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.

[Lombro2]

The only thing good about being a second hander is when you have English as a second-hand language.

Your theory is that Anne and Mike had the diary in their possession so it was forged not stolen because you and your amigos think you proved it's a forgery so it's a forgery and, since we don't know anyone else who had it in their possession, then Anne and Mike did it in the den with a dip pen.

My theory is it was in a serial killer stash. Simple. Cut that with Orsam's razor!

[Herlock Sholmes]

The only thing good about being a second hander is when you have English as a second-hand language.

Your theory is that Anne and Mike had the diary in their possession so it was forged not stolen because you and your amigos think you proved it's a forgery so it's a forgery and, since we don't know anyone else who had it in their possession, then Anne and Mike did it in the den with a dip pen.

My theory is it was in a serial killer stash. Simple. Cut that with Orsam's razor!

I imagine Orsam's razor would wonder why the serial killer James Maybrick wrote of fleeing with a key which didn't exist, forgot where he'd placed Kelly's breasts, mistook his wife's godmother for her aunt, referred to drinking at a well known 20th century public house in Liverpool, write in different handwriting to his own, confined his accounts of the murders to what was publicly known, wrote with an ink containing chloroacetamide, ensured that the ink was freshly applied more than 100 years after his death and, above all, used blatantly anachronistic expressions: "bumbling buffoon", "spreads mayhem", "top myself" and above all, the literally impossible "one off instance".

The diary is a fake.

[Herlock Sholmes]

'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.

Hi Roger,

Thinking about Anne's supposed annoyance about Mike's extravagance reminds me of the reason I once read Caz putting forward for why Mike lied when he said he bought the Word Processor to transcribe the diary. Her theory was that he might have been hoping to claim the money he paid out for the Amstrad back on expenses, even though he never did so. This struck me as absurd because, for an expenses claim, he was always going to need to produce the receipt which, in the case of the Amstrad WP, was six years old in 1992, so it was never going to work. If, however, he truly had this in mind, and the purchase of the red diary was genuinely part of his research into Victorian diaries, as Caz now wants us to believe, surely he would have attempted to claim the £25 paid for the 1891 diary back on expenses. After all, he would have had proof of payment made in May 1992 (presumably in the form of a receipt), after he'd been given the green light for the diary project from Doreen, and signed a collaboration agreement. If expenses had been in his mind for the Word Processor, they must have been in his mind for the 1891 diary. But if expenses weren't in his mind for the 1891 diary, we have to go back to the question of why he lied about the Word Processor and why he didn't tell anyone that he'd bought it in 1986 to enable his freelance journalist work.

Also, going back to the question of Melvin Harris, I've been having a look at "Inside Story" which tells us that between May and August 1995 relations between Feldman and Harris were not good. They were in a massive dispute, with Feldman accusing Harris of defamation, and the two men were corresponding via solicitors. This suggests to me that it must be somewhat unlikely that they were speaking in person about diary matters during this time.

Perhaps something was said about the 1891 diary in the solicitor correspondence but I'm seriously starting to wonder if Feldman wasn't bugging Mike or Melvin's telephone. If Melvin didn't tell him, which is now seeming unlikely, how else could Feldman have known what Mike had said to Melvin in a private conversation?

As for your idea about Mike having found the receipt for the £25 diary prior to 20th July 1995, which allowed him to refresh his memory about the year of purchase, this still seems plausible and I note that it was only a few weeks after its assumed discovery that Barrett was appearing on BBC Radio Merseyside denying any knowledge of forgery which would explain why no more was ever heard of the receipt for the 1891 diary. Plus it doesn't seem that anyone ever asked Mike about the 1891 diary until 1999, at which time the date of payment was known, so a receipt for that payment wouldn’t have added anything.

[rjpalmer]

As for your idea about Mike having found the receipt for the £25 diary prior to 20th July 1995, which allowed him to refresh his memory about the year of purchase, this still seems plausible and I note that it was only a few weeks after its assumed discovery that Barrett was appearing on BBC Radio Merseyside denying any knowledge of forgery which would explain why no more was ever heard of the receipt for the 1891 diary. Plus it doesn't seem that anyone ever asked Mike about the 1891 diary until 1999, at which time the date of payment was known, so a receipt for that payment wouldn’t have added anything.

It's interesting that Barrett claimed that he had a receipt for the maroon diary, but he evidently never produced it. Harris certainly didn't mention it when he contributed to this forum.

This is reminiscent of the 1999 Cloak and Dagger meeting where Barrett famously claimed that he had a receipt (or 'ticket') for the O & L auction, but since he never produced it, the diary friendly folks have assured us that the auction was nothing more than a figment of Barrett's imagination.

But of course--receipt or no receipt---Barrett had been telling the truth about the maroon diary. His account has since been confirmed and documented.

It would seem that the truth of Barrett's claims wasn't always as cut-and-dried and simplistically bogus as Ike would have us believe.

