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

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm genuinely wasting my time here, I really am, but - sighs - he wanted a Victorian diary from BEFORE OR AFTER JAMES MAYBRICK DIED, because he wanted to say "Yes, here's my recently-acquired old document, officer". He wanted at least twenty blank pages because that's what he already had in his possession (pedant alert: yes, technically he should have asked for EXACTLY 17 blank pages but he didn't, get over yourself.)

Now, if you can't understand this - you don't even have to agree with it - then I am genuinely wasting my time. In that event you should and indeed will stick with the theory you prefer because it fits your preferred scenario. You aren't actually wishing to think here, you just want to wish the scrapbook away. I think we all get it.

I have already included a Barrett-Hoax as a potential provenance. How about the likes of you acknowledges that maybe the Barrett-Hoax is not the only theory in town and that no theory has yet been categorically proven (and certainly not by ambiguous phrases in the Maybrick scrapbook)? Can you even do it?

It's not making sense, Ike.

"He wanted at least twenty blank pages because that's what he already had in his possession".

But what he had in his possession (according to you) was a large black undated leather bound old photograph album/scrapbook with 63 pages of handwriting. What was so important about the 20 blank pages that he singled this out above everything else? I mean, if Martin Earl had been able to source a large black undated leather bound old photograph album/scrapbook with 63 pages of handwriting but only 15 blank pages, this wasn't wanted by Mike. It was excluded and would, supposedly, have been rejected. Even though it would have matched exactly what he had in his possession minus a few blank pages, Mike didn't want it?

Is that what you are telling us?

IT. IS. NOT. MAKING. SENSE.

[Herlock Sholmes]

This one was originally addressed to Ike, and I don't know if it has been dealt with in posts I have yet to catch up with. Unlike some, I am not permanently glued to the site, waiting to pounce on every new diary post as it appears, with the confidence of one who thinks they know what they ain't had time to learn [are you ready, boots? Thank you, Nancy Sinatra].

I understand it was indeed Feldman who first alerted Keith to the existence of a red Victorian diary which had been in Anne's possession, but my timeline is telling me that she handed it over to Feldman, who had passed it on to Keith by 27th August 1995. Apologies if anyone was misled by my suggestion that Anne gave it directly to Keith when he asked her about it. At least it shows how much attention to detail matters, whoever is posting. And it makes a change from Anne's claim to have involved a middle man with that other diary, by giving it to Tony Devereux, who handed it straight over to Mike like a good boy, without ever breathing another word about it to a living soul.

Anyhoo, if it was Melvin Harris who tipped off Feldman about the existence of the red diary in Anne's possession, would Harris have been tipped off directly by Mike Barrett, do you think, or was there another middle man, in the form of Alan Gray, who had typed up the details he was given by Mike in his affidavit dated 5th January 1995? Considering we have Gray on record telling Mike in December 1994 that Harris was urging him to get a detailed statement sworn, would it not be wildly unlikely if Gray had not passed on the results of that urging to Harris, hoping he might get paid for his pains, when Mike was clearly paying him sweet FA? Would Harris not have asked Gray for a progress report on the statement, if he had heard no more about it until a frustrated Mike could finally wait no longer to contact Harris himself and kick up the sh*t with the red diary? I suspect Harris had read the affidavit typed up by Gray very early on, but had his reasons for not broadcasting any of the details until his attention was specifically drawn to the red diary, and it was just too juicy a morsel not to dangle in front of Feldman's nose. Mike was clever, very clever. It remains to this day the one morsel that every Barrett hoax believer has to hang onto for dear life, because without it they have nothing - nothing at all - to support a liar's claims to have obtained the other diary from an auction sale.

Petty digs aside…

I don't know what you mean when you say that my question was "originally" addressed to Ike. It was always addressed to him (first asked in #1003 and then repeated in #1020 from which you have quoted) although he never answered it (naturally!). It was never addressed to you so I don't know why you've felt the need to tell us that you're not permanently glued to this site, waiting to pounce on every new diary post as it appears. Who ever suggested you were?

