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

[caz]

Hi Kattrup,

In fairness to the person you've amusingly referred to "I Con", he did admit that "printed numerous times on each pair of opened pages" (if that's the quote you mean) was his own phraseology. I didn't know they were Keith Skinner's own words. I guess the key point is that Barrett wasn't expressly told that there were "printed" dates on every page of the diary. I'm sure it's very common for people, when being told a lot of information in a short space of time, not to fully take in or process all the information. It's easy to focus on the bit that sounds good. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if Barrett (as the potential forger) was waiting to hear how many blank pages were in the 1891 diary and, when he heard that nearly all the pages were blank, he immediately agreed to purchase it, thinking that it might work for the forgery. Plus it wasn't like he had any other options. I've been posting here for weeks now and have yet to hear a single coherent reason why the Barretts couldn't forged the diary. Not one. It's amazing really.

No, Mike didn't immediately agree to 'purchase' the 1891 diary. How many times do you need to be corrected on the basic facts?

Mike ordered the diary on approval, on hearing whatever description he was given over the phone. Martin Earl would normally ask the customer for payment up front before the supplier sent an item out, but in some cases, as with Mike, he agreed to let him see the 1891 diary before committing himself to purchasing it.

Keith Skinner, trying to be as objective as possible, described nearly all the pages as blank, but we don't know if Martin Earl did the same. None of the pages were literally blank, so it would have been rather misleading to tell a customer, who had specifically requested a diary from 1880-90, with at least twenty blank pages, that "nearly all the pages" in an 1891 diary were "blank", if he knew there were printed dates for that year throughout, and the diary itself was tiny.

If the supplier had not provided such details to Martin Earl, or if Mike was only told it was for the year 1891, he was totally within his rights, in accordance with Martin's stated business terms, to return the diary under no obligation to purchase it. The same applied to items that were fully described - there was no obligation to buy an item unless the customer was satisfied and intended to keep it. If the item wasn't returned or paid for within a specified time it would be followed up over the phone, but Anne could still have returned it with the excuse that it was an oversight, and wasn't what her silly husband had asked for in the first place. There was zero chance of it being any use, if its purpose had really been for writing up Maybrick's rambling thoughts from February 1888 to May 1889, so even if Mike had been expecting something entirely different to arrive in the post, it would have been simple enough to return it, save themselves £25, and leave no unwanted paper trail for the transaction.

Mike claimed the diary was created in order to pay the mortgage, but I suspect everybody knows that has to be nonsense.

Would Anne have taken out a mortgage in 1988 for their move to Goldie Street, if it meant having to come up with a new and improved writing project for Mike to take on, in the hope of making some serious money this time? Four long years later, in April 1992, Mike was finally ready to take their money maker to a literary agent, but they still had to wait another 18 months to know if Shirley's book would ever clear all the hurdles and be published. Meanwhile the diary itself went to Robert for one pound.

Finally, with a bestseller on their hands in October 1993, and substantial royalties to come, their marriage was in such trouble that three months later Anne walked out with Caroline. Mike must have asked himself what was the point of paying the mortgage on a house that was no longer a home, and which he never wanted to move to in the first place.

A long con such as this would have to be one of the least effective ways to meet the monthly mortgage repayments.

Contrast this with the possibility of Mike seeing the diary for the first time on 9th March 1992 and leaping into action without a second thought, instinctively gambling on its potential: "If anyone's going to solve the mystery of Jack the Ripper - and write the book - please God let it be me!"

[caz]

If the diary wasn't physically written until after 9th March 1992, how could there possibly any independent evidence about the diary in a physical form before that date?

And if the only people who knew about it in theoretical form prior to it being physically created were the forgers themselves, how could there possibly be any "independent" evidence for it?

So, if that's your reason for ruling out the diary being Anne's handiwork, it doesn't seem very convincing Caz.

No, that had nothing to do with whose handwriting is or isn't in the diary. I was merely stating a fact, that all the evidence we have on record starts from 9th March 1992, and not a day before, and none of that evidence indicates to me that the diary is Anne's handiwork, or even likely to be. Naturally that's just my opinion, and you are free to reject it, even if you cannot do so on sound evidential grounds, but just want to argue for the possibility anyway.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Lombro2,

You really need to ask Palmer such questions, as our resident psychoanalyst, because I couldn't begin to explain why Anne - oh so quiet throughout 1992 and 1993 - would have gone on to make the wholly unnecessary claim, whether true, partially true or false, to have used the diary to help and encourage Mike with his writing ambitions, if the bloody thing was in her own handwriting and she was finally appreciating just how dim she had been, while all around her were shouting "fraud" and, in Mike's case, shouting louder than anyone: "It's a fraud - everybody knows it. It will eat your pets..." sorry, I got carried away there.

When Anne said she had given the diary to Mike via Tony Devereux back in 1991, the first of many inevitable questions was "why?" The explanation she gave was tied in with her life with Mike up until that time, so the diary became something to keep a frustrated writer occupied and out of the pub.

