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

[rjpalmer]

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.

Perhaps on the spur of the moment she chose Option 2. Perhaps afterwards she thought that was a bit silly because Mike had some samples of her handwriting, who knows? We all do things that we later regret. Equally, though, she might have made a calculated decision that Keith was only ever going to submit one sample to a handwriting expert and that, even if Mike did give him some of her personal correspondence, he wasn't going to keep sending things to an expert, nor was anyone else, especially because her normal handwriting didn't look much like the diary handwriting on its face, so why would anyone have bothered sending it to an expert for examination, especially if an expert had already ruled her out based on the 1995 sample?

Hi Herlock,

Let me add one complication for the sake of completeness and a fair-play. It's a curious set of circumstances.

Although it is little-known (because the authors of Inside Story did not report it) originally Gerard Kane also submitted a sample of his handwriting that did not resemble his usual penmanship.

This explains the weird wording of the sample that was reproduced in Inside Story, with Kane complaining that he was told that he wouldn't be bothered again and also apologizing 'for the handwriting.' The reference to 'the handwriting' refers to the earlier sample that was no reproduced, presumably because the authors were not aware of it and didn't understand the full context.

Ally Ryder explained this in a series of posts back in 2004, and unless I am mistaken both samples of Kane's handwriting were at one time available on this forum, though I've yet to chase them down.

Thus, we seemingly have the curious circumstance where both accused 'penmen' submitted handwriting that didn't resemble their usual style.






Of course, we don't know if Kane and Barrett even knew one another, and for that matter, even the friendship between Barrett and Devereux has been challenged---with some claiming that Barrett exaggerated his supposedly close friendship with Devereux. One publican at The Saddle claimed that the two men seldom even sat next to each other.

To state the obvious, Barrett and Graham obviously did know one another so at least there's a known connection, nor did Barrett mention Kane in secret confessional affidavit.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Is heavy criticism and denigration of members, who agree with you on your main conclusion, really a good strategy?

I think trying to make people on your side look stupid just reflects poorly back on yourself.

Maybe I should try it with Ike.

Try commenting on content instead of me.

[Lombro2]

Is heavy criticism and denigration of members, who agree with you on your main conclusion, really a good strategy?

I think trying to make people on your side look stupid just reflects poorly back on yourself.

Maybe I should try it with Ike.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Posted by Michael Banks above:

Ah, yes, Scott, the simple explanations are always the best.

Let's just go through your "explanations" in turn.

1. So Mike was intending to spend time and money writing and creating the third generationof the diary for no obvious reason, even though he had no penmanship skills, when he had a fully completed, old looking Jack the Ripper diary in front of him. Yes? What's the problem here? As I said his ego got the better of him. And, of course, we know that your opinion is based on an imagined diagnosis of Korsakoff Syndrome for Mike Barrett which makes you think he wasn't capable of creating a fake diary himself. And when he found out he couldn't, he turned over what he had.

2. Funnily enough, if the diary is in "Anne's disguised hand" that would explain why you wouldn't be able to see it because it's disguised. But most people can certainly see similarities in the unusual way that Anne forms certain characters which are similar to those of the diarist. If you can't see those similarities, you must be in denial. Not denial. I just can't see them. And if some people were being honest, they would admit they can't see them either. And it must either be a coincidence that Mike identified his wife as the scribe or he had spotted those similarities himself.

3. Why would "Devereux or one of his colleagues" have been investigating a quote in the diary to try and identify its source? I never said they were. What special abilities do you think Devereux or his anonymous colleagues had to find obscure English quotations? Since I'm proposing that the diary evolved through time, we can't identify who put it in or when the quote was incorporated.

4. The quirky expressions used by both Barrett and the diarist have been dealt with in a past thread: they include "so help me", his use of "regards", his use of "or I" and his use of "within". Even Caz accepts that Mike used similar quirky expressions to the diarist but believes that Mike picked them up from reading the diary, something which is highly unlikely for him to do and incorporate into his normal speech. I don't know, maybe the "quirky" expressions were Devereux's or somebody else's.

5. Your answer about Ryan makes no sense because the research notes were produced at Shirley's request after Mike brought the diary to London. But once Mike was no longer planning on rewriting the diary, there would have been no need to try and hide anything.

