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

[Iconoclast]

Years of embarrassing efforts like Robert Smith totally unrelated prison attempt

Robert Smith in his History of the Diary of Jack the Ripper claimed that Jonathon Green's Dictionary of Jargon contained the claim that the prison service used the term 'one-off duty' in the LVP/early Edwardian period. Caveat: Let me stress that I'm typing this over a cup of tea at breakfast downstairs and the Smith book is upstairs so I may have got some of the latter details wrong.

But - if the claim is true - why would 'one-off duty' be 'embarrassing? I'm intrigued. I don't have the source material so - if anyone does - please let us all know what the truth of Smith's claim is because 'one-off duty' for a prison officer does sound rather like the use of 'one-off' and an event which we are told is impossible.

Anyway, we'll know more when someone explains this in more detail.

[Lombro2]

Since when does writing out a story in pen constitute doing 50% of the work?

[Lombro2]

If One Off was definitive, you should be quite happy to hear the true and honest and provable story of how the forgery was fashioned--not going to every effort imaginable to prove it all over again by proving that your creation narrative might be possible, that your creator was consistent once in his life, and providing a string of excuses for the proven lies and nonsense and asking why your excuses can't be excused.

Some people, for some reason, have a linear approach to language where everyone is lumped together and published print is king rather than original and creative people who can be found anywhere and whose words and phrases can be found floating in the air or hidden in the pages of a diary.

The debunk is bunk.

But Gary B said it best:

Bonkers!

[Herlock Sholmes]

I guess it's fifty-fifty if Michael Barrett was consistent for once. That's how you discern the truth from his lies. A one-off instance of consistency.

This is the fun you have when you're a debunker debunking bunk. If it wasn't bunk, I'd probably get all agitated and knit-picky. Instead, I'm calm, collected and comical.

One off instance proved categorically, beyond all doubt that the diary is a fake. Neither you nor anyone else has ever, not once, come up with an even vaguely plausible explanation for this impossibility. No one has ever had the courage of their alleged convictions to consult an etymologist to ‘disprove’ this and there’s only one explanation for that. They know that David’s point can’t be disputed. Years of embarrassing efforts like Robert Smith totally unrelated prison attempt, to stuff about horses, people still separating the phrase ‘one off’ and wittering on about that irrelevance, then Ike invents his own phrase an ‘off instance.’ Years and years of effort and not one single solitary example in the entirety of literature can be found of a phrase of this type used in the same way that the forger used it. Surely even you can’t think that this isn’t a bit ‘strange,’ a bit ‘worrying?’ But no. You plough on regardless. You obfuscate, you bring up unrelated suggestions, you base your opinion entirely on wish thinking because you don’t want to face what everyone else knows. That you can’t dispute a fact. And it’s a fact that James Maybrick couldn’t have used ‘one off instance’ in 1888/9. Therefore the diary is a proven forgery.

David has produced:

One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary


Job done…hand David a cigar…and let’s all move on.

[Lombro2]

So I was right. Mike said Anne had a multiple personality which explains her handwriting. I guess he knew no one could disguise their handwriting like that for 63 pages. Or he had to explain away the handwriting analysis. The handwriting doesn't match anyway, so when doesn't it matter? Oh.... right!.....

MB The person who write this diary, according to Anna Koren, the world’s [greatest] handwriting expert and what have you, has got a multiple, and I mean multiple, because I’m quoting,-

KS A multiple personality.

MB Thank you.

KS That’s Anne?

MB: That’s Anne.

KS: She says whoever wrote this has a schizoid personality. That is Anne Graham. So, therefore, Anne Graham, when she actually wrote the Diary, she wrote in her other personality. Does she become schizoid to order then?

MB: Well put it this way. I haven’t seen my daughter for six years.

None of this helps the Barrett Hoax theory. Unless you believe Anne was a schizo and Jack the Ripper wasn't.

[Lombro2]

I guess it's fifty-fifty if Michael Barrett was consistent for once. That's how you discern the truth from his lies. A one-off instance of consistency.

This is the fun you have when you're a debunker debunking bunk. If it wasn't bunk, I'd probably get all agitated and knit-picky. Instead, I'm calm, collected and comical.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock - I received the following private message.

"I was looking at Inside Story and found this interesting snippet on page 209 of the authors' interview with Anne Graham:

"She can't recall whether her failed attempt to destroy the diary happened before or after Barrett first took the diary to show to Doreen Montgomery but presumes it was afterwards, as she confidently expected Montgomery to throw the diary out".

Yet we've just been treated to a letter Doreen Montgomery sent to Sally Evemy on 22 April 1992, wherein a chirpy' and 'friendly' Anne told Doreen that she was taken precautions so the diary wouldn't be lost from theft or fire.

The claim Anne made to the 'Inside' authors appears to be the total opposite of the truth, in view of what she actually said at the time to Doreen. So much so that one can probably call it a lie!