I don't find any of your evidence-free speculations about Barrett's and Harris's behaviour during 1995 at all convincing. Harris had no reason or obligation to circulate Mike's affidavit to anyone, despite Ike criticising him for keeping it "secret and non-circulating", and no known reason to think that other researchers were unaware of it. As you seem to admit, he was the person who told Feldman about the red diary, with Feldman then telling Keith. Harris was in no position to know whether the red diary story was true or not but he enabled it to be investigated.

Further, the red diary is not an important "morsel". On its own it tells us nothing because Mike could simply have been wanting to see what a Victorian diary looked like, as Anne claimed. The important morsel was the fact that Mike was seeking a Victorian diary from the period 1880 to 1890 with a minimum of 20 blank pages. Keith didn't find out about this until 2004. Strangely, given its importance, Mike had not a word to say at any time during his life about this requirement of his. He never mentioned it to anyone and we wouldn't know about it today had it not been for the advertisement. Despite Mike Barrett suddenly being, in your words, "clever, very clever", it's odd that he cunningly thought to incorporate the entirely innocent acquisition of the red diary into his forgery story, with the date of its acquisition fitting perfectly with his claim to have written the diary in eleven days, yet when confronted by Keith Skinner in 1999 as to why Anne's cheque was dated 18th May 1992 he was flustered and couldn't come up with an explanation, having obviously forgotten about the late payment. Seems to me more like someone telling the truth than lying.

Oh, and while I appreciate you're not waiting to pounce on every new diary post as it appears, there are quite a few questions I've asked you to which you've not responded frommonths ago. Two that strike me out of many relate to what you are able to hear on two of the Barrett/Gray recordings which seemed, at one time, to be very important to you but which you don't appear to want to talk about any more.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Most of the people on this forum don’t follow or can’t follow the arguments being debated. As tedious and repetitive as they are, I can follow them.

So I have to thank Caz for coming back again and again to clean house. She, for one, does come up with new ideas and questions like, Why would Anne pay for a useless item? It must have some use. Oh yeah…

Some people are Fountainheads. Most of the rest are “secondhanders”.

Well, Lombro, I appreciate that you have difficulty following the arguments being debated but the question as to why Anne paid for a "useless item" has already been answered. Had she not done so, the bailiffs would eventually have knocked at the front door of 12 Goldie Streetto collect the sum of £25 (plus additional fees) or seize goods to the same value. The "useless item" legally had to be paid for either by Mike or Anne, and it would seem that Mike didn't have the cash, so it fell to Anne. Which means she had no option but to pay for it.

While we're chatting, did you read Ike's #1293 and his #1308? I appreciate that they say different things but do either of those posts articulate what you had in mind when you said that Mike "wanted a similar one for plausible deniability with maybe copying some of the text in it". Ike didn't mention the possibility of Mike "maybe" copying some of the Ripper text into the Victorian diary and it's not clear why you think he might have done so but, that aside, has Ike captured the "plausible deniability" that you were talking about?

If so, we'll finally have confirmation that what you were saying was gibberish. If not, perhaps you can now explain it in your own words.


(I have low hopes of an answer, let alone a vaguely cogent one)

[Lombro2]

If she was in on the forgery, she would have known about the useless item early enough to send it back.

I thought two heads would be better than one but I guess not. Here we got three or four that aren’t.

[rjpalmer]

If she was in on the forgery, she would have known about the useless item early enough to send it back.

Hi Herlock,

In reference to Lombro's above post, can you remind us again?

Did Martin Earl have a rule stipulating that blank diaries could be returned if "deemed unsuitable for forgery"?

Or was it only "if not as described"?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

In reference to Lombro's above post, can you remind us again?

Did Martin Earl have a rule stipulating that blank diaries could be returned if "deemed unsuitable for forgery"?

Or was it only "if not as described"?

Hi Roger,

According to information obtained from Martin Earl, as posted by Caz in 2020, a customer of Earl's could only return an item if was "not as described". This means that if an item was accurately described but was "useless" to the customer for any reason, including for the purposes of forgery, it could not be returned at any time and had to be paid for.