6. What is the basis of your belief that the diary is "second-generation morph of a spoof"? If it was "hidden in Battlecrease or some other place associated with Maybrick" why do you tell us that the diary had been found in Dodd's house? It would have to have been hidden in Dodd's house wouldn't it, to have been found there, not "some other place"? But who would have hidden it in Dodd's house around the turn of the century, and for what purpose? Michael Maybrick may have been tasked with hiding the spoof story/diary. It could have been found in Dodd's house or in Maybrick's office building.

I did say on numerous occasions that I thought Eddie came into the pub on March 9th with a story that had been told to him by the electricians, not a physical diary. Since Eddie would have already known that Mike had the diary, he knew this possible provenance would be important to Mike, who couldn't figure out where it came from.

I did suggest that Mike may have been tasked with finding ink, but he would have been kept in the dark about the creation of the diary even after it was in his hands.

You can, of course, hold whatever beliefs you want, and at least you agree with me that Mike must have been seeking a Victorian diary with blank pages to write upon those pages, which is something I suppose (thank you), but I'd like to comment that I don't find anything you've said plausible or convincing in the slightest. Naturally. Whether you care - and you probably don't - is entirely up to you but I very much doubt that anyone else will think this is the answer.

You're right, I don't care what you think. What I've presented over the past few years is a theory, which has been modified slightly at various times and will probably continue to change. People can consider parts of it possible or reject it outright. Do you honestly think you or anybody else have "the answer" - the absolute answer? Most, if not all of the time, you're just parroting Barrat anyway.

Thank you by the way, for keeping the gaslighting to a minimum this time. But I probably spoke too soon.

Well Scott, I see your story's already changed three times in the past two days.

First you told me that "While at Dodd's house on March 9, 1992, Eddie overhears electricians discussing a document that had been found there some time before". Now, maybe it wasn't found "there", i.e. at Dodd's house, but at Maybrick's office, but who found it there you don't say, nor, if it was "taken to the offices of the Liverpool Echo" why the hell it would have ended up with one of the printers but not a journalist (who would have revealed its existence in the newspaper), nor if so many people knew about it, why it was able to be kept a secret. It's bordering on conspiracy theory.

Then you told me that, "it likely would have been Devereux or one of his colleagues who cracked the "costly intercourse" problem." Now the idea that they "cracked" anything is forgotten and they actually wrote it in.

Then you told me that you couldn't see that the diary is full of Mike's quirky expressions, now you say that they were maybe Devereux's or "someone else's" even though Mike is the only person with whom they are identified.

You still haven't explained why Mike hid from Shirley his knowledge of Ryan's book in notes he gave her in the summer of 1992.

The other funny thing is that you posted in your friend Orsam's "Diary Handwriting" thread in 2018, in which he demonstrated examples of Anne's characters being similar to the diarist's, yet didn't say you couldn't see the similarities. Not a squeak out of you about that. All you mentioned was a different slant. That was an odd comment to make if you couldn't see any similarities in the first place. If you couldn't see the similarities, you had the perfect opportunity to tell Orsam but, strangely, didn't take it.

To my mind you still haven't provided a convincing explanation as to why Mike felt the need to replicate what he already had in front of him (let's not quibble about the word "replicate" again). Just saying "ego" explains nothing. As far as I can see, you seem to have decided to produce an imaginative, complicated, convoluted, fictional account which doesn't seem to be based on anything at all.

But the thing that I really don't get is why you dismiss the notion of the Barretts having created the diary themselves. It's surely the simplest and most likely solution. It explains Mike's desire for a Victorian diary with blank pages. It explains the handwriting similarities, the quirky expressions, the fact of Mike finding "costly intercourse", the hiding of Ryan in the research notes, it explains all the lies Anne told and, above all, explains the provenance of an item which is known to have come out of 12 Goldie Street. Whether you want to call it Occam's razor or Orsam's razor, the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

[Lombro2]

The scrip doesn’t have to be thrilling and action-packed. I’m sure Schtonk 1 wasn’t. It just has to make sense.

[Scott Nelson]

Posted by Michael Banks above:

Ah, yes, Scott, the simple explanations are always the best.

