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

[rjpalmer]

I could have sworn that Palmer thought he had detected a woman's work in the diary, and believed that Mike may only have contributed the odd - very odd - line of doggerel to Anne's story.

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.

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

Nor have I ever suggested that Mike didn't contribute. I once estimated that Barrett's contribution could have amounted to roughly 10%--which is nothing more than a guess---it could have been 20% or 50%---and I know you know this because you've referred to it repeatedly. So why are you now misrepresenting my views? Is that a nice way to behave?

Increasingly, the whole schtick around here is to pretend that people have said something that they haven't said and then invent imaginary complications that make no sense.

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.

[caz]

I note that Palmer left off the rest of my post:

'I don't recall seeing the argument repeated, so it's probably a dead issue by now, like Devereux. But RJ Palmer brought it up originally because he thought he could see a woman's hand in the diary's composition and presumably felt the need to explain the presence of two words that women often find deeply offensive when used in any context.'

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

If so, what changed?

[caz]

Nor am I impressed by muddled thinking.

If Barrett and Graham co-wrote the diary, which was certainly the case in my view, why would Barrett have needed to tell his wife where he came up with the idea of Maybrick referring to his wife as 'The Whore"?

He didn't need to, of course. You're adding a silly complication that need not detain us.

The point is that Harris and Gray thought it was an odd coincidence that Barrett was marketing a diary that he claimed came from Devereux, and lo and behold, Devereux had the same revolting quirk as 'Maybrick' supposedly did.

I think most rational people realize that fiction writers come up ideas from their own personal experiences. It's hardly earthshattering.

It's an interesting oddity, but it's hardly the reason I'm convinced the diary is a modern fake connected to Goldie Street.

I can readily imagine that if someone unearthed documentation that Maybrick really did call his wife "The Whore," the diary's supporters would be shouting it from the rooftops.

But Devereux doing so? A yawn.

I could have sworn that Palmer thought he had detected a woman's work in the diary, and believed that Mike may only have contributed the odd - very odd - line of doggerel to Anne's story.

Every day is a school day.

[caz]

As teenagers in an all girls' school, we always knew someone with awful body odour, in one case the history mistress. We might titter about it behind the sufferer's back but none of us was brave enough to drop a hint. If there was a genuine lack of awareness on their part, coupled with a poor sense of smell, they might have been utterly mortified if anyone had told them they had a problem, humbly apologetic and determined to pass the smell test in future. Thankfully I don't know many women – or men, before anyone erupts and throws their toys out of the pram - who would react in any other way.

This is a normal reaction to the 'scratch, sniff and tell' treatment.

Others include the defiant deodorant dodger, openly proud of what oozes from their every pore, and no intention of toning down the whiff for anyone.

Then there's the instantly offended type, straight on the defensive and protesting too much. They might have been blissfully unaware of anything amiss until told about it, but they will carry on causing the same bad smell regardless, while blaming anyone with the nerve to mention it while holding their nose.

I suspect Lombro2 will appreciate the analogy, even though Herlock will no doubt think it's unintelligible gibberish - while continuing to protest too much.

[rjpalmer]

Yes, I wasn't particularly impressed by the argument that Anne could have known what Mike's dead friend used to call his ex wife and peppered the diary with references to 'whores' and 'bitches' as a result. It's a weird enough argument as it stands, but if the worst of what men say about their wives, or about women in general, during "locker room" talk, is quite likely to stay in the "locker room", unless the listener wants his own wife to wonder what she gets called behind her back, how likely is it that Mike would have taken those words back home to Anne after hearing them down the pub from Tony's lips, if she was already unamused by his lunchtime drinking and was bound to be even less amused by the company he was keeping?

Nor am I impressed by muddled thinking.

If Barrett and Graham co-wrote the diary, which was certainly the case in my view, why would Barrett have needed to tell his wife where he came up with the idea of Maybrick referring to his wife as 'The Whore"?

He didn't need to, of course. You're adding a silly complication that need not detain us.

The point is that Harris and Gray thought it was an odd coincidence that Barrett was marketing a diary that he claimed came from Devereux, and lo and behold, Devereux had the same revolting quirk as 'Maybrick' supposedly did.

I think most rational people realize that fiction writers come up ideas from their own personal experiences. It's hardly earthshattering.

It's an interesting oddity, but it's hardly the reason I'm convinced the diary is a modern fake connected to Goldie Street.

I can readily imagine that if someone unearthed documentation that Maybrick really did call his wife "The Whore," the diary's supporters would be shouting it from the rooftops.

But Devereux doing so? A yawn.