The premise of Lombro's post that if Anne was "in on the forgery" she "would have known" about the red diary is also questionable. Even if she'd been the mastermind behind the whole operation, she could still have delegated the task of getting a Victorian diary to her husband but she might not have been the mastermind. Her only role might have been to help Mike out by writing the text of the diary in the old photograph album. In which case, it is entirely possible that the first time she knew about the red diary was in May 1992 when Mike asked her to pay for it.

[Observer]

"So he was. I believe the first hymn sang at the funeral was "The Old Rugged Cross", better known in the East End as "The Old Rugged Lechmere"

This is nonsense. Bury may well have been the Ripper. Lechmere and Maybrick no chance whatsoever.

Get a grip

[John Wheat]

"So he was. I believe the first hymn sang at the funeral was "The Old Rugged Cross", better known in the East End as "The Old Rugged Lechmere"





Get a grip

You are wrong.

[caz]

Petty digs aside…

I don't know what you mean when you say that my question was "originally" addressed to Ike. It was always addressed to him (first asked in #1003 and then repeated in #1020 from which you have quoted) although he never answered it (naturally!). It was never addressed to you so I don't know why you've felt the need to tell us that you're not permanently glued to this site, waiting to pounce on every new diary post as it appears. Who ever suggested you were?

I don't find any of your evidence-free speculations about Barrett's and Harris's behaviour during 1995 at all convincing. Harris had no reason or obligation to circulate Mike's affidavit to anyone, despite Ike criticising him for keeping it "secret and non-circulating", and no known reason to think that other researchers were unaware of it. As you seem to admit, he was the person who told Feldman about the red diary, with Feldman then telling Keith. Harris was in no position to know whether the red diary story was true or not but he enabled it to be investigated.

Further, the red diary is not an important "morsel". On its own it tells us nothing because Mike could simply have been wanting to see what a Victorian diary looked like, as Anne claimed. The important morsel was the fact that Mike was seeking a Victorian diary from the period 1880 to 1890 with a minimum of 20 blank pages. Keith didn't find out about this until 2004. Strangely, given its importance, Mike had not a word to say at any time during his life about this requirement of his. He never mentioned it to anyone and we wouldn't know about it today had it not been for the advertisement. Despite Mike Barrett suddenly being, in your words, "clever, very clever", it's odd that he cunningly thought to incorporate the entirely innocent acquisition of the red diary into his forgery story, with the date of its acquisition fitting perfectly with his claim to have written the diary in eleven days, yet when confronted by Keith Skinner in 1999 as to why Anne's cheque was dated 18th May 1992 he was flustered and couldn't come up with an explanation, having obviously forgotten about the late payment. Seems to me more like someone telling the truth than lying.

Crikey, Herlock,

I only used the word 'originally' because I was quoting from a post of yours which you had addressed to Ike way back in this thread, and I didn't know if you had gone over the same ground since. I have a life and am struggling to read all the posts in order, which I think I mentioned. You do tend to repeat your arguments and questions over and over, when the kiddies in your class have insolently failed to speak up or pay you all the attention you think you so richly deserve. Get over yourself. I'm 71, not 7!

Another rummage in my timeline, using a different search, has given me the information that it wasn't Harris who told Feldman about the red diary after all, it was your old friend and serial liar, Michael Barrett, in late June 1995. He told Feldman that Anne had bought a Victorian diary in 1992 and he had the receipt for it. Feldman asked Anne about it and she said yes, she had bought a Victorian pocket diary and still had it. My question to self would be what took Mike so long, if he considered this to be strong evidence in support of his forgery claims. At least the red diary investigation was taken up after that revelation, which came five months after Mike's affidavit.