Let's just go through your "explanations" in turn.

1. So Mike was intending to spend time and money writing and creating the third generationof the diary for no obvious reason, even though he had no penmanship skills, when he had a fully completed, old looking Jack the Ripper diary in front of him. Yes? What's the problem here? As I said his ego got the better of him. And, of course, we know that your opinion is based on an imagined diagnosis of Korsakoff Syndrome for Mike Barrett which makes you think he wasn't capable of creating a fake diary himself. And when he found out he couldn't, he turned over what he had.

2. Funnily enough, if the diary is in "Anne's disguised hand" that would explain why you wouldn't be able to see it because it's disguised. But most people can certainly see similarities in the unusual way that Anne forms certain characters which are similar to those of the diarist. If you can't see those similarities, you must be in denial. Not denial. I just can't see them. And if some people were being honest, they would admit they can't see them either. And it must either be a coincidence that Mike identified his wife as the scribe or he had spotted those similarities himself.

3. Why would "Devereux or one of his colleagues" have been investigating a quote in the diary to try and identify its source? I never said they were. What special abilities do you think Devereux or his anonymous colleagues had to find obscure English quotations? Since I'm proposing that the diary evolved through time, we can't identify who put it in or when the quote was incorporated.

4. The quirky expressions used by both Barrett and the diarist have been dealt with in a past thread: they include "so help me", his use of "regards", his use of "or I" and his use of "within". Even Caz accepts that Mike used similar quirky expressions to the diarist but believes that Mike picked them up from reading the diary, something which is highly unlikely for him to do and incorporate into his normal speech. I don't know, maybe the "quirky" expressions were Devereux's or somebody else's.

5. Your answer about Ryan makes no sense because the research notes were produced at Shirley's request after Mike brought the diary to London. But once Mike was no longer planning on rewriting the diary, there would have been no need to try and hide anything.

6. What is the basis of your belief that the diary is "second-generation morph of a spoof"? If it was "hidden in Battlecrease or some other place associated with Maybrick" why do you tell us that the diary had been found in Dodd's house? It would have to have been hidden in Dodd's house wouldn't it, to have been found there, not "some other place"? But who would have hidden it in Dodd's house around the turn of the century, and for what purpose? Michael Maybrick may have been tasked with hiding the spoof story/diary. It could have been found in Dodd's house or in Maybrick's office building.

I did say on numerous occasions that I thought Eddie came into the pub on March 9th with a story that had been told to him by the electricians, not a physical diary. Since Eddie would have already known that Mike had the diary, he knew this possible provenance would be important to Mike, who couldn't figure out where it came from.

I did suggest that Mike may have been tasked with finding ink, but he would have been kept in the dark about the creation of the diary even after it was in his hands.

You can, of course, hold whatever beliefs you want, and at least you agree with me that Mike must have been seeking a Victorian diary with blank pages to write upon those pages, which is something I suppose (thank you), but I'd like to comment that I don't find anything you've said plausible or convincing in the slightest. Naturally. Whether you care - and you probably don't - is entirely up to you but I very much doubt that anyone else will think this is the answer.

You're right, I don't care what you think. What I've presented over the past few years is a theory, which has been modified slightly at various times and will probably continue to change. People can consider parts of it possible or reject it outright. Do you honestly think you or anybody else have "the answer" - the absolute answer? Most, if not all of the time, you're just parroting Barrat anyway.

Thank you by the way, for keeping the gaslighting to a minimum this time. But I probably spoke too soon.

[Darryl Kenyon]

Now I am no expert on ink nor admittedly have I read too many reports into the diary's ink make up. In my own personal honest opinion the diary is fake and I try not to spend too much time reading the threads compared to other threads on the site. But here we go -
Ink tests on the Maybrick diary, I believe have been inconclusive and contradictory, and tests for Chloroacetamide again, I believe have shown mixed results.

Darryl

[rjpalmer]

The impossibility of putting the Barrett Hoax Theory into a credible script.

There you go, Darryll.

It's known as the Feldman/Friedkin Hypothesis.

The question of authorship is decided on which solution makes for the best screenplay.

But even they couldn't get this turkey to trot.

[Lombro2]

One negative Chloroacetamide test.