Was this the sort of cover story anyone would have told if they had created a hoax for their frustrated writer of a husband who was too fond of the demon drink at the best of times, but was now on the brink of spilling more beans than he had ever spilled warm beer? I think we need Palmer to explain the workings of Anne's mind.

Would the same cover story not have worked better for someone whose husband had brought the diary home from the pub in March 1992? Anne could have appealed to the same frustrated writer in him to use it as the basis for a story, keep him occupied and out of the pub, and not to show it to anyone if he'd got it from somewhere he shouldn't. That way, it wouldn't have mattered if the diary was genuine or not; Victorian or from the swinging sixties, and the story could have been his. But Mike saw things differently. He wanted to see a book about the diary on the shelves, but with his name attached to it as the man with the means to unmask Jack the Ripper. He couldn't do that with a fictional story, or by taking the diary to a dealer in antiques, so he contacted someone in the publishing business.

Anne was not happy about it, and wanted little to do with Doreen and Robert Smith, but she presumably trusted their instincts - and her own - that the diary had not just fallen off a tree. The book itself was clearly old enough to have been in anyone's family for many a decade, so that appears to have been good enough for her to tell her tale and not be 'terrified' that anyone would prove the contents were recent - let alone in her own hand.

Love,

Caz
X

When you talk about "the bloody thing" being "in her own handwriting" I think you're confusing two different things.

While it's true that Mike Barrett, but only Mike Barrett, repeatedly said that the diary was in Anne's handwriting, what he surely must have meant what that she wrote it in a disguised hand. Even he must have appreciated that the handwriting of the diary was not the same as Anne's handwriting, which, to my mind, makes it all the more powerful that he insisted that she wrote it.

So you seem to be trying to decipher the wrong puzzle if you are wondering why Anne would have told people that she used the diary to help and encourage Mike with his writing ambitions if the diary was in her handwriting. Because it clearly wasn't in her handwriting. That doesn't, however, mean she didn't write it in a disguised hand. If she did, it would then provide a simple explanation for the thing you say you can't begin to explain.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, Mike didn't immediately agree to 'purchase' the 1891 diary. How many times do you need to be corrected on the basic facts?

Mike ordered the diary on approval, on hearing whatever description he was given over the phone. Martin Earl would normally ask the customer for payment up front before the supplier sent an item out, but in some cases, as with Mike, he agreed to let him see the 1891 diary before committing himself to purchasing it.

Keith Skinner, trying to be as objective as possible, described nearly all the pages as blank, but we don't know if Martin Earl did the same. None of the pages were literally blank, so it would have been rather misleading to tell a customer, who had specifically requested a diary from 1880-90, with at least twenty blank pages, that "nearly all the pages" in an 1891 diary were "blank", if he knew there were printed dates for that year throughout, and the diary itself was tiny.

If the supplier had not provided such details to Martin Earl, or if Mike was only told it was for the year 1891, he was totally within his rights, in accordance with Martin's stated business terms, to return the diary under no obligation to purchase it. The same applied to items that were fully described - there was no obligation to buy an item unless the customer was satisfied and intended to keep it. If the item wasn't returned or paid for within a specified time it would be followed up over the phone, but Anne could still have returned it with the excuse that it was an oversight, and wasn't what her silly husband had asked for in the first place. There was zero chance of it being any use, if its purpose had really been for writing up Maybrick's rambling thoughts from February 1888 to May 1889, so even if Mike had been expecting something entirely different to arrive in the post, it would have been simple enough to return it, save themselves £25, and leave no unwanted paper trail for the transaction.

Mike claimed the diary was created in order to pay the mortgage, but I suspect everybody knows that has to be nonsense.

Would Anne have taken out a mortgage in 1988 for their move to Goldie Street, if it meant having to come up with a new and improved writing project for Mike to take on, in the hope of making some serious money this time? Four long years later, in April 1992, Mike was finally ready to take their money maker to a literary agent, but they still had to wait another 18 months to know if Shirley's book would ever clear all the hurdles and be published. Meanwhile the diary itself went to Robert for one pound.

Finally, with a bestseller on their hands in October 1993, and substantial royalties to come, their marriage was in such trouble that three months later Anne walked out with Caroline. Mike must have asked himself what was the point of paying the mortgage on a house that was no longer a home, and which he never wanted to move to in the first place.

A long con such as this would have to be one of the least effective ways to meet the monthly mortgage repayments.

Contrast this with the possibility of Mike seeing the diary for the first time on 9th March 1992 and leaping into action without a second thought, instinctively gambling on its potential: "If anyone's going to solve the mystery of Jack the Ripper - and write the book - please God let it be me!"

Well, Caz, I think you're plain wrong. I believe I'm the Johnnie-come-lately who needs to correct you on the facts.

To say Mike "ordered" the diary is misleading. He was offered it - being the only Victorian diary with blank pages which Martin Earl had been able to source - and he agreed to purchase it. The word "order" implies that it was specifically what he wanted, which clearly wasn't the case.

