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

[John Wheat]

The Barretts wrote the diary.

[Lombro2]

"Happy Hunting!"

Happy Peripherology.

[Lombro2]

Thank you very much for the Aintree Iron. Second biggest hit?

Lily the Pink was the only pop song my Dad ever liked. He didn't thank me very very much for playing Little Red Rooster or Hey Joe at full blast.

I don't think Florie Maybrick would have liked the Scaffold very much.

I wonder if Roger McGough would be the equivalent of Fred Weatherly, Michael Maybrick's partner in rhyme, whose works featured in the Christmas Day 1884 edition of The Times, with none other than our dear old friend Richard Crashaw putting in an appearance in the adjacent column. [Thank you very much, Rob Clack, for sending me the particulars many moons ago.]

You really couldn't make it up - so it's fortunate that I didn't, as Clacky is my witness.

Love,

Caz
X

So, Caz, if you were entertaining Paul McCartney’s brother, might you not want to sing for him for a hour like Mary did with her guest?

[Lombro2]

I would sing my heart out but Mike McGear would slice my throat and rip it out.

[Lombro2]

That's the joy of being a diary supporter, Markus. Don't actually check Barrett's story until it's too late, and then shout, "see, no proof!!"

I don't know what kind of sports you play in your neck of the woods but, where I am, the team that scores the most points, and has the most wins, wins, NOT the team that has the most ties. It's also NOT the one who has the most excuses as in a player being too drunk and injured and "the scorekeeper was out to lunch". And it's definitely NOT the team that keeps saying, "I need another video review; Check the tapes". And "Time ran out! It's not my fault!"

How much injury time do you need? No injury time in this game. Sorry.

[Iconoclast]

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.

There is no doubt that the recordings that we have (which are on Casebook) are very poor quality and that is somewhat unfortunate. I genuinely suspect that Seth must have had access to cleaner, original copies because the November 6, 1994, recording (which I had misdated in my database as November 7) is hard work to labour through. That said, I can at least inform you that Mike's 'it was fifty-fifty' comment comes on that tape at 19:55 (many thanks to a friend who spotted it). Now, the conversation before it and the conversation after it is undoubtedly not an easy listen. I have tried changing the playback speeds but I need to do more work to be more certain of the actual conversations. Seth seemed very confident so he must have had a cleaner recording which - to date - I don't have the good fortune to have.

Hope this helps.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

The tape labelled 6th November [a Sunday] features Mike's "fifty-fifty" claim at just before the 20 minute mark. I tracked it down by having Inside Story propped open at page 152 while listening. Alan Gray has just said to Mike that: "You said Anne did it; you're still saying it's all her handwriting." I can then hear Mike saying: "Ah ah ah ah ah, it was fifty-fifty."

On page 154, Seth recounts the events of the following day, Monday 7th November, when Alan and Mike are able to go to Outhwaite & Litherland, but Mike has given different years for his supposed auction attendance, initially claiming it was in 1987 - which was before the Barretts moved to Goldie Street and Mike met Devereux. Alan says: "Now we've had another date. We had 1990 the other day."

Bumping this from the false dichotomy thread, can I just add that - according to RJ Palmer's logic - it must have been Alan Gray who misunderstood what Mike had said that day and indeed 'the other day'". When Mike Barrett said 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, or 1991 instead of 1992, we all know that really he said 1992 but that Alan Gray misreported him.

Or was he lying every time his lips moved, when making claims about when and how the diary ended up in his hands?

No, no, no, no, no, Caz - Mike Barrett never spoke a word which wasn't true. But ears can be very unattuned to such virtue and wisdom and may - without malice, note - hear incorrectly from time to time to every time.

By the way, my own ears thought it was Gray saying "Ah ah ah ah ah" and then Mike replying "It was fifty-fifty". I could be wrong though.

Cheers,

Ike