New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[Herlock Sholmes]

I am not interested in doing that tit-for-tat stuff, Herlock. Two things are true and these two things no-one can deny:

1) The January 5, 1995, affidavit is provably incorrect (not ambiguous, but incorrect) so it cannot be used as evidence for anything; and
2) Mike Barrett may very well have made yet more claims (of the many) in May 1999 (I think you mean April 1999) but it's all completely irrelevant because he didn't provide one iota of supporting evidence for his claims. Just like every other occasion he made claims. These are truths and they cannot be contradicted.

I don't think you or anyone else could dispute these two truths.

Cheers,

Ike

You're doing a bit of wriggling there Ike. Your original claim was that "the red diary theory does not work" because of what was said in Mike's affidavit. That's fallen apart. Of course it works (assuming that by "the red diary theory" you mean the idea that Mike was intending to forge the diary of Jack the Ripper in a diary from the 1880s with blank pages sourced from Martin Earl).

Now you just want to go back to square one, which we've covered ad nauseam, by saying that there isn't sufficient evidence to support Barrett's claim. Firstly, it's not true that there isn't "one iota of supporting evidence" for his claims because it's been proven that he did attempt to acquire a diary from the decade of the Ripper murders with blank pages and that his wife paid for it, as stated in both the affidavit and at the April 1999 meeting. For some baffling reason this is discarded by you as being an iota of supporting evidence even though it clearly does support part of what is stated in the affidavit. But it's a silly statement because there's no evidence that Mike's account isn't true. And, if there's no evidence of the Barretts forging the diary, there's certainly no evidence of it coming from anywhere else, including and especially Battlecrease.

Yes, there are certainly errors in Mike's affidavit, mainly errors of dating and chronology, and it's poorly written, but the evidence points to Alan Gray having drafted and typed it on Mike's behalf, taking on the role of a solicitor, which he wasn't qualified to do, and making a mess of it. If we're assessing Mike's account, surely the best thing to do is look at what he said in his own words, which you seem amazingly reluctant to do.

Ultimately, when it comes to evidence there is only one solid, incontrovertible and irrefutable piece of evidence in this case which is that the diary is a modern fake due to the inclusion of the expression "a one off instance". That's all that really matters. Everything else is unnecessary waffle.

[Iconoclast]

All you've done in that long post, Ike, is essentially repeat in a convoluted way what I said in much shorter form when I talked about why it's not very clear what Mike was saying through the middle-man medium of Alan Gray. You're using the context of the affidavit to try to explain one sentence which, if Gray didn't fully understand the context himself, would be a significant mistake.

What you are, of course, totally ignoring, as usual, is what Michael Barrett said, out of his own mouth, in May 1999, from which it WAS very clear that that the idea to create a fake diary occurred to him as early as 1988, while Tony Devereux was alive, but the purchase of the photograph album, and the physical writing of the diary, only took place after he spoke to Doreen on March 9th 1992. That chronology is as clear as crystal. Any fair-minded person trying to get to the truth of the matter would surely want to take that very important fact into account if they want to understand Barrett's account, rather than ignore it.

I am not interested in doing that tit-for-tat stuff, Herlock. Two things are true and these two things no-one can deny:

1) The January 5, 1995, affidavit is provably incorrect (not ambiguous, but incorrect) so it cannot be used as evidence for anything; and
2) Mike Barrett may very well have made yet more claims (of the many) in May 1999 (I think you mean April 1999) but it's all completely irrelevant because he didn't provide one iota of supporting evidence for his claims. Just like every other occasion he made claims. These are truths and they cannot be contradicted.

I don't think you or anyone else could dispute these two truths.