It's also false to say that he ordered (or purchased) it "on approval". That's just wrong. It suggests he could send it back if he didn't like it. That's not how Martin Earl conducted his book selling business. Mike could only have sent it back, within a limited time frame, if the item had been misdescribed to him. As the item had almost certainly not been misdescribed, he was on the hook. He legally had to pay for it.

It's odd how in the same breath as telling us that Keith Skinner described nearly all the pages as "blank", you now try to tell us they weren't blank! So Keith got it wrong did he?

Look, the advertisement asked for a diary with blank pages so we can be pretty damn sure that, just like Keith Skinner, the owner of the 1891 diary regarded it as being filled with blank pages. We can also be pretty sure that the Mike was told that the 1891 diary was filled with blank pages. Not "literally" blank pages. Just blank pages. In other words, pages with no writing on them, which is the definition of a blank page for a diary.

I don't know what you mean when you say "if Mike was only told it was for the year 1891" he was under no obligation to purchase it. Of course he was under an obligation to purchase it. He could only return it if it wasn't as had been described to him. That's what was stated in Martin Earl's terms and conditions. How have you still not understood this?

But this is all theoretical and academic. The issue which started this discussion was your claim that Anne didn't need to write the cheque in May 1992. As you finally now appear to concede, by that date, it was too late to return the diary, whether misdescribed or not, because Earl's terms required returns to be made within a month. Your fanciful suggestion that Anne could nevertheless have returned it, "with the excuse that it was an oversight", is made without any evidence whatsoever and in total contradiction of Martin Earl's terms and conditions. Your claim that "it wasn't what her silly husband asked for in the first place" is only true in the sense that he asked for a diary in the period 1880 to 1890 but, as he would have been told that he was being offered an 1891 diary, that would not have helped him. I also thought that, according to you, Anne was of the understanding that her husband had only wanted to see what a Victorian diary looked like. So why would she have known what conditions he had placed with Martin Earl in the first place in respect of blank pages?

For these reasons I believe you are quite wrong to say "it would have been simple enough to return it". Not in May 1992 it wouldn't have been. It would have been far from simple. By that time Martin Earl would already have needed to have paid his supplier wouldn't he? So tell me Caz. How was he supposed to have got his own money back from that supplier? The entire argument is absurd.

Similarly, your evidence-free statement that it's "nonsense" that Mike was having difficulty paying the mortgage doesn't make sense. You ask a silly question when you say "Would Anne have taken out a mortgage in 1988 for their move to Goldie Street, if it meant having to come up with a new and improved writing project for Mike to take on, in the hope of making some serious money this time?". How could Anne possibly have known in 1988 what the global financial situation, as well as her own family's financial situation, would be like four years in the future? Thousands of people take on mortgages which it later transpires they can't afford, often because of rising interest rates or a change in their personal financial situation. So, yes, absolutely, Anne and Mike might easily have taken on a mortgage in 1988 which they found it difficult to keep up the payments on. Unless you can provide some evidence of the Barretts' healthy financial position between 1988 and 1992, how can you possibly say that a need to keep up the mortgage payments wasn't Mike's motive for creating a forged diary in 1992?

If, in October 1993, Mike "asked himself what was the point of paying the mortgage on a house that was no longer a home, and which he never wanted to move to in the first place",so what? How could he possibly have predicted what the future held for his marriage in March 1992?

Given that Mike received thousands of pounds from the diary during 1993 and 1994, it seems to me like it was an effective way to meet monthly mortgage payments.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, that had nothing to do with whose handwriting is or isn't in the diary. I was merely stating a fact, that all the evidence we have on record starts from 9th March 1992, and not a day before, and none of that evidence indicates to me that the diary is Anne's handiwork, or even likely to be. Naturally that's just my opinion, and you are free to reject it, even if you cannot do so on sound evidential grounds, but just want to argue for the possibility anyway.

Well the argument is that Anne's handiwork (i.e. the manual writing of the diary) was done after 9th March 1992 so there wouldn't be any evidence of her handiwork before 9th March 1992, would there? In fact, the argument is that the photograph album wasn't even purchased until late March 1992. So I'm not sure what "evidence" you think could possibly exist prior to 9th March 1992.

To say "there's no evidence" for something is the weakest possible argument anyone can make unless there is good reason to say that if evidence existed we should know about it.

If all that happened prior to 9th March 1992 was that some research was carried out into Jack the Ripper and the Maybrick murders and some preparatory drafting of the diary text was done, what possible evidence could there be of this? And if there was some evidence, such as Mike visiting Liverpool library, how would any investigator ever have found it out?

As for evidence after March 1992, it remains curious that Anne shapes certain characters in her handwriting in an unusual way which, in some cases, resemble the way the diarist does it. It's also curious that Mike repeatedly and insistently said that the diary was in Anne's handwriting even though, on the surface, it doesn't look like her handwriting. So he really did get lucky that it's an observable phenomenon, which many Casebook posters have agreed with, that there is this uncanny similarity in the formation of these characters in the diary and in Anne's personal correspondence.

At the very least, I can't see how we can rule out that it was Anne. And it looks like you can't provide any reason for ruling out that it was Anne.