[Lombro2]

Fully 65 percent of people keep souvenirs and 40 percent keep journals and diaries. It is probably the same for serial killers with respect to their crimes and they’d keep all that in a stash. My theory is at least possible and credible. But yours?

How many forgers present their own forgery and yet are incompetent wafflers and can’t even prove they faked it? Is Michael Barrett a Mark Hoffman? No. So where is the precedent for your theory that would make it believable?

The chances of what you say happened are zero. It wouldn’t even make for a good Pink Panther movie.

Shove all your BS under a pile of picked cherries, it’s still BS. At least Maybrick didn’t forget he died just after May 3, 1889.

[rjpalmer]

More chest thumping that is almost entirely fact free.

The vast majority of literary hoaxers--from Thomas Chatterton to Clifford Irving---DID produce their own hoaxes. The idea of them working through a 'fence' is a figment of your own imagination.

Further, the majority of these hoaxers also worked alone. If they confessed--and few did, that was the end of it.

But if Barrett and Graham faked the diary, which they almost certainly did, we have a very different dynamic where one hoaxer confesses, and the other hoaxer denies the confession and undermines it with her own tall tales.

It becomes a "he said/she said" melodrama between two combatants with little or no credibility.

Those who wish to believe the denial end of the dispute--and you have admitted that you swallowed Anne Graham's tale hook, line, and sinker--find it easy to dismiss the confession end of it.

All the easier when the drunken Barrett wasn't truly hellbent on making a full confession--he wanted to be paid for it and Gray couldn't oblige--and so he soon retracted his confession to further milk the cash cow.

The chances of this being what actually happened is overwhelming, but I readily admit that it isn't as pleasing as a fairy story about a killer's treasure trove found under the floorboards and sold in the sordid backstreets of Liverpool.

If you want a good tale to tell around the campfire, you have us beat by a country mile. But Stephen Knight has you beat.

[rjpalmer]

can’t even prove they faked it?

Seriously, Lombro.

How was Mike supposed to prove he faked something three years earlier?

Unless Mike videotaped himself and Anne in the act of creating the diary, what could he do?

All he could do is tell what happened, but when he did, no one believed him.

Even when Barrett came up with convincing inside information--such as an identification of the source of the Crashaw quote--people just wrote it off as a trick, even though they couldn't adequately explain how he did it.

What could Barrett have done to convince you?

[Iconoclast]

What could Barrett have done to convince you?

I can't speak for L2, but I can speak for me.

If he had cunningly disposed of the physical materials (the pen and ink, basically) via his sister, or was it his mum?, or had he left them all in Tony D's secret (that word again!) illicit drinks stash (i.e., a partition in the gas cupboard)?, and if he'd chucked all of his reference books into the local dump (there were only about three, wasn't it?), then clearly he'd be up against it.

But he could have produced a receipt for the pen and ink and the books (or clarified which library he sourced them from and perhaps his library card record could have been checked), or he could have admitted that he had sought an 1890 diary and ultimately ordered an 1891 one and he could have explained in detail why he did something which is so bemusing that all manner of apologetics have had to be invented to explain it by others much later. And he could have produced the receipt for the srapbook - he had it in his pocket all along in 1999, you see, but then again he told Alan Gray that he had it in his pocket and in the same breath said it was in Tony D's gas cupboard in a house on Fountains Road which did not exist. And he could have given context to his hoax by explaining in detail its little idiosyncrasies, for example, what inspired him to come up with 'mole skin bonnet'? How did he hit upon the 'Gladys is ill again' idea? What was his funny Jewish joke re the GSG? How surprised was he when the researchers found Maybrick did not fall through the cracks of Barrett's hoax?

Given that he was claiming to have come up with everything in the scrapbook, he could have walked us through its pages and convinced us with his intimate knowledge of the reasoning behind every entry and every 'error'. I don't have the facsimile in front of me but - if I did - I'm sure there are many entries which he could have talked us through. Poste House? Why choose a pub with an ambiguous name - why not choose an unambiguous pub that was definitely around in 1888 on the record so it was not problematic? Why say Jack left Kelly's breasts on the table when he later says he thought of leaving them by Kelly's feet (which is what Jack did)? Why use terms which might appear anachronistic ('bumbling buffoon', etc.)?

And - most tellingly of all - why put all this work into creating a hoax only to suddenly decide 'since December 1993' (just months after Harrison's first book was published) that it was morally abhorrent and start a campaign to prove it was a hoax but produce nothing whatsoever that was in any way convincing (especially when he had the receipt for the scrapbook in his pocket all that time)?

This is obviously not a considered post - I'm sitting here drinking an early morning cuppa whilst amusing myself at the pitiful stretching of a master Barrett-Believer - but I think it raises critical points in the Barrett Theory. Why so much erring and why no undeniable, unequivocal, incontrovertible evidence whatsoever from his mouth, his memory, or his pocket?

[Iconoclast]

All he could do is tell what happened, but when he did, no one believed him.

