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

[Herlock Sholmes]

All Mike Barrett has to wonder is whether someone will come to his door stating that they understood that he had recently received an old Victorian document with Jack the Ripper's confession in and a load of blank pages at the back. They could say it was primarily black and had loads of oily stains on it. They might even say they thought there was a corner of a photograph torn off in the binding and even what looked like charcoal there too. They could say all of that, or they could say a lot less than that (I think they'd be a bit more circumspect given how unlikely it would have seemed that he had an alternative).

All Mike Barrett had to know was that he could simply deny all knowledge of such an old document - but, then, he wouldn't know that Eddie Lyons hadn't admitted that he'd sold it to Barrett.

All Mike Barrett then had to think was what could he possibly do to keep possession of the Maybrick scrapbook in the event that he felt really cornered. He could say that he did have it but that he'd thrown it away. He could certainly have said that.

Or he might have thought that it would be so much better if he could agree that he had recently received an old Victorian document which did indeed have a load of blank pages at the back (at this point, he could not know what the eventual purchase would look like). Maybe he could throw his accuser off his scent that way?

It doesn't matter what you and I thought was or think is rational.

Ah, we're back to the Chewbacca Defence. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, does this make sense? Think about it, Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Does that make sense? Of course it makes no sense. Absolutely none. And that is precisely why the diary is genuine".

We only need to imagine the possibility that Mike Barrett might have thought it was. That's all you have to get your head around whether you think my thinking it is 'barking mad' or not.

Yes, and it's impossible to imagine the possibility that Mike Barrett could have thought for even a millisecond that the only thing a person who suspected he might be in possession of a stolen "Victorian document with Jack the Ripper's confession in" knew about that document was that it had "a load of blank pages at the back". He has to genuinely think that this person, who knows about the blank pages, would have had no idea that it was also in large black leather bound volume which contained a load of pages with Jack the Ripper's handwriting in it. How could that even be possible for one second? Sorry, for one millisecond. It's nuts, Ike. Utterly nuts.

And then, even though this unnamed person was asking about a (stolen) Victorian document with Jack the Ripper's confession in, Mike is planning to say "Well, it's a funny thing, as it happens I recently purchased this here Victorian diary not half an hour ago from an Hoxfordshire establishment but it's not the one you're looking for, although it 'appens to 'ave some blank pages in it, and surely that proves that I don't have the one you're looking for because I have no interest in Victorian diaries.....er....well apart from the one I have in my hand right now".

Tell me, Ike, how will the production of such a diary in Mike's mind help him any better than if he just said "Eff off, I've never seen a Victorian diary with Jack the Ripper's confession in it, I don't have it, go away"?

Please tell me.

And I don't even understand why Mike's "scent throwing" Victorian diary even needs any blank pages, unless he's trying to tell his interrogator that he actually does have the document that the person is looking for which, in your new scenario, he isn't!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Let's try again.

Your dialogue (above) is EXACTLY the dialogue Barrett might very well have had with Martin Earl. How are you getting on so far? Keeping up?

It is the dialogue of a man who does not need a document to write up a hoaxed diary of Jack the Ripper ... Still with me (James Maybrick died in May 1889, you see)?

... but - rather - is the dialogue of a man who wants a document he can produce if someone accuses him of recently coming into possession of a document bearing the records of Jack the Ripper's thoughts ... I know this is where I'll have lost you - but that's your one-way vision troubling you rather than my inability to explain a simple idea simply.

So your dialogue shows us clearly why a diary from 1889 or even 1890 was ordered and why one from 1891 was accepted: it was because he just wanted an insurance policy - plausible deniability if asked if he had recently come into possession of the record of Jack the Ripper's thoughts.

It's beautifully simplistic though I know in advance that even this simplicity will not seep into even the periphery of your one-way vision.