I now have no idea what Alan Gray and Melvin Harris had been doing since the January, assuming Harris would have asked Gray to keep him fully informed. It now appears that Harris wasn't the one who 'enabled' the red diary to be investigated. Fannying about, picking his nose, biting his nails, scratching his nuts, writing condescending letters to all and sundry? Possibly all at once, but not, apparently, even advising Gray, a professional investigator, to look into this red diary business, which, according to the affidavit, was a crucial piece of hard evidence, by then in Anne's possession, claimed by Mike to be an earlier attempt to source the raw materials for Maybrick's diary. So much criticism is directed at Feldman, Shirley and their various researchers, for not moving quickly enough [despite not knowing about the affidavit for another two years], but Gray and Harris - who both had axes to grind and vested interests in nailing and exposing the alleged forgers at the earliest opportunity - always seem to get free passes for sitting on their arses. Funny that. What is the excuse for them not doing their own investigations, if time was of the essence before evidence disappeared into office shredders? If it's the fact that torture is against the law, and if Mike steadfastly refused to show a living soul his receipt for the red diary or his famous ticket for the black one, what can you do?

Bottom line: no researcher, of any persuasion, no matter how intrepid, resourceful, well funded and time rich, can dig up evidence from nowhere. If it doesn't exist, and may never have existed, one is snookered, to put it politely.

Considering that Mike seemed so keen to prove the diary was a forgery created by himself and his wife, do you not wonder why he had so little to say about how he had set about obtaining the red diary, when claiming it was intended for faking Maybrick's? D'you think he'd have made do with it if only it had not been 'very small' when it arrived? No, me neither. Why was he 'flustered' in April 1999 and unable to come up with one of his usual quips? If he recalled nothing about an early attempt to obtain a diary for 'the' diary, which produced one for two years after Maybrick's death, was it because, like you, he knew this diary was of no importance? He evidently didn't think it might be important, back in January 1995, to mention the fact that he had asked for a diary with a number of blank pages. It would have been one tiny pearl of truth in an ocean polluted by ten types of crap. But no - not important enough.

But you are right about the fact that Mike did indeed cunningly think to incorporate the entirely innocent acquisition of the very small red diary into his forgery story, and for pretty obvious reasons. He wanted something that would stick like sh*t to a blanket in the minds of people who would not otherwise have trusted a single syllable escaping from his lips; people who had been itching since 1993 for something to justify and solidify their suspicions about the Barretts. Where he went badly wrong was to introduce the late Tony Devereux, after initially claiming he'd had nothing to do with it, and then sandwich the poor sod, while still alive, between the sourdough of the raw materials and the writing, and his fatal heart attack. Why did Mike jump on Tony's grave in January 1995 after letting him rest in June 1994? If he was smarting about Anne's claim to have given the diary to Tony, was it really worth the mucking fuddle he made of the entire forgery chronology, in order to try and get a reaction out of her when she saw Tony's name being dragged through the dirt? It would be consistent with Mike's increasingly obsessive need for contact with his wife and child, and he knew Anne would instantly be able to pick apart every dating error, misdirection, lie and half-truth anyway. What did Mike want out of the affidavit? Does it read like he was genuinely trying to clear his own guilty conscience as a fraudster? How was he going to achieve that if Anne was the intended recipient? Or was this much more about his broken relationship with her than the diary? Was he hoping that Anne would care about the kind of people who would suck up all his lies like mother's milk and spew them out again as a coherent narrative after a whole lot of shakin'? Twist and shout.

Some hope. Anne didn't care. She doesn't care. What would be the point? She's in a no-win situation today. If Martin Fido's observation that she would go off into girlish giggling when she was nervous or wanted to change the subject was after July 1994, it was not surprising if she was finding it tough to have to remember every little thing she had already said, true or not, in the face of so much suspicion, when people were just waiting for her to contradict herself again, slip up - or trip over. How could anyone blame her for not wanting to revisit those days and be put through it all again like a performing seal? It's not even about the truth. If she lied about the diary coming from the Graham family, it doesn't follow that she must have helped to fake it in the first few days of April 1992. But that's all we ever hear. If Anne did decide to open up one day, the same people would always find clues in whatever she said, to argue that she was lying because of her involvement in creating a hoax. You know it. Everybody knows it. And it's not as if there was never an alternative, but no Barrett hoax conspiracy theorist is going to take off their trusty tin foil hat and swap it for a sparky Battlecrease bonnet, to sift through all the available evidence again from the beginning: 9th March 1992.