[caz]

Now there was a dispute as to whether it would have been Anne or Mike who knew that Tony called his wife 'a whore' but the fact of the matter is that Caz had brought herself and her life, and indeed her gender, into the discussion, which, I think, is always best avoided.

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.

This issue from 2023 has nothing to do with Caz's highly offensive allegation of yesterday that neither Roger nor myself seem able to tolerate responses from Caz because she is female. It is clearly ludicrous. There is no difference in the way we respond to the same arguments whether they are made by Ike, Erobitha, Caz or Aunt or Uncle Tom Cobley. On the rare occasions you say something intelligible we respond to you in the same way. Gender has nothing to do with it and Caz's absurd statement should never have been posted.

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.

[Herlock Sholmes]

But when Mike was desperate to make Alan Gray believe his forgery claims, we know he didn't try to fob him off with 'forged' receipts for the red diary or scrapbook.

If you are merely speculating that Mike could have had genuine receipts for both back in 1992, but had mislaid, lost or destroyed at least one of them by January 1995, while insisting in the July that he still had both, Gray for one would have known he was lying because he'd have been able to provide him with the exact dates of purchase. By the July, with or without the receipt, Mike was able to provide the information that the red diary had cost Anne £25 and was purchased in 1992. Anyone who had actually read the affidavit by then, let alone typed it up for Mike, would have put one and one together and made two purchases in 1992, the scrapbook coming fast on the heels of the "very small" red diary, and gone straight to Outhwaite & Litherland armed with exactly what was needed to inform their search parameters.

Anyone who didn't yet know about the affidavit and what it contained, would have been bemused to learn about an 1891 pocket diary purchased by Anne at any time in 1992, but unable to relate this directly with Mike's original claim, made to Harold Brough in June 1994, that he had obtained the scrapbook from an auction sale.

I'm struggling to understand what you're saying Caz.

Surely it's not speculation to say that Mike must have had a genuine receipt for the diary in 1992, or at least some form of documentation relating to its purchase.

Then you claim that Mike said he had "both" receipts in July 1995. Could you direct me to where he said he had a receipt for the scrapbook in July 1995?

You omit to mention that Mike appears to have told Feldman in late June 1995 that he had a receipt for a diary purchased in 1991. There is no actual record of him saying that the diary was purchased for £25 in 1992 but this is what Feldman claimed in July 1995 that Mike had told Melvin Harris. Could you assist us with how Feldman knew what Mike had said to Melvin Harris?

You seem to be suggesting that Alan Gray, knowing of the red diary purchase in 1992, would have paid a visit to O&L. Aside from this being pure unadulterated speculation as to what Alan Gray would have done at this time, how do we know that Gray was even given this information in July 1995?

As for your further speculation about what someone who had not read Mike's affidavit would have thought about his purchase of a red diary in 1992, I'm at a loss to know what possible purpose such speculation could serve. Can you explain

[Herlock Sholmes]

Let me stop you there.

Thank you.

The rest of your post contains speculation and waffle about what Anne or Mike might or might not have been thinking or trying to achieve in 1995, if they had created the diary together, which will get you nowhere and, as you have observed, can have no possible bearing on the 'one off' instance in the diary.

But do you not think Anne would have been conscious back in early April 1992, when supposedly handwriting the diary over 63 pages, of what similarities a professional handwriting expert might look for and be able to detect, when she, together with her husband, became the 'obvious' suspects when the diary could not be shown to be genuine, as was 100% inevitable if it wasn't?

If she wasn't worried about the possibility back in 1992, the simplest explanation is that the diary is not in her handwriting, in which case she wasn't worried in 1995 about any comparisons made using any examples provably written by herself. Do you think she must have practised other ways to disguise her own hand, in case she was asked by anyone for a sample on the spur of the moment and didn't want to be caught like a rat in a trap?



Not quite. Keith made a point of keeping any envelope or scrap of paper he could get his hands on, with Anne's handwriting on it, so he could compare it - albeit with amateur eyes - with the diary and with the sample lines she wrote out immediately on his request in 1995. But if much lengthier original examples of Anne's correspondence written in a natural hand were obtained, but then kept hidden for over 20 years, you can only blame those directly responsible. But to be fair, if Melvin Harris did not believe that Mike or Anne held the pen, it would not have been worth the expense of commissioning a direct comparison, original to original.

If my post contained "speculation and waffle" about what Anne and Mike might have been thinking, I can't help wondering how you would describe your own comments in #1690 that Anne would have had to have had "a screw loose" to deliberately change her handwriting again and that Mike "could have" submitted much larger and more representative samples to Keith any time "if he really wanted to expose his wife".

