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

[John Wheat]

You have put it in a punchier way than I would have dared, John.

"No amount of bullshit on this thread has changed any of this."

Hard to disagree.

Thanks Herlock.

Cheers John

[rjpalmer]

"Thinks it was pre Doreen... thinks Mike got it by phoning up Yellow Pages – wanted to see what a Victorian Diary looked like – All Ann can clearly remember is having to pay £20 for it – is going to search for cheque stubs !"

'all she can clearly remember....'

Yet Anne's memory seems to have improved later on, as she now recalled being angry about Mike's purchase, throwing the cheque at him, etc.

From Keith Skinner:

"The cheque was not paid until May 18th 1992 and the bookseller has Mr Barrett marked as a "late payer". The cheque was signed by Anne Barrett but the rest was filled in by Michael.

Anne's explanation of this is, that when Michael asked her for the money, she was so "bloody mad" at such extravagence [sic], when they were so broke, that she signed her name and threw the cheque across the floor for him to complete. This is probably why the cheque stub merely has written on it "book - £25".

More details that must have slipped her mind but were later recovered. Even a memory of her arm movement as the cheque flew like a paper airplane across the room.

[Lombro2]

Nice to see you’re all of one mind. Too bad it’s on a shelf marked ab…..

Maybe you can all put your mind together and write a script. I’m sure it will be Schtonk To High Heaven.

[rjpalmer]

I guess when you believe in something as ridiculous and unpopular as the Maybrick Diary, asserting your rugged individualism is the only solace.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So your theory is that Mike and Anne forged the diary and presented it themselves, as if it’s a normal thing to do, and then suspected that anyone might think they were presenting their own forgery.

So Anne didn’t want to mention the red diary they bought because it would look suspicious. If she didn’t forge the Ripper Diary, she would have said, “Look at the research we did already by buying a Victorian Diary!”

Your theories don’t really sound so good when you write it down straight. Otherwise it might make sense and be script worthy like the Hitler Diary stories.


The story of the [Hitler Diaries] scandal was the basis for the films Selling Hitler (1991) for the British channel ITV, the German film Schtonk! (1992), and the television series Faking Hitler (2021).

Selling Barrett anyone? (2026)

As usual, Lombro, you don't make clear who you're addressing when you refer to "your theory", and you'll probably claim it was someone other than me. I certainly don't recognize your summary as relating to anything I've said.

I'm specifically talking about, "as if it's a normal thing to do", and, "suspected that anyone might think they were presenting their own forgery". I don't know where those things have come from.

It is a fact that neither Mike nor Anne mentioned the purchase of the red diary to Shirley or Doreen. My question to Caz was why Mike didn't mention it to Shirley, his intended co-author, if he had thought it sufficiently important to buy it for £25 in order to see what a Victorian diary looked like as part of his investigation into whether the Ripper diary was genuine. I didn't ask her about Anne.

I'd like to be able to comment on what your theories sound like when written down straight but you are obviously too terrified to articulate them, knowing they will read like gibberish.