PS As I said the other day, yes, he would very soon have to show the real thing to Doreen Montgomery, but it was inevitable that the genie would be out of the bottle at that point whereas it was not necessarily inevitable that he would have to hand his priceless scrapbook back between mid-March and mid-April 1992 if he was able to source something he could try to pass off of an old document he had recently received which was marked by it having at least twenty blank pages. You can say it's gibberish or stupid or you can't understand it - do so all you like - but it works better than your desperately implausible notion that it is evidence that Barrett was creating an original hoaxed Jack the Ripper diary.

No, Ike, what I gave you was not "the dialogue of a man who wants a document he can produce if someone accuses him of recently coming into possession of a document bearing the records of Jack the Ripper's thoughts" because he was not being offered and was not agreeing to purchase, "a document bearing the records of Jack the Ripper's thoughts". You've also divorced the dialogue from its context which was that Mike had specifically asked Earl to find him a diary from the period 1880-1890 with a minimum of 20 blank pages and was now being offered a diary outside of that period with nearly all its pages blank.

If someone (you don't say who) had accused him of recently coming into possession of a document bearing the records of Jack the Ripper's thoughts, I'm unable to see the purpose of him producing a nearly blank Victorian diary which did not bear the records of Jack the Ripper's thoughts. That's the part you need to explain to me. Don't just parrot "plausible deniability" because the diary he was purchasing wouldn't have enabled him to deny anything, let alone plausibly.

But it's pretty irrelevant really. You asked for a dialogue between the supplier and Earl and Earl and Barrett. Despite claiming that it would not be possible for anyone to produce such a dialogue, it took me a couple of minutes to produce one. That dialogue is entirely plausible. It might well have happened. It would explain why Mike accepted the 1891 diary. I don't care if it could also relate to a million other scenarios. The fact is that it is consistent with Mike seeking to obtain a diary in order to create an 1888 Ripper diary.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, of course you don't. But, then, you would say that, wouldn't you?

It's odd that you say this, Ike, because I invariably do respond to your posts and answer all your questions.

On this occasion, though, with your #1408, I literally couldn't understand a word of it. The first paragraph especially was impenetrable, and re-reading it I still haven't got a clue what it means. Then the multiple postscripts were bizarre and unfathomable. They were more indicative of someone losing his mind in a very public breakdown than a sane person putting forward any kind of rational argument

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why would you ask if I am 'seriously' telling anyone this? Does it not strike everyone as the very core of the issue if one is seeking a diary from that period to write a hoaxed Jack the Ripper record into and one has been informed that an 1891 diary with blank pages is available? To be clear, then, let me state it this way: I am aware that Mike Barrett accepted an 1891 diary from Martin Earl and that - if he was seeking it to hoax a record of Jack the Ripper's thoughts into - I cannot foresee any scenario at all whereby he would fail to check that it was suitable for this purpose. If told that there was an 1891 diary available, it seems inexplicable to me that that simple level of detail would not be requested unless Barrett was genuinely not thinking straight (there's your Get Out of Gaol card, right there, by the way). I would add, however, that accepting such a diary is actually strong evidence that he had some other purpose for it than simply seeking to hoax a record of Jack the Ripper's thoughts into so it would take a great deal more than "he just wasn't thinking straight" to shift me on this. Others may be less sturdy.

Obviously, we are at cross purposes (as Keith has reminded us): you - aligned as you are to the Jan 5, 1995, affidavit - must actually believe that it was Anne who did all the hard yards. Does Anne strike anyone as stupid enough to order up an 1891 diary without asking first what evidence there is in it that it is for 1891 or was she simply not thinking straight rather than Mike? Or do you not believe that bit of Alan Gray's Jan 5, 1995, affidavit either?

I desperately want you to wake up to the very real scenario here whereby you have created a series of apologetics for Michael Barrett who - in reality - had nothing whatsoever to do with the hoaxing of the James Maybrick scrapbook (if hoax it be). I can see that I am making little progress which surely reflects very badly on one of us (if not both)?

The reason why I ask if you were "seriously" saying it, is that you cannot possibly be serious.

Have you never been in a conversation where you later think "Oh, it never occurred to me to ask"? It's absolute madness if you think that it couldn't possibly have failed to occur to him to Mike to ask if the pages he'd been told by Earl were "blank" were not in fact blank.