Barrett’s Wafflemeter.

The impossibility of putting the Barrett Hoax Theory into a credible script.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And your conclusive evidence for that statement is -

And the answer Darryl is “err..um…err…hold on….um….err….is there any chance that you can give me 10 years or more to find something just like we’ve had to try and refute ‘one off instance’ but have failed abjectly leading us to resort to quotes where the words in question aren’t even next to each other in the quote itself?”

[Darryl Kenyon]

Well, we know the Barrett’s didn’t write it

And your conclusive evidence for that statement is -

[Herlock Sholmes]

The Waffleometer is going crazy.

[John Wheat]

Well, we know the Barrett’s didn’t write it so you have to come up with something.

Scott’s story gives us something to work with and therefore could be made into a screenplay, unlike yours. And at the end, we can say.

“No cherries were bruised or injured in the making of this film.”

But in all likelihood the Barretts did write the Diary and there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest they didn't.

[Lombro2]

Well, we know the Barrett’s didn’t write it so you have to come up with something.

Scott’s story gives us something to work with and therefore could be made into a screenplay, unlike yours. And at the end, we can say.

“No cherries were bruised or injured in the making of this film.”

[Herlock Sholmes]

With regard to the last point, I have already explained in numerous posts over the past couple of years, that I believe the diary is at least a second-generation morph of a spoof (not necessarily a diary) that was originally written near the turn of the twentieth century and hidden in Battlecrease or some other place associated with Maybrick. This document was later found (possibly in the 1970s) and may have been taken to the offices of the Liverpool Echo where it remained until Tony Devereux found it. The current diary was written by Devereux and his friends* sometime after 1988 (Michael Cain miniseries first broadcast) and before Devereux's death in 1991. The original spoof document may exist or it may have been destroyed.

*I may count Gerard Kane, Billy Graham and Mike Barrett in this group. But Mike only given a peripheral role in supplying writing materials, Graham probably supplying the photo album and contributing to the story, Kane doing the handwriting and Devereux mainly the storyline.

Ah, yes, Scott, the simple explanations are always the best.

Let's just go through your "explanations" in turn.

1. So Mike was intending to spend time and money writing and creating the third generationof the diary for no obvious reason, even though he had no penmanship skills, when he had a fully completed, old looking Jack the Ripper diary in front of him. And, of course, we know that your opinion is based on an imagined diagnosis of Korsakoff Syndrome for Mike Barrett which makes you think he wasn't capable of creating a fake diary himself.

2. Funnily enough, if the diary is in "Anne's disguised hand" that would explain why you wouldn't be able to see it because it's disguised. But most people can certainly see similarities in the unusual way that Anne forms certain characters which are similar to those of the diarist. If you can't see those similarities, you must be in denial. And it must either be a coincidence that Mike identified his wife as the scribe or he had spotted those similarities himself.

3. Why would "Devereux or one of his colleagues" have been investigating a quote in the diary to try and identify its source? What special abilities do you think Devereux or his anonymous colleagues had to find obscure English quotations?

4. The quirky expressions used by both Barrett and the diarist have been dealt with in a past thread: they include "so help me", his use of "regards", his use of "or I" and his use of "within". Even Caz accepts that Mike used similar quirky expressions to the diarist but believes that Mike picked them up from reading the diary, something which is highly unlikely for him to do and incorporate into his normal speech.

5. Your answer about Ryan makes no sense because the research notes were produced at Shirley's request after Mike brought the diary to London.

6. What is the basis of your belief that the diary is "second-generation morph of a spoof"? If it was "hidden in Battlecrease or some other place associated with Maybrick" why do you tell us that the diary had been found in Dodd's house? It would have to have been hidden in Dodd's house wouldn't it, to have been found there, not "some other place"? But who would have hidden it in Dodd's house around the turn of the century, and for what purpose?

You can, of course, hold whatever beliefs you want, and at least you agree with me that Mike must have been seeking a Victorian diary with blank pages to write upon those pages, which is something I suppose, but I'd like to comment that I don't find anything you've said plausible or convincing in the slightest. Whether you care - and you probably don't - is entirely up to you but I very much doubt that anyone else will think this is the answer.