Having accused me of writing "speculation and waffle" in response to your speculation and waffle, it's really quite astonishing that you literally invite me in your post to speculate about what Anne might have thought a professional expert would look for, no doubt so that when I answer your question you can describe it as more "speculation and waffle".

But, for the record, it should be obvious that an expert wouldn't have been able to draw any conclusions about diary authorship without being in possession of samples of Anne's genuine handwriting. Why would she have thought in March 1992 that an expert would be able to obtain such samples?

When I said "all anyone had to go on", I naturally meant in terms of publicly available documents. Documents which Keith kept private, and still keeps private, don't count.

I have no idea btw why you constantly mention the late Melvin Harris in your posts but I guess his opinions must have been very important to you.

[caz]

Who cares if Devereau called his wife a whore or a bitch. Maybe if the he called her honey melons and the diary author used that…?

If that’s all you got, you have nothing to bring to the real discussion. That’s why you’ve been handed your proverbials on a platter for decades now.

People on your own side have stated that.

Yes, I wasn't particularly impressed by the argument that Anne could have known what Mike's dead friend used to call his ex wife and peppered the diary with references to 'whores' and 'bitches' as a result. It's a weird enough argument as it stands, but if the worst of what men say about their wives, or about women in general, during "locker room" talk, is quite likely to stay in the "locker room", unless the listener wants his own wife to wonder what she gets called behind her back, how likely is it that Mike would have taken those words back home to Anne after hearing them down the pub from Tony's lips, if she was already unamused by his lunchtime drinking and was bound to be even less amused by the company he was keeping?

I don't recall seeing the argument repeated, so it's probably a dead issue by now, like Devereux. But RJ Palmer brought it up originally because he thought he could see a woman's hand in the diary's composition and presumably felt the need to explain the presence of two words that women often find deeply offensive when used in any context.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

It's also not much point talking about receipts because receipts could be forged and would be difficult to authenticate. But it seems to me that any receipts for the items involved in the forgeries were likely to have been destroyed (for what purpose would they be kept?) and to think otherwise is to believe the liar and con artist Mike Barrett.

But when Mike was desperate to make Alan Gray believe his forgery claims, we know he didn't try to fob him off with 'forged' receipts for the red diary or scrapbook.

If you are merely speculating that Mike could have had genuine receipts for both back in 1992, but had mislaid, lost or destroyed at least one of them by January 1995, while insisting in the July that he still had both, Gray for one would have known he was lying because he'd have been able to provide him with the exact dates of purchase. By the July, with or without the receipt, Mike was able to provide the information that the red diary had cost Anne £25 and was purchased in 1992. Anyone who had actually read the affidavit by then, let alone typed it up for Mike, would have put one and one together and made two purchases in 1992, the scrapbook coming fast on the heels of the "very small" red diary, and gone straight to Outhwaite & Litherland armed with exactly what was needed to inform their search parameters.

Anyone who didn't yet know about the affidavit and what it contained, would have been bemused to learn about an 1891 pocket diary purchased by Anne at any time in 1992, but unable to relate this directly with Mike's original claim, made to Harold Brough in June 1994, that he had obtained the scrapbook from an auction sale.

[Herlock Sholmes]

At present, the Barretts both benefit from your presumption of their innocence, because while you have seen no reason to believe they couldn't have been involved in the diary's creation, that's not proof that either of them was. The advert placed on Mike's behalf for a Victorian diary is not proof, by your own admission, or you wouldn't be dismissing the diary author's identity as unimportant or of no interest to you.

It would have saved you an awful lot of pointless arguing if you'd 'merely' stuck with your 'one off' instance, instead of wandering off on less interesting and less important tangents like whether or not you could identify who wrote those words in the diary beyond an amateur stab at handwriting analysis.

It doesn't follow in any way that because the diary's author is of no importance or interest to me that the advert placed by Mike isn't proof of anything. Even if there was film footage of the Barretts creating the diary in March 1992, the identity of the author would still be of no interest or importance, just like it doesn't matter who created all the art world's fakes.

I most certainly have stuck to saying that "one off instance" proves that the diary is a modern fake..because it does. But I don't need to justify my posts to anyone or need lessons about "pointless arguing" however much you may think that I do thanks Caz. It does seem that it’s more important though for you to ‘prove’ that the Barrett’s weren’t involved than it is for me to show that they could have been.

[caz]

Okay then, let's think about it.

Anne is asked out of the blue by Keith Skinner to provide a handwriting sample in January 1995.

She could have refused but that would have been suspicious.

Once she agreed to provide a sample she had two options only.