I hasten to add that Keith Skinner didn't have Doreen's letter to Sally of 22nd April 1992 at the time Anne was interviewed in preparation for Inside Story, so a challenge wasn't possible. Anne wouldn't even have known that letter existed.

Anne 'MI-5' Graham obviously couldn't keep her story straight. I always had her down as the weakest link in the scam.

Cheers.

Apologies for my slow reply Roger. That is interesting. She was hardly Kim Philby was she?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Herlock - I don't know if this helps, but I had a look in the archives (a forbidden practice in these parts) and the last time Ike was pontificating about the 'Y' on the cassette tape (which occurred during the same exchange that supposedly had the '50/50' comment) was on the 'Incontrovertible' thread on 8-22-2023 at 7:02 a.m.

At that time, Ike made the following comment: "PS Before you ask again, I don't have the original tape for the "Y" moment - and have had to rely on what Seth noted for his own records."

This sounds as if Ike never heard the tape in question and is just relying on someone else's notes.

Cheers.

Thanks Roger, yes that does explain a lot.

It shows that these days one never knows who can be regarded as scrupulously accurate and who can't.

[Iconoclast]

Herlock - I don't know if this helps, but I had a look in the archives (a forbidden practice in these parts) and the last time Ike was pontificating about the 'Y' on the cassette tape (which occurred during the same exchange that supposedly had the '50/50' comment) was on the 'Incontrovertible' thread on 8-22-2023 at 7:02 a.m.

At that time, Ike made the following comment: "PS Before you ask again, I don't have the original tape for the "Y" moment - and have had to rely on what Seth noted for his own records."

This sounds as if Ike never heard the tape in question and is just relying on someone else's notes.

Cheers.

Well, that saves me a lot of searching, then, doesn't it? My memory was faulty ("Hold the front page!").

Still, this creates a problem because the wider and quite summary provided by Seth does not appear on any of the November 1994 tapes that I have access to (all the ones every one now has access to) and listened to so far. This makes me think there must be more tapes but for whatever reason they are not yet digitised. People are busy, I understand, and there's shedloads of material. Nevertheless, Seth's summary came from somewhere so I now need to see if I can locate where that is.

[rjpalmer]

Herlock - I don't know if this helps, but I had a look in the archives (a forbidden practice in these parts) and the last time Ike was pontificating about the 'Y' on the cassette tape (which occurred during the same exchange that supposedly had the '50/50' comment) was on the 'Incontrovertible' thread on 8-22-2023 at 7:02 a.m.

At that time, Ike made the following comment: "PS Before you ask again, I don't have the original tape for the "Y" moment - and have had to rely on what Seth noted for his own records."

This sounds as if Ike never heard the tape in question and is just relying on someone else's notes.

Cheers.

[Herlock Sholmes]

For the record, I have quoted Seth Linder who, presumably, based his summary and quotations on what he had heard (perhaps on the original recording?). I wouldn't wish to imply in any way that Seth would have not been scrupulously accurate, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to do so either.

If it transpires that I can't find it, I will have to ask him if he recalls how he sourced it. After twenty-plus years, I would understand if he isn't immediately able to recall (nor if he doesn't have the time or inclination to find the actual answer).

It's not a war and it's not a Reith lecture. It's a discussion forum where not everything can realistically be researched to the nth degree. Life (for those of us who have one) often gets in the way and prevents us from spending hours reassuring ourselves that everything we say here is 100% correct. If you feel that you have consistently hit 100% over your many years on this forum, I'm sure you'll be keen to let us know.

Ike, I have absolutely no idea whether a Seth Linder would have been scrupulously accurate. The problem is that the tapes I've listened to are of very poor quality which makes interpreting them very difficult. Unless Seth Linder was in possession of much better copies or had much better hearing than I do, he must surely have been capable of making a mistake. For all I know, he wrote a note to himself wondering if the transcript had been written "fifty fifty" and then later confused himself into thinking Barrett had said this on the tape. I really don't know but I've already provided a possible interpretation for the "fifty fifty" comment whereby Barrett was saying that he and his wife were fifty-fifty responsible for the entire diary, not just the writing of the manuscript. That would be consistent with everything else he said.

I've continued on to listen to the recording on November 6, 1994 and I believe I can hear at 40:24 Gray asking "Have you got samples of your handwriting that you can give me?" to which Barrett replies "Anne wrote it". Then on the next tape, marked as November 8 1994 but which appears to have been recorded on November 7, 1994, I think I can hear at about the half an hour mark Barrett saying, "Anne actually wrote the manuscript" and "Anne wrote the f*cking diary".

So Barrett seems consistent time after time - on every single tape between 4th and 7th November in fact - in saying that Anne wrote the manuscript and I can't see him seriously having said to Gray that he wrote half of it.

