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

[John Wheat]

Can you be more specific please? Otherwise, it's just like saying Kosminski killed all five Whitechapel victims and that's what happened.

We need a story that makes sense and explains everything. Did Mike see letter Ms and then go looking in the history books? Did his wife have multiple personalities like he said and she could turn into Mr Hyde and write like a maniac? Did he study Hitler and his fake Diary and then think I'll make my guy a frustrated artist too?

Please, go out on the limb a little further, take a stance, and maybe stick your neck out. Why did Anne pick a fake family provenance instead of the readily available 'fake" Battlecrease one? Help me write that seamless narrative!

No because it's ******* obvious.

[Lombro2]

Then again, I agree with Scott. The Barrett Hoax Theory with Barrett doing it should be discarded for the foreseeable future and/or eternity, and we need to start spitballing anything. Harry Dam anyone? A rough Arthur Sullivan libretto?

[Lombro2]

Can you be more specific please? Otherwise, it's just like saying Kosminski killed all five Whitechapel victims and that's what happened.

We need a story that makes sense and explains everything. Did Mike see letter Ms and then go looking in the history books? Did his wife have multiple personalities like he said and she could turn into Mr Hyde and write like a maniac? Did he study Hitler and his fake Diary and then think I'll make my guy a frustrated artist too?

Please, go out on the limb a little further, take a stance, and maybe stick your neck out. Why did Anne pick a fake family provenance instead of the readily available 'fake" Battlecrease one? Help me write that seamless narrative!

[John Wheat]

Anyone else want to come up with a c--k and bull tale of how James Maybrick's scrapbook got into Mike Barrett's hands?????

I mean, it's not like they can all be correct!

Mike and Anne Barrett wrote the Diary that's what happened.

[Iconoclast]

Anyone else want to come up with a c--k and bull tale of how James Maybrick's scrapbook got into Mike Barrett's hands?????

I mean, it's not like they can all be correct!

[Scott Nelson]

The photo album could have existed in Anne's family for years, as she claimed, because it was her father's and was only used as a scrap/picture book. It was only after she got it back from Devereux, was there diary handwriting in it.

Barrett, either unhappy with the way it looked and read, or driven by his own self-ego, sought to create his own version of the spoof in another diary, but it couldn't be used because of the date stamp issue and he couldn't find another substitute in time. Also having to create a new storyline with the self-imposed deadline to bring it to London, Barrett simply turned over what he was originally given by Anne or Tony.

[Iconoclast]

He was not, of course, told that '1891' was "printed numerous times on each pair of opened pages".

No, obviously that was my phraseology, but he was told, "... dated 1891 throughout – three or four dates to a page" which is not dissimilar.

As you say, he may have been so excited by the phrase 'Nearly all the pages are blank' that he ignored the dating information he had just been told (assuming this was in the order he was told this information) - we'll never know now, I guess.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Then I must apologise as I read your comment as meaning that Earl had suggested to Barrett that the pages of the 1891 diary were completely blank (i.e., no dates).

Having checked #5,701 of The Greatest Thread of All, I realise that Earl had told Barrett the following:

A small 1891 De La Rue's Indelible Diary and Memorandum Book, 2.25" by 4", dated 1891 throughout – three or four dates 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'

What you were inferring was that Barrett decided to go ahead and order what Earl had located because it was effectively blank whilst he simultaneously ignored the fact that it was "dated 1891 throughout".

Personally, I don't think the fact the 1891 diary was blank is a reason to ignore the '1891' printed numerous times on each pair of opened pages, but you evidently think Barrett did whilst seeking a document he could use to create a hoaxed diary of Jack the Ripper.

Personally, I don't think this makes any sense whatsoever even in Mike Barrett's most irrational (sozzled) periods.

No worries, Ike.

I suppose it all depends how Barrett interpreted what he was being told by Earl, how carefully he was listening to every word, and whether he laser-focused in with delight onto the fact that he was being told that nearly all the pages in the diary were blank. He was not, of course, told that '1891' was "printed numerous times on each pair of opened pages".

[Iconoclast]

The source for Martin Earl telling Barrett that nearly all the pages in the 1891 diary were blank is Caz. I mentioned her post a couple of days ago in this very thread. It's #5701 in your "One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary" thread, posted on August 4, 2020,

Then I must apologise as I read your comment as meaning that Earl had suggested to Barrett that the pages of the 1891 diary were completely blank (i.e., no dates).

Having checked #5,701 of The Greatest Thread of All, I realise that Earl had told Barrett the following:

A small 1891 De La Rue's Indelible Diary and Memorandum Book, 2.25" by 4", dated 1891 throughout – three or four dates 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'

What you were inferring was that Barrett decided to go ahead and order what Earl had located because it was effectively blank whilst he simultaneously ignored the fact that it was "dated 1891 throughout".

Personally, I don't think the fact the 1891 diary was blank is a reason to ignore the '1891' printed numerous times on each pair of opened pages, but you evidently think Barrett did whilst seeking a document he could use to create a hoaxed diary of Jack the Ripper.

Personally, I don't think this makes any sense whatsoever even in Mike Barrett's most irrational (sozzled) periods.

[Herlock Sholmes]

(My emphasis.)

Have you actually read the advert?

‘Unused or partly used diary dating from 1880-1890, must have at least 20 blank pages’

Do I need to emphasise the word 'dating'? Is this not precisely what you meant?

