes, Caz, it's probably best avoided to bring your life into a discussion on these boards because it brings you personally into a debate, thus opening up aspects of your life and personality for discussion, which clearly risks you being offended by that. But if you don't want to take my advice, you certainly don't have to.

I doubt anyone cares what you've been told by unidentified people off the boards, whether they are male or female (not that I can see what their gender has to do with anything). Does it not occur to you that you probably mix with people of like mind who will tell you what they think you want to hear?

If you have any complaints about any posts I've made please identify them specifically or don't waste my time. Commenting on someone appearing angry is in no way a comment involving gender. From what I can see, this is another classic example of the pot attempting to call the kettle black. It’s a tactic. Perhaps you might want to think about the impression your own posts create before criticising others.

And if I ever see any of my arguments being "trampled into the dust" I'll be sure to let you know.

[caz]

Absolutely. I think Martin Fido was closest to the truth when he theorized that Graham wrote the text. But by Anne's own admission (thanks, Tom!) her plan was to 'manipulate' Barrett into writing a 'story' about Maybrick so she could hardly have wanted Barrett to offer no contribution whatsoever.

But that was said by Anne in the context of giving the diary secretly to Mike via Devereux, which Palmer believes was a lie. So Anne would have been lying about her plan to 'manipulate' Mike, using the diary that had come from her father.

It's never as difficult as you try to make it, Caroline. Why you do these stunts in anyone's guess.

My stunts? Palmer's the one manipulating one of Anne's lies to make it work for him as a truth.

No matter how much anyone wants to squirm and invent straw arguments, the odd coincidence remains. The diarist disparagingly refers to his wife as 'The Whore,' and according to Harris and Gray, Devereux had the same quirk. I wasn't there, but I trust Harris. He could be wrong, but he wasn't a liar.

No; you're the only one who suggested that Barrett ran home and told Anne his wife about Devereux's habit. Why would he?

It's a purely invented objection. No one has suggested it but you. I guess there are worse hobbies.

Harris wasn't claiming the authorship as Mike's or Anne's, was he?

And it wasn't my claim, that Anne was the storyteller in chief, and it's not my claim that she was manipulated into copying the 'same quirk' Devereux had into the diary over and over again in her disguised handwriting, whether she ever knew about it or not.

Make it make sense!

[rjpalmer]

Talk about answering a simple question with more dodges than the Artful Dodger and more questions - all irrelevant to whether Palmer sees a woman's hand in the story or a man's. His argument was that it would have been Mike who knew what Tony used to call his ex wife, leading to the same terms of abuse being repeated over and over in the diary.

Of course Anne could have used those words herself, but if she did it had bugger all to do with Tony using the same words about the former Mrs Devereux if Anne didn't know that and Mike didn't tell her. Either way, any connection would have had to come via Mike initially.

I think you're losing your marbles, if not your temper.

If a couple is writing a piece of fiction about a bad person and his wife, why couldn't ONE OF THEM suggest that he refers to her as "The Whore" based on his own lived experience?

Why would the other co-author need to know the real source of it? And for that matter, why couldn't Barrett have told Anne about Tony in a candid moment? He wouldn't have to say that he approved of Devereux's nastiness.

You have a weird habit of inventing imaginary objections with no relationship to reality.

I think I've seen enough of your nonsense for one week, and it's only Monday morning.

[caz]

Are you back to promoting the truly weird idea that Anne was too squeamish to use the word whore or bitch? The same woman who yelled "bullshit" when the newspaper man Harold Brough interviewed her?

Or was too much of a puritan to write about a man who abuses women?

If she wrote the diary, she depicted Jack the Ripper. Why wouldn't she depict him as a vile person?

Have you never read a work of fiction by a woman where one of the characters uses bad language?

How on earth does that reflect on the author??! She's creating a character!

Your ability to convince yourself--and Lombro--that these are legitimate objections is truly bizarre.

Have a nice day.

Talk about answering a simple question with more dodges than the Artful Dodger and more questions - all irrelevant to whether Palmer sees a woman's hand in the story or a man's. His argument was that it would have been Mike who knew what Tony used to call his ex wife, leading to the same terms of abuse being repeated over and over in the diary.

Of course Anne could have used those words herself, but if she did it had bugger all to do with Tony using the same words about the former Mrs Devereux if Anne didn't know that and Mike didn't tell her. Either way, any connection would have had to come via Mike initially.

[caz]

It was the very fact that you were replying to a post I addressed to Erobitha that I was complaining about, Caz. The fact that you edited it so as not to reply to certain parts only made it worse. I've no idea why you think it's ok to edit a post which you're replying to, even if it wasn't aimed at you. I wouldn't mind so much but you also edit posts which I address to you, like this very post in which you've failed to reproduce the quote I was complaining that you'd edited out in the first place!

I’ll remind you of that quote attributed to Keith Skinner which you don't seem to have read properly:

"Those who believe Anne is lying, or that she has been bought in by Paul must include me in the plot as well".