Also, as I've said about a million times, as much as you would like it to be the case, I'm not "aligned" to the Jan 5 1995 affidavit in any way. I've also said about a million times that it would have been drafted by Alan Gray who didn't fully understand what had happened in 1992.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Could you clarify where Keith wrote a very full and detailed description of the 1891 diary and made it clear he was fully aware of the context as to why Mike claimed he wanted the diary as I'm sure Keith will want to check the accuracy of your claim? You are presumably referring to Mike's January 5 1995 affidavit? In the affidavit, Mike puts the responsibility of buying the 1891 diary on to Anne and that when it arrived, Mike assessed its potential and rejected it because "...it was very small." On the strength of that information, are you of the opinion that Mike had absolutely nothing to do with Martin Earl (and that it was Anne who had any discussion with him)?

Now, I need to be clear that these are questions directly from Keith himself so I trust I have represented them accurately.

Now what are you babbling about?

Caz first posted Keith's full and detailed description of this diary on 4th August 2020 in #5701 of the "One Incontrovertible" thread, again on 7 September 2020 (#6108) and then for a third time on 24 June 2021 (#6295) which was actually the first time she revealed that it was Keith's description of the diary as opposed to the one Martin Earl gave Barrett.

I think you already knew this, Ike.

And of course when Keith wrote this description, unlike the supplier, he knew of the significance of the 1891 diary and that, according to Mike, it was originally intended to be used to create the fake Maybrick diary.

Please do check this with Keith. Knock yourself out.

As for your question asking me if Mike had "nothing to do with Martin Earl", I've never claimed this to be the case, so its baffling that you ask me.

I've always assumed that Martin Earl confirmed that he dealt with Mike Barrett rather than his wife and that this is what he told Keith Skinner. If that's not the case and Earl said he dealt with Anne, and sold her the diary, please do let me know because that would be important. But whether it was Mike or Anne doesn't matter for this purpose. The point is that when he wrote the description of the diary, Keith fully understood why it was significant to Barrett's forgery claim, not least because he was aware from as early as July 20th 1995, before he'd even seen the 1891 diary, that Mike was claiming that the receipt for that diary "proved Anne wrote the diary", yet he still didn't write "dates printed on every page" when he wrote his description of it.

And that itself is only illustrative of the fact that "dates printed on every page" cannot be assumed to be part of any full and detailed description of the diary.

As for the size, I've already explained what I think happened. As soon as the red diary arrived, and he took it out of the envelope, Mike saw that it was far too small to be of use. So, although when subsequently looking through the diary, he would have seen the printed dates, that was only a secondary factor. He'd already decided he couldn't use it. Speaking to Alan Gray more than 2 years later, and without the benefit of seeing the 1891 diary to refresh his memory, the thing that might easily have stood out in his memory was the size. That is understandable. I mean, there can't be any doubt that he saw the 1891 diary in March 1992, so he would definitely have known about the dates printed on every page. The only reason for him not mentioning the dates in 1995, whether he was lying or being truthful, can surely only be that he'd forgotten and that it was the small size that stood out in his memory.

[Geddy2112]

**** me, I almost spilt me Newkky Broon!

Where is that brewed nowadays? Not close to Newcastle I bet... last time I had a bottle of dog it was grim compared to when it was brewed in the North East.

[Iconoclast]

I think it is best to proceed from the principle of facts first, theories later.

**** me, I almost spilt me Newkky Broon!

[Iconoclast]

By the way, Barrett Believers, if Earl's ad had stated 1880-1888, I'd have still been able to pursue my 'other Victorian document' theory, but - honestly - I'd have been stretching.

It is the phrasing of the ad which is inexplicable if he is seeking a diary to do his hoaxing worst in - as is the request for a 'diary'. And, then, he compounds this all by agreeing to take an 1891 diary - actions which can only be explained if he truly is stupendously thick (okay, we might be getting somewhere there ...).