This is all about credibility. If Mike had come out with a credible account of his purported actions then we would have little or no discussion needed. We would all look at the evidence and his claims and we'd agree that he appeared to be telling the truth. Unfortunately, for you, there was no credibility about his claims - instead there was nothing short of a long litany of lies, dating failures, and contradictions of claims. First he said one thing, then he said another. And we are to treat his testimony as credible? Incredible, definitely.

Even when Barrett came up with convincing inside information--such as an identification of the source of the Crashaw quote--people just wrote it off as a trick, even though they couldn't adequately explain how he did it.

Mike should have been able to take us through every page of the scrapbook and give us a commentary on what he was thinking and why he was saying what he was saying and why the handwriting was changing. He should have been able to describe O&L's offices in close detail. He should have been able to take someone there and walk them through his journey that mooted day (March 31, 1992). Maybe someone would even recognise him from that day somehow to add to his credibility? Bizarrely, when he did get outside the building with Alan Gray, the latter declined to go in so we will never know what Barrett would have done had the two of them agreed they'd go in. Bluff or confirmation? We'll never know.

And his identifying the Crashaw quotation was only 'convincing inside information' if you argue that he went up to the attic and pulled out the relevant Sphere volume from his unsold collection, flicked through it, and then chose to misquote the actual line, even though it was right there in front of him, supposedly. From all of his Sphere volumes and any other books he may have had, he chose to make just the one quotation in all 63 pages, and even that was barely in context. Why on earth did he bother given that he hadn't done so before and he didn't do so afterwards - was he up there looking for some linseed oil and suddenly had a brainwave?

The alternative is that - stung by Harrison's comments about his lack of ability - he spent a week in Liverpool Central Library searching through every book of poetry he could find, page after page, until he eventually found what he was looking for. I spent three full days in Scotland's National Library photographing every Celebrity article (around 1,080) I could find. It was boring, but it is doable, so why couldn't Mike have done so too? He didn't even need to work a camera! If he had that Sphere volume in his attic (and we've never had that categorically proven, note), then it could have been a coincidence. Remember coincidences? You know, those things that your lot think happened on March 9, 1992. If you can have one, I'll have one too thank you very much. 'Convincing inside information', my arse. As coincidences go, it's many pages behind the March 9, 1992, 'coincidence' in one of Barrett's other unsold books, Simple: The Barrett Book of Sheer Bloody Good Luck (in Credibility Order).

Credibility is entirely lacking in everything Mike Barrett ever did or said so let's not pretend that Mike "Yes, I'll take that 1891 diary" Barrett had it in spades or even thimblefulls.

[John Wheat]

This is all about credibility. If Mike had come out with a credible account of his purported actions then we would have little or no discussion needed. We would all look at the evidence and his claims and we'd agree that he appeared to be telling the truth. Unfortunately, for you, there was no credibility about his claims - instead there was nothing short of a long litany of lies, dating failures, and contradictions of claims. First he said one thing, then he said another. And we are to treat his testimony as credible? Incredible, definitely.



Mike should have been able to take us through every page of the scrapbook and give us a commentary on what he was thinking and why he was saying what he was saying and why the handwriting was changing. He should have been able to describe O&L's offices in close detail. He should have been able to take someone there and walk them through his journey that mooted day (March 31, 1992). Maybe someone would even recognise him from that day somehow to add to his credibility? Bizarrely, when he did get outside the building with Alan Gray, the latter declined to go in so we will never know what Barrett would have done had the two of them agreed they'd go in. Bluff or confirmation? We'll never know.

And his identifying the Crashaw quotation was only 'convincing inside information' if you argue that he went up to the attic and pulled out the relevant Sphere volume from his unsold collection, flicked through it, and then chose to misquote the actual line, even though it was right there in front of him, supposedly. From all of his Sphere volumes and any other books he may have had, he chose to make just the one quotation in all 63 pages, and even that was barely in context. Why on earth did he bother given that he hadn't done so before and he didn't do so afterwards - was he up there looking for some linseed oil and suddenly had a brainwave?

The alternative is that - stung by Harrison's comments about his lack of ability - he spent a week in Liverpool Central Library searching through every book of poetry he could find, page after page, until he eventually found what he was looking for. I spent three full days in Scotland's National Library photographing every Celebrity article (around 1,080) I could find. It was boring, but it is doable, so why couldn't Mike have done so too? He didn't even need to work a camera! If he had that Sphere volume in his attic (and we've never had that categorically proven, note), then it could have been a coincidence. Remember coincidences? You know, those things that your lot think happened on March 9, 1992. If you can have one, I'll have one too thank you very much. 'Convincing inside information', my arse. As coincidences go, it's many pages behind the March 9, 1992, 'coincidence' in one of Barrett's other unsold books, Simple: The Barrett Book of Sheer Bloody Good Luck (in Credibility Order).

Credibility is entirely lacking in everything Mike Barrett ever did or said so let's not pretend that Mike "Yes, I'll take that 1891 diary" Barrett had it in spades or even thimblefulls.

No matter what garbage you spout it's obvious that Mike and Anne Barrett wrote the diary and not James Maybrick.