Mike could simply have been wanting to see what a Victorian diary looked like if he was dead curious but initially suspicious - as anyone sane would be - about the one signed by Jack the Ripper and dated 1889 after the final entry. An 1891 diary was not too far out in that context, and would be enough to satisfy his curiosity, so he went ahead and asked for it to be sent to him. His suspicions, that some local scally was having a laugh at his expense, could be tested to some extent by asking for a minimum number of blank pages in his Victorian diary to see what was possible. Two birds with one stone: what does a typical Victorian diary look like? Are there many around these days that are unused or partly used?

Wear the Battlecrease bonnet when thinking this one through. It might even suit you. Just don't answer the door to the postman.

Job done.

Next.

[caz]

But at the same time as he knew what an office receipt book was, Barrett didn’t know what a Victorian Diary might look like. As in, it might have dates so he should try to remember when James died, or he should ask for a blank journal of the right time period instead.

Why do I feel like a bumbling purveyor of nonsense?

I'll see if I can find you one, Lombro2. Sure to be one bumbling along any minute now...

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Yes of course Barrett knew what it was after all him and Ann penned it.

It would have been really helpful, John, if you could have included some punctuation, brushed up your grammar and learned how to spell the names of the main characters since 1992.

Let me help:

'Yes, of course Barrett knew what it was. After all, he and Anne penned it.'

Have you warmly embraced one of Mike's less popular claims, that the handwriting was "fifty-fifty"?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I'll see if I can find you one, Lombro2. Sure to be one bumbling along any minute now...

Love,

Caz
X

I think I just fell into my own trap there.

[rjpalmer]

If he suspected someone else of having faked the diary claiming to be by Jack the Ripper, he'd have had good reason for wanting to know if it was dead easy to obtain diaries from the right period with enough blank pages for that purpose.

For starters, the arithmetic--if one can even call it that--is wrong.

Barrett asked for a minimum of twenty blank pages--the pre-existing diary you believe he had examined down the boozer had--what is it?--63 handwritten pages with others. So, if this was Mike's motivation, why didn't he ask for a minimum of 63 blank pages (or 32 pages blank on each side) or an approximation thereof?

That's the first obvious inconsistency.

Further, if a man is selling the Mona Lisa painted on the back of a pizza carton, and the potential buyer is understandably suspicious, wouldn't he want to know how easy it is to obtain a pizza carton rather than a blank piece of canvas?

If Barrett had seen what is obviously a photo album (or scrapbook or guard book) why didn't he ask Earl for one of those?

But worse than all of this, once Mr. Earl called Mike on the phone and told him that, "yes, I found a blank diary," why didn't Barrett simply thank Mr. Earl and hang up the phone and save himself 25 pounds that he didn't have?

Mike found out what he needed to know (according to your theory) and it only cost him a trunk call to Oxford (which begs the question why Mike didn't simply inquire at local Liverpool booksellers).

Why did he buy the bloody thing?

Obviously--undeniably--Barrett wanted to OBTAIN a blank diary, not merely see if one COULD be obtained.

Meanwhile, the only figure we've been given for diary is 25 pounds. A bloke bought it in a pub for 25 pounds.

This leaves the ridiculous scenario where Barrett, worried out of his socks, goes out and buys a tiny blank diary for 25 pounds to assure himself that he won't be bilked when buys the Diary of Jack the Ripper for 25 pounds.

He finds out from Mr. Earl that one can indeed find blank diaries, but he buys Ed Lyon's suspicious diary anyway and has only managed to double his expenditure from 25 pounds to 50 pounds for no good reason.

The kindest thing I can say is, "no thanks."

[John Wheat]

It would have been really helpful, John, if you could have included some punctuation, brushed up your grammar and learned how to spell the names of the main characters since 1992.

Let me help:

'Yes, of course Barrett knew what it was. After all, he and Anne penned it.'

Have you warmly embraced one of Mike's less popular claims, that the handwriting was "fifty-fifty"?

Love,

Caz
X

Who are you the Grammar Police?

[Lombro2]

Who are you? The thought police?

Or the camp guard making sure no one has a Great Escape from the Lack of Concentration Camp?