[Herlock Sholmes]

If we live in the real world momentarily, we have Mike Barrett needing a genuine Victorian document in March 1992 because he'd promised to take one to London to show Doreen Montgomery. He's creating a hoax and he's got a fish on a hook, all fine so far. He orders a book with at least twenty blank pages in mid-March. Tight, but still fine. By late March the clock has ticked too far and all he's got is a small red 1891 diary (but it least it had some blank pages!) so all he can do is postpone his arrangement with London. Well, that's what we would all do ...

... but not Mike Barrett. O no. He just nips along to a handy auction at O&L on March 31 and finds a document he can use (even if it is Edwardian according to the date stamp).

He and Anne then take a couple of days to mull over the whole handwriting thing (whilst the linseed oil is drying and completely disappearing), and then on April 2, they set to work.

What would we all do at this point, living in the real world?

Would we write and write and write and write right up until April 12 (our eleven magical days) leaving it to the very last minute before completing it, or would we - aware that it was taking so long to write out 63 pages (less than 6 a day on average, but still so demanding!) - scrap most of the doggerel and the sections which were planned to be crossed-out, and thereby produce, say, a forty-page 'diary' in around six or seven days?

Why push it so far to the end of those mythical eleven days when timings were so tight?

It's almost like it's all just a stupid fantasy of Mike Barrett's which has essentially no bearing whatsoever on what actually happened in the early days of April 1992 as he pored over James Maybrick's scrapbook when he should have been doing some concrete research into it.

I don't find hypothetical arguments about what we would do if we were forging a diary very helpful, Ike.

Everyone would do it differently. Most of us would never even dream of it.

But I just don't see what the problem is with someone abandoning Plan A and moving to Plan B. Nor do I see what is being suggested as having happened in this case as being in any way miraculous.

Lots of projects get completed by the skin of the teeth, in the nick of time, with moments to spare, often with a sprinkling of good fortune. That's just life.

Mind you, I am surprised that you have time to post about all this. Have you given up looking for the "fifty fifty" exchange?

[rjpalmer]

Hi Herlock - I received the following private message.

"I was looking at Inside Story and found this interesting snippet on page 209 of the authors' interview with Anne Graham:

"She can't recall whether her failed attempt to destroy the diary happened before or after Barrett first took the diary to show to Doreen Montgomery but presumes it was afterwards, as she confidently expected Montgomery to throw the diary out".

Yet we've just been treated to a letter Doreen Montgomery sent to Sally Evemy on 22 April 1992, wherein a chirpy' and 'friendly' Anne told Doreen that she was taken precautions so the diary wouldn't be lost from theft or fire.

The claim Anne made to the 'Inside' authors appears to be the total opposite of the truth, in view of what she actually said at the time to Doreen. So much so that one can probably call it a lie!

I hasten to add that Keith Skinner didn't have Doreen's letter to Sally of 22nd April 1992 at the time Anne was interviewed in preparation for Inside Story, so a challenge wasn't possible. Anne wouldn't even have known that letter existed.

Anne 'MI-5' Graham obviously couldn't keep her story straight. I always had her down as the weakest link in the scam.

Cheers.

[Iconoclast]

You haven't exactly helped me out, Ike. I've ended up listening to more than two hours of audio only to discover that I'd been given duff information. We still seem to be no nearer to finding this exchange. And having told me categorically yesterday that you'd heard the tape yourself, you're now not even sure of this. It's not exactly a watertight case you're making, is it?

For the record, I have quoted Seth Linder who, presumably, based his summary and quotations on what he had heard (perhaps on the original recording?). I wouldn't wish to imply in any way that Seth would have not been scrupulously accurate, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to do so either.

If it transpires that I can't find it, I will have to ask him if he recalls how he sourced it. After twenty-plus years, I would understand if he isn't immediately able to recall (nor if he doesn't have the time or inclination to find the actual answer).

It's not a war and it's not a Reith lecture. It's a discussion forum where not everything can realistically be researched to the nth degree. Life (for those of us who have one) often gets in the way and prevents us from spending hours reassuring ourselves that everything we say here is 100% correct. If you feel that you have consistently hit 100% over your many years on this forum, I'm sure you'll be keen to let us know.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Because I'm a human (unlike some) and I err. I'm sorry if you have so much higher standards than everyone else. My mistake was to attempt to help you out but your ingratitude is off the scale - once again I put it to you that such ingratitude would not be tolerated in 'real life'.

If I find it, great - I must have actually heard it. If I don't, then perhaps it's just a bad memory on my part. I'm not going to be losing any sleep about an honest mistake (if mistake it was). We're not in a courtroom here (though some posters act like we are).

You haven't exactly helped me out, Ike. I've ended up listening to more than two hours of audio only to discover that I'd been given duff information. We still seem to be no nearer to finding this exchange. And having told me categorically yesterday that you'd heard the tape yourself, you're now not even sure of this. It's not exactly a watertight case you're making, is it?