Ike, mate, you don't seem to have understood what I was saying. My post of 5th February, which for some weird reason you've only decided to reply to today, began "His advert didn't refer to dated or undated documents." This was in response to your post which read: "If Barrett had sought a dated document from 1870-1900, it could not have been to forge a Maybrick diary for reasons that he was brown bread by the middle of 1889. He could have sought an undated one from earlier than 1870 or later than 1900 ...". So, when I went on to punctuate my point by saying "No mention was made of dates", it meant no mention was made in the advert specifically of dated or undated documents. To ask for a diary "dating from 1880 to 1890" is to ask for a diary manufactured or created in that period. It doesn't follow that it has to be dated. That's why I said no mention was made of the diary being dated or undated. You always seem to assume that by asking for, say, an 1889 diary, that document had to be dated 1889 on its face in a way that this date couldn't be removed. In my mind, Barrett was likely thinking of a diary in which someone had written entries dated by the diarist as being from days in 1889 but which entries could easily be ripped out from the diary to leave only blank pages. So there was a date range mentioned, of course, but not any specific dates as such for which the required diary needed to be dated.

[Herlock Sholmes]

This wasn't addressed directly to me, but I am the 'she' in this context - and also the cat's mother, as Monty is reminding me because I'm not paying him enough attention.

I merely meant people who had ever known either Mike or Anne on a personal basis, socially or otherwise, before or after 1992, who would have been more qualified than most of us here to comment on whether or not these two individuals would have been willing, able or likely, to collaborate on a literary hoax at any point during their marriage. Usually you get a few coming out of the woodwork as a result of a big local story, whether it was when the first diary book was published in October 1993 and became a bestseller, or when Mike hit the headlines again in June 1994, with his claim to have forged it. But in this case, nobody who knew Mike wanted a piece of the action by publicly supporting his claim, with any relevant inside knowledge about him as a person, and nobody who knew Anne as a person is known to have said that she would have been loyal enough to stand by Mike and say nothing, let alone help him to make it less of a complete shambles, all the while he had supposedly been planning and trying to pull off a diary scam more audacious than Konrad Kujau before him.

Love,

Caz
X

The previous paragraph of mine to the one you quoted commenced "In fairness to Caz..." so you were the "she" being referred to.

You still haven't identified those people whose views you say I've dismissed nor what those views are. If I don't know what they are, how can I have dismissed them?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Source, please, for this blatantly convenient claim which I've never heard of before.



You don't need Caz or anyone else's confirmation that the wording is consistent, blah, blah, blah. That's a statement of the blindingly obvious, but not necessarily a statement of the truth. You don't really think that's helpful, you're just trying to make it look like Caz has scored an own goal. Give it a rest, man - your comments are so transparent.



OMG, what were we doing not that many posts ago???????

The source for Martin Earl telling Barrett that nearly all the pages in the 1891 diary were blank is Caz. I mentioned her post a couple of days ago in this very thread. It's #5701 in your "One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary" thread, posted on August 4, 2020,

It's always helpful in a debate to find common ground. It means we can move on to another topic. So I don't know what you mean when you say I don't really think it's helpful. I thought it was very helpful, and I was grateful to Caz, which is why I said so.

I'm not aware that anyone explained to me "many posts ago" what is so wrong with the wording of the advert, bearing in mind that it needed to be short and concise to keep the cost down, and keeping hindsight out of it, least of all Caz. That's why I asked her. If you think she's explained it, feel free to identify the post number.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Roger,

I'm still not aware of anyone who knew the Barretts personally in the relevant period who has said they weren't capable of jointly forging the diary, even though bizarrely, I've been told that I've dismissed those views!

I'm not aware of any such statements about the Barretts' alleged inability, Herlock, and there is virtually nothing in any of the Diary books about the opinions of Mike and Anne's acquaintances. It's a strange claim.

My understanding, from Inside Story, is that Barrett had nearly no friends, other than Tony Devereux, and he was dead. I don't know who these people supposedly were. I do know that one of the Devereux sisters, on hearing Barrett described as a 'scrap metal merchant,' was quite surprised because she had heard that Mike was a journalist.

As for Anne, the only friend I recall being mentioned is Audrey, and she remembered Anne complaining about Mike writing a book but would say no more because she didn't want to be seen as betraying Anne's trust.

To me, that sounds more like the statement of someone who may have suspected Mike, rather than one who was eager to rubbish the idea!

If these people are ever identified, let me know.

Thanks.

[rjpalmer]

I worry constantly about your blood pressure, mate ...

My blood pressure is fine, Ike, but your evasive response is duly noted.

I am constantly scolded for the suggestion that Anne was a less than an enthusiastic participant in Mike's scheme (forgery, but let's pretend its stolen goods) even though the record suggests otherwise. Or at least some of the record. I'm willing to hear the counter-argument from the likes of Orsam or Peter Birchwood, but not from the 'gang of fencers' crowd.

And pro tip (not that I'm much of a tippler): if you want beer to pour over your breakfast Wheaties, it's usual to buy it the night before.

Cheers.

[Iconoclast]

His advert didn't refer to dated or undated documents. It just asked for a diary from a certain time period. No mention was made of dates. An 1891 diary would have been suitable if it hadn't had a date on it, or if the date could have been removed.

(My emphasis.)

Have you actually read the advert?

‘Unused or partly used diary dating from 1880-1890, must have at least 20 blank pages’

Do I need to emphasise the word 'dating'? Is this not precisely what you meant?