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

[caz]

You could be right, Ike, that it was Gray with all the "ah ahs", but it sounded to me like it was Mike cockily correcting what Gray thought he had gathered - from Mike - that the diary was all in Anne's handwriting. Gray had just seen an example of Mike's handwriting, which he thought looked the same as the writing in the diary itself, so he said: "By Christ I've tumbled you at last." Mike appeared to go along with this "Eureka" moment, upon which Gray had to remind him that he had previously said it was all Anne's handiwork - prompting Mike's rapidly shifting sands "fifty-fifty" rejoinder. The conversation was all about the handwriting at that point, not who composed the text.

Mike was soooo transparent and childlike in his responses to suit the moment, that it's little short of miraculous how he was able to render people incapable of seeing right through him.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Hi Caz,

Again bumped from the false dichotomy thread ...

In Mike's final days, it was all change again, when he tried to take sole credit for 'translating' the diary's contents using the word processor and claimed that Anne had had nothing to do with it. He was no longer claiming that he or Anne had written the diary; his only concern was to go down in history as the person who had single-handedly transcribed it. And even that was a lie.

If memory serves (prompted by your reference to 'In Mike's final days ...') you are referring to his pompous Last Will and Testament? Worryingly for those of us who assume Mike Barrett was a victim of circumstance and also of a cruel scam to do him out of loadsamoney plus his wife and daughter and that he was in fact a totally upright pillar of society who would never dream of telling anything other than the God's honest truth (and what have you) you appear to be implying that he was wont to change his mind and his accounts of things and just generally be a tad unreliable in his recall, masking the true underlying perfection of his intention and his memory of events?

I have to say that I think you're being a bit harsh on a man who went to prison but didn't go to prison, who hit his wife and daughter but didn't hit his wife and daughter, who had a stroke but didn't have a stroke, that had two days to live but didn't have two days to live, that might have had to lose two fingers but didn't lose any fingers, who wrote a hoax but didn't write a hoax, whose wife handwrote a hoax but didn't handwrite a hoax, who had a ticket for the purchase of the Victorian scrapbook but didn't have a ticket for the purchase of the Victorian scrapbook, and for whom no personal clarity of claim or even conversation was ever free of observers and listeners alike misinterpreting what he meant. He really was the ultimate victim here and I feel you should show him more respect.

What I find odd is that anyone would freely admit that they are still buying into Mike's 'alternative' diary 'facts'.

But, Caz, he confessed it was a hoax. Why can't you get that into your head? The guy confessed! Why would he lie about that?

Regards,

Mr Ike Iconoclast
Barrett-Believer

[rjpalmer]

Gray had just seen an example of Mike's handwriting, which he thought looked the same as the writing in the diary itself, so he said: "By Christ I've tumbled you at last."

Unless Keith Skinner’s vast collection of archival material contains the original cassette tapes that Gray was describing, ie., tapes from the years of Mike’s secret career as a freelance writer in the 1980s, it is pure conjecture that the handwriting was Mike’s.

At one point (in Inside Story) Barrett claims that Anne wrote those articles, so, if true, she would naturally have listened to the cassette tapes. We are further told by Keith Skinner in his introduction to Anne’s book that she was a meticulous organizer of the Maybrick documents and that her finding aid is (or was) still used at Kew.

Who was more likely to have labeled these tapes, Anne or the heavy drinking Bomgo Barrett?

As far as I know, Gray recognized Anne’s lettering!!!

[Iconoclast]

Unless Keith Skinner’s vast collection of archival material contains the original cassette tapes that Gray was describing, ie., tapes from the years of Mike’s secret career as a freelance writer in the 1980s, it is pure conjecture that the handwriting was Mike’s.
At one point (in Inside Story) Barrett claims that Anne wrote those articles, so, if true, she would naturally have listened to the cassette tapes. We are further told by Keith Skinner in his introduction to Anne’s book that she was a meticulous organizer of the Maybrick documents and that her finding aid is (or was) still used at Kew.
Who was more likely to have labeled these tapes, Anne or the heavy drinking Bomgo Barrett?
As far as I know, Gray recognized Anne’s lettering!!!