You haven't dealt with the fact of Keith having said that if anyone believed Anne was lying he must be "in the plot" too. He now must believe Anne was lying. You certainly do. So what does that say about Keith's judgement? That's what I was asking Erobitha in the second quote you've excised from my post:

Doesn't that give you pause when it comes to weighing up Keith's views about Anne? He seems to have believed just about everything she told him, didn't he? And he was wrong to do so, wasn't he?"

If you're going to reply to posts not addressed to you, surely you should deal with the entirety of the post, and not snip out bits that are too difficult for you to reply to, which this one must be considering you've now ducked it twice.

And what Keith is reported to have said was "bought in" not "bought". So the fact that you used the word "buying" doesn't cover it because "bought in" (whatever that means) isn't the same as being bought, otherwise the word "in" is redundant. In any case, your post said, "This is all about Feldman" but that is false. It was stated by Keith to be about those who believed Anne was lying. The possibility of her having been "bought in" by Feldman was only an alternative possibility.

So your statement that, "If Keith had detected him [Feldman] using such tactics and done nothing about it, he'd have been in on the 'plot'" is not correct and doesn't meet the point. By his own words, he would have been in on the plot if Anne was lying. She was lying, wasn't she? So why wasn't Keith in on the plot? That's the point. He was clearly saying that Anne was not lying and he was staking his own reputation on that fact, wasn't he? Not a good look.

Thank you for agreeing that "Erobitha's argument may be subtly different". Yes, indeed.

You don't seem to be able to follow your own argument. You say:

"Mike wasn't specifically looking for a big black leather bound undated diary if - drum roll - he already had one, or had seen it down the pub"

Of course he was - drum roll - under your own argument, because he surely wanted to see if a Scouse scally could have obtained one. What the hell would have been the purpose of seeking something different if he wanted to know if the scally was tricking him? He would obviously have needed to know if the scally could have obtained something similar to what he was holding in his hand. It seems like you're confusing yourself. I mean, what are you talking about when you say "something that would have been just as good for anyone faking Jack the Ripper's diary for a laugh"? How would that have helped him? For in that case, it would have been something that the scally had not been able to obtain because it was being offered for sale by Martin Earl.

And in saying that Mike wanted to see "an actual Victorian diary for comparison purposes" or "to judge whether the one he saw down the pub on the day he called Doreen looked significantly old or significantly more modern" you seem to be forgetting the requirement for a minimum of 20 blank pages which makes a nonsense of this theory. If that's what he was wanting to do, he didn't need a diary with 20 blank pages, did he? But if the blank pages requirement is supposed to have had something to do with seeing if the scally was tricking him, that scally would have needed a minimum of 63 blank pages to create the diary, wouldn't he?

You must know that this doesn't make any sense. You cannot possibly be putting this forward in good faith. Why would you want to put forward such a dreadful argument Caz?

As for Mike trying other sources, I think I already said that he'd instructed a professional book dealer to find him a diary and he would understandably have been content to discover what Earl could obtain rather than spending time and effort looking to source one elsewhere. I mean, he wouldn't want to have bought something that wasn't ideal only to be told that Earl had found something perfect, perhaps a totally blank 1888 diary. That would have been a waste of money which he didn't even appear to have. It does make sense that Mike wanted to wait and see what Earl could come up with before doing anything further.

Finally, I'm at a loss to know why you and Ike keep talking about receipts. What I do know is that you've ignored the 29 January 1995 recording in which it is clear that Mike thought he'd come down to London in March 1991 (correcting himself from 1990). If Mike worked out by July 1995 that the red diary had been purchased in 1992 then well done him (and we already knew he'd worked it out by April 1999) but it shows that the dates in the January1995 affidavit were in error. Reading your posts in the archives I noted you always seemed to want to talk about the dates in the affidavit but now I give you the opportunity, you have not one word to say about the affidavit and just keep mentioning receipts. As I've already said, the O&L receipt is likely to have been destroyed in 1992. The only reason for thinking it might not have been is what Mike Barrett said, but he's a liar and a con artist so why aren't you ignoring it?

I'll deal with this one when I next get time to visit the boards, but you took two quotes, attributed to Keith by Shirley in her book, out of their context and isolated them for your own ends, and then accused me of doing something similar. I couldn't speak for Keith at the time, and you didn't give your readers enough context for anyone to know if Shirley had added more context herself, or was even quoting him verbatim, both accurately and in full, so it would have been unfair to expect me - or Erobitha - to give you full answers regarding both quotes, when you may only have provided half the information needed to do so. In future, selective quoting of someone's presumed position is best avoided if you expect anyone to comment fully on that person's actual position.

[rjpalmer]

Does he now only see Mike's hand in every 'whore' and 'bitch' in the diary, which Anne obediently copied out without comment?

Are you back to promoting the truly weird idea that Anne was too squeamish to use the word whore or bitch? The same woman who yelled "bullshit" when the newspaper man Harold Brough interviewed her?

Or was too much of a puritan to write about a man who abuses women?

If she wrote the diary, she depicted Jack the Ripper. Why wouldn't she depict him as a vile person?

Have you never read a work of fiction by a woman where one of the characters uses bad language?

How on earth does that reflect on the author??! She's creating a character!

Your ability to convince yourself--and Lombro--that these are legitimate objections is truly bizarre.

Have a nice day.