But, then, he goes and reveals the truth in his Jan 5, 1995, affidavit. No forgetting dates this time - this time he reveals for the first time that his wife Anne Barrett had ordered an 1889 or 1890 diary and then accepted an 1891 one without any difficult questions like "Would it actually work for a hoax?".

Nope, the ad should have said, "Brainless Scouse scally is seeking a DOCUMENT from no later than 1888 - the year that Jack the Ripper famously murdered those women in London and Manchester. Must have quite a lot of pages to write in. I wonder why?".

To save money, he could instead have just asked for, "Document from no later than 1888 with at least twenty blank consecutive pages".

The fact that he didn't simply has to be a problem for the Barrett Hoax Believers.

[rjpalmer]

Can I ask why it matters?

I'll let you know as soon as I get a definitive answer as to where she worked.

I think it is best to proceed from the principle of facts first, theories later.

[Iconoclast]

I understand that Keith doesn't care to cooperate with Diary skeptics, but if he's monitoring these boards, I wonder if he could confirm what hospital or clinic Anne Graham worked at 'near Sydney' in around 1973-1975?

Shirley Harrison implies that it was at the 'Caringbah Hospital,' but no such hospital exists, and it is not clear from Shirley's writing if Anne confirmed this, or whether it was just Steve Powell's suggestion.

I can eventually find out on my own, as Australian nurses needed to register each year, and these registration papers almost certainly still exist, but it would save time.

Thanks.

Well if he passes that wee gem on to me, you'll be third to know (after Keith and me).

Can I ask why it matters?

[rjpalmer]

Now, I need to be clear that these are questions directly from Keith himself so I trust I have represented them accurately.

I understand that Keith doesn't care to cooperate with Diary skeptics, but if he's monitoring these boards, I wonder if he could confirm what hospital or clinic Anne Graham worked at 'near Sydney' in around 1973-1975?

Shirley Harrison implies that it was at the 'Caringbah Hospital,' but no such hospital exists, and it is not clear from Shirley's writing if Anne confirmed this, or whether it was just Steve Powell's suggestion.

I can eventually find out on my own, as Australian nurses needed to register each year, and these registration papers almost certainly still exist, but it would save time.

Thanks.

[Iconoclast]

This has been gone over dozens of times, Ike. Why are you so constantly in a state of confusion?

No confusion: I was asking on behalf of Keith. I gave it only cursory thought as it was not a line of reasoning I was intending to go down today.

I did think I'd made that really rather clear in my short post but evidently nothing I ever type makes any sense to Barrett Believers. I wonder why that could be as I don't seem to have any challenges over my use of the English language with anyone else?

[Iconoclast]

No matter what song & dance you and Caroline provide, you readers are NOT going to forget what is actually documented: Martin Earl's advertisement in Bookdealer, showing what Barrett had requested. It's not going to go away.

That's right: he requested something that he thought might help him retain possession of the Maybrick scrapbook which is why he was targeting the period of the crimes not the possibility of the crimes.

If his aim was to create a hoaxed record of Jack the Ripper's thoughts, he needed to be clear that he could not possibly be offered a document from a period of time after his intended foil had passed away. And yet he wasn't clear. Which points away from the notion of a hoax and points firmly towards some other purpose for seeking such a document (and most definitely not because he wanted to see what one looked like).

Now, my 'other Victorian document' theory (I've stopped saying 'copy' or 'doppelgänger' or 'facsimile' because I thought you'd use your brain regrading what I meant but you either couldn't or didn't want to or I just plain confused you all) may well be wrong, and that's fine, but it at least explains the facts which the Barrett Hoax theory most certainly does not.

[Iconoclast]

No one who buys an allegedly stolen Diary of Jack the Ripper in the back booth of a pub is going to assume that the rightful owner won't be able to give a precise description of it.