We need to be clear about this - Alan Gray was not basing his brilliant detective insight on the entire entry written on the cassette recording of one of Barrett's interviews with clairvoyant Dorothy Wright. He was basing it upon a single letter - the letter 'Y'. From Seth Linder's notes which paraphrase what he eventually wrote on page 152 of Inside Story:

Suddenly there is a breakthrough. MB shows him a letter he has written to Doreen Montgomery. AG is struck with the handwriting. ‘I’ve seen that Y somewhere else. I haven't seen that in the Ripper Diary, have I. By Christ I've tumbled you at last. You wrote the manuscript'.

Whether Anne or Mike wrote on that cassette tape, it was only one letter which 'gave the game away'. Gray was not claiming that all of the writing was reflective of the scrapbook's - just the letter 'Y' (presumably in 'Dorothy').

So what you should have claimed was that 'As far as I know, Gray recognized Anne’s letter!!!'.

[Herlock Sholmes]

We need to be clear about this - Alan Gray was not basing his brilliant detective insight on the entire entry written on the cassette recording of one of Barrett's interviews with clairvoyant Dorothy Wright. He was basing it upon a single letter - the letter 'Y'. From Seth Linder's notes which paraphrase what he eventually wrote on page 152 of Inside Story:

Suddenly there is a breakthrough. MB shows him a letter he has written to Doreen Montgomery. AG is struck with the handwriting. ‘I’ve seen that Y somewhere else. I haven't seen that in the Ripper Diary, have I. By Christ I've tumbled you at last. You wrote the manuscript'.

Whether Anne or Mike wrote on that cassette tape, it was only one letter which 'gave the game away'. Gray was not claiming that all of the writing was reflective of the scrapbook's - just the letter 'Y' (presumably in 'Dorothy').

So what you should have claimed was that 'As far as I know, Gray recognized Anne’s letter!!!'.

Why are you relying on Seth Linder's notes, Ike? Why not just quote directly from the tape, now that Caz has identified the passage? She seems to be able to hear it all as clear as crystal. So just quote directly from the tape.

Perhaps, while doing so, you could also clear up for us if Gray was commenting on a letter Mike had written to Doreen Montgomery, as Seth Linder apparently says in his notes, or was remarking on the "y" in the name "Dorothy Wright" written on a cassette tape, which is what is stated on page 152 of Caz's book. They can't both be correct, can they? I'm so confused.

[Yabs]

I edited the part of the tape you’re discussing and had another try at slowing it down and cleaning it up a bit.
Not the best, but it’s there for ease of reference.

https://streamable.com/6yaxed?src=player-page-share

[rjpalmer]

Whether Anne or Mike wrote on that cassette tape, it was only one letter which 'gave the game away'. Gray was not claiming that all of the writing was reflective of the scrapbook's - just the letter 'Y' (presumably in 'Dorothy').

So what you should have claimed was that 'As far as I know, Gray recognized Anne’s letter!!!'.

Ike, Old Man, if you strain any harder at my meaning you might get a hernia!

I wrote Anne's "lettering"--ie., her handwriting. I did not mean to imply multiple individual letters were recognized (but see Lord Orsam's 'handwriting' thread for further discussion on this interesting topic).

You're quite right to be concise, though: one letter is all it took, much like Jay Hartley and the "Special K" on the 'Maybrick' watch convinced him that he had found the scribe.

What's good for Hartley is good for Gray.

Seriously though, my only point was to dispute the insistence that Gray thought he recognized Barrett's handwriting, which might influence any analysis of the rest of the conversation.

Anyway, it's stupid. Why pretend that Mike meant he wrote half the diary and handed the pen to Anne. He consistently identified her as the penman, or penwoman rather.

No one is forcing you to accept this, but there's no point in pretending otherwise.

It is worth bearing in mind that Mr. Gray ultimately concluded that the diary was created by Tony Devereux and Anne Graham. According to his children, Tony wrote in block lettering, so who does that leave as Gray's pen person?

Regards.

[Scott Nelson]

Did Tony write in block lettering all the time? How well did his daughters know what he was up to from the late 1980s to the time of his death?