Option 1 was that she provided a sample of her normal handwriting. On the face of it, her normal handwriting doesn't look like the diary handwriting, but then, she might have thought, what if a professional handwriting expert was able to detect similarities with the diary handwriting?

So that takes us to Option 2 which is to provide a sample of her handwriting which is itself disguised in order to look as little like the diary handwriting as possible, thus hopefully ensuring that the expert is fooled.

Let me stop you there.

Thank you.

The rest of your post contains speculation and waffle about what Anne or Mike might or might not have been thinking or trying to achieve in 1995, if they had created the diary together, which will get you nowhere and, as you have observed, can have no possible bearing on the 'one off' instance in the diary.

But do you not think Anne would have been conscious back in early April 1992, when supposedly handwriting the diary over 63 pages, of what similarities a professional handwriting expert might look for and be able to detect, when she, together with her husband, became the 'obvious' suspects when the diary could not be shown to be genuine, as was 100% inevitable if it wasn't?

If she wasn't worried about the possibility back in 1992, the simplest explanation is that the diary is not in her handwriting, in which case she wasn't worried in 1995 about any comparisons made using any examples provably written by herself. Do you think she must have practised other ways to disguise her own hand, in case she was asked by anyone for a sample on the spur of the moment and didn't want to be caught like a rat in a trap?

As it also happens, the samples of Anne's personal correspondence remained hidden for over 20 years. All anyone had to go on was the handwriting sample she provided in 1995 which looks nothing like the diary handwriting.

Not quite. Keith made a point of keeping any envelope or scrap of paper he could get his hands on, with Anne's handwriting on it, so he could compare it - albeit with amateur eyes - with the diary and with the sample lines she wrote out immediately on his request in 1995. But if much lengthier original examples of Anne's correspondence written in a natural hand were obtained, but then kept hidden for over 20 years, you can only blame those directly responsible. But to be fair, if Melvin Harris did not believe that Mike or Anne held the pen, it would not have been worth the expense of commissioning a direct comparison, original to original.

[caz]

I've no interest in discussing the identity of the forger or forgers of the diary, although it seems important to others. I merely wanted to know why it couldn't be the Barretts.

At present, the Barretts both benefit from your presumption of their innocence, because while you have seen no reason to believe they couldn't have been involved in the diary's creation, that's not proof that either of them was. The advert placed on Mike's behalf for a Victorian diary is not proof, by your own admission, or you wouldn't be dismissing the diary author's identity as unimportant or of no interest to you.

It would have saved you an awful lot of pointless arguing if you'd 'merely' stuck with your 'one off' instance, instead of wandering off on less interesting and less important tangents like whether or not you could identify who wrote those words in the diary beyond an amateur stab at handwriting analysis.

[caz]

I see that the lads have been having a go at waxing lyrical, so here's a one from me

I'm not a Manc

Or a wealthy Yank

Nor yet a foreign skipper

I'm a one-off Scouse

Who smacked his spouse

Yours truly Jack the Ripper

For our friends across the seas, Manc is pronounced Mank, an abbreviation for Mancunian. They are know in the UK as Mancs.

Love it.

Who did you have in mind for the one-off Scouse who smacked his spouse and signed off as Yours truly Jack the Ripper?

James Maybrick or Mike Barrett?

The lines can get rather blurred at times.

[caz]

"Nice one, Obs.

Put it down to the pedant's revolt.

If you think the pedants are revolting, I may need to change my deodorant.

Love,

Caz of the Lowest of Lower Middles.
X"

Hi Caz, the quote function wouldn't work for me so had to copy and paste your post.

Very good by the way, nice to see some jolity around, these parts. The Maybrick threads seem to have took on a lot of nastiness of late. Also the length of the posts. I think you've said in the past, like me, that you are of retirement age, so we have an excuse, in short, time to kill. But I honestly can't understand where some posters find the time for numerous mini documentaries. It's a full time job it appears. Anyway c'est la vie.

Enjoy your late night cocoa, I have mine all milk

I have my late night cocoa all milk too, Obs, but not in the summer. I'm into iced coffee during the day after my first four cups of tea.

I retired many years ago from the conventional workplace, but I wish I did have 'time to kill'. If I did, I wouldn't do it here, spending every waking second looking for the pettiest of points to take pedantic pot shots at, and acting like I've been mortally wounded when given a taste of the same medicine, based on facts, evidence and context.

Whenever I do have a bit of spare time, I get a kick out of being here. If I was ever left 'upset' or 'angry', or feeling 'intimidated' or in danger of getting 'hysterical', by a couple of posters who fancy their ability to provoke such emotions in me and then detect them in my words, I would have avoided the place like the plague a very long time ago.

Love,

Caz
X