All Mike Barrett has to wonder is whether someone will come to his door stating that they understood that he had recently received an old Victorian document with Jack the Ripper's confession in and a load of blank pages at the back. They could say it was primarily black and had loads of oily stains on it. They might even say they thought there was a corner of a photograph torn off in the binding and even what looked like charcoal there too. They could say all of that, or they could say a lot less than that (I think they'd be a bit more circumspect given how unlikely it would have seemed that he had an alternative).

All Mike Barrett had to know was that he could simply deny all knowledge of such an old document - but, then, he wouldn't know that Eddie Lyons hadn't admitted that he'd sold it to Barrett.

All Mike Barrett then had to think was what could he possibly do to keep possession of the Maybrick scrapbook in the event that he felt really cornered. He could say that he did have it but that he'd thrown it away. He could certainly have said that.

Or he might have thought that it would be so much better if he could agree that he had recently received an old Victorian document which did indeed have a load of blank pages at the back (at this point, he could not know what the eventual purchase would look like). Maybe he could throw his accuser off his scent that way?

It doesn't matter what you and I thought was or think is rational. We only need to imagine the possibility that Mike Barrett might have thought it was. That's all you have to get your head around whether you think my thinking it is 'barking mad' or not.

[Iconoclast]

What are you babbling about, Ike? Do you really need someone to give you fictional dialogues before you can understand anything?

It's not difficult:

Supplier to Earl: "I don't have any diaries from 1880 to 1890 but I do have an 1891 De La Rue's Indelible Diary and Memorandum Book in good condition, size 2.25 inches by 4 inches with a red or maroon cover and four days to a page. Nearly all of the pages are blank and, at the end of the diary, are two Memoranda pages. On one of the two pages someone has written in blue biro 'EATON PLACE' and on the other 'ETON RISE'. Then there are four blank pages and on the last one is written in blue biro '19 W at 3 = 57 19 W at 4 = 76'. I'll sell it to you for [£20]".

Earl to Barrett: "I haven't been able to locate any diaries from 1880 to 1890 but I can offer you an 1891 De La Rue's Indelible Diary and Memorandum Book in good condition, size 2.25 inches by 4 inches with a red or maroon cover and four days to a page. Nearly all of the pages are blank and, at the end of the diary, are two Memoranda pages. On one of the two pages someone has written in blue biro 'EATON PLACE' and on the other 'ETON RISE'. Then there are four blank pages and on the last one is written in blue biro '19 W at 3 = 57 19 W at 4 = 76'. The cost to you will be £25."

Barrett to Earl: "Okay if that's all you can find I'll take it. It's great that nearly all the pages are blank which is what I asked for. Please send immediately and I'll pay once received."

Earl to Barrett: "No problem, will do."

Happy now?

Let's try again.

Your dialogue (above) is EXACTLY the dialogue Barrett might very well have had with Martin Earl. How are you getting on so far? Keeping up?

It is the dialogue of a man who does not need a document to write up a hoaxed diary of Jack the Ripper ... Still with me (James Maybrick died in May 1889, you see)?

... but - rather - is the dialogue of a man who wants a document he can produce if someone accuses him of recently coming into possession of a document bearing the records of Jack the Ripper's thoughts ... I know this is where I'll have lost you - but that's your one-way vision troubling you rather than my inability to explain a simple idea simply.

So your dialogue shows us clearly why a diary from 1889 or even 1890 was ordered and why one from 1891 was accepted: it was because he just wanted an insurance policy - plausible deniability if asked if he had recently come into possession of the record of Jack the Ripper's thoughts.

It's beautifully simplistic though I know in advance that even this simplicity will not seep into even the periphery of your one-way vision.

PS As I said the other day, yes, he would very soon have to show the real thing to Doreen Montgomery, but it was inevitable that the genie would be out of the bottle at that point whereas it was not necessarily inevitable that he would have to hand his priceless scrapbook back between mid-March and mid-April 1992 if he was able to source something he could try to pass off of an old document he had recently received which was marked by it having at least twenty blank pages. You can say it's gibberish or stupid or you can't understand it - do so all you like - but it works better than your desperately implausible notion that it is evidence that Barrett was creating an original hoaxed Jack the Ripper diary.