Cheers,

Ike

[Herlock Sholmes]

In itself, the Mike Barrett affidavit which was written for him by someone else is not ambiguous. It details the purchase of the little red diary by Anne Barrett (as was) for £25.00 and it clarifies that that diary - when it arrived - was deemed to be too small by Mike Barrett for what he had evidently imagined would be his final product. The next thing that happened in the affidavit was that Barrett went to O&L where he found that a 'photograph album' was for sale and he successfully bid for it. Having butchered the diary for his purposes, he and Anne went to the Bluecoat Chambers and purchased a small bottle of Diamine Manuscript ink. At this point, according to someone else's interpretation of what the Barretts did, they "were now ready to go and start the Diary. We went home and on the same evening that we had purchased everything, that is the materials we needed, We decided to have a practise run and we used A4 paper for this, and at first we tried it in my handwriting, but we realised and I must emphasie (sic) this, my handwriting was to (sic) disstinctive (sic) so it had to be in Anne's handwriting, after the practise run which took us approximately two days, we decided to go for hell or bust. I sat in the living room by the rear lounge window in the corner with my word processor, Anne Barrett sat with her back on to me as she wrote the manuscript." Clearly, then, at this point, the actual writing in the scrapbook is occurring. No amount of appealing to the vagaries of ambiguity can contradict this. Mike worked on the text on his word processor and Anne "wrote it down in the photograph album and thus we produced the Diary of Jack the Ripper". This took them eleven days - the affidavit is very clear about this. The whole production occurred in just those eleven days. No more work is needed, the scrapbook is complete. The affidavit is absolutely unequivocal on this point and there is no room for interpretation based on the vagaries of ambiguity.

During these eleven days, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill "and in fact after we completed the Diary [remember, it has been created on the word processor and written in the scrapbook in just eleven days at this point and Tony is not yet deceased] we left it for a while ... and in fact he died ...". The word processor original was fully typed-up and the scrapbook fully-written in those eleven days and after those eleven days, Tony died. Tony died on August 8, 1991.



No, this is not possible. The affidavit is very clear: the eleven days occurred before Tony died and both the original text and the scrapbook text had been completed by then. There is simply no room whatsoever for ambiguity on this point so please don't attempt to find any.



Any fair-minded reader of Barrett's affidavit will see that his affidavit is incorrect because it claims that the purchase and production of the entire scrapbook and its text occurred prior to Tony Devereux's sad death on August 8, 1991. There is absolutely no room for interpretation on this point. None whatsoever, so please don't attempt to imply there is any.

The conclusion which must be drawn from the contents of the affidavit and the knowledge that we have (which Alan Gray may not have known in January 1995) that the red diary was ordered (by Mike Barrett) in mid-March 1992 is that the January 5, 1995, affidavit which was signed by Barrett but written for him by someone with insufficient knowledge of the evidence which would later emerge is a wholly unreliable account of a process which could not have taken place. It is not ambiguous: it is incorrect and it is impossible.

Any fair-minded person would conclude from this that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever - not even ambiguous evidence - that the scrapbook text was written after mid-March 1992. That is not to say that it wasn't nor that it could not have been but it categorically is to say that it could not possibly have happened in any way resembling the way it was described by Alan Gray in the affidavit which Mike Barrett signed.

Any fair-minded person would therefore not attempt to do so and - if they thus wished to continue claiming it was possible - they would need to find for their evidence something other than the purchase of the little red diary. Personally, I am unaware of any evidence that the scrapbook text was written after mid-March 1992 (and that includes my knowledge of Barrett's affidavit and the purchase of the little red diary).

The only 'evidence' I can think of off the top of my head is the comment in the Baxendale report of July 1992 which stated that the ink of the scrapbook text was 'freely soluble' but that is a different discussion altogether to that of the impossible account born of the January 5, 1995, affidavit.

Ike

All you've done in that long post, Ike, is essentially repeat in a convoluted way what I said in much shorter form when I talked about why it's not very clear what Mike was saying through the middle-man medium of Alan Gray. You're using the context of the affidavit to try to explain one sentence which, if Gray didn't fully understand the context himself, would be a significant mistake.

What you are, of course, totally ignoring, as usual, is what Michael Barrett said, out of his own mouth, in May 1999, from which it WAS very clear that that the idea to create a fake diary occurred to him as early as 1988, while Tony Devereux was alive, but the purchase of the photograph album, and the physical writing of the diary, only took place after he spoke to Doreen on March 9th 1992. That chronology is as clear as crystal. Any fair-minded person trying to get to the truth of the matter would surely want to take that very important fact into account if they want to understand Barrett's account, rather than ignore it.

[Iconoclast]

... and perhaps it is what Alan Gray thought had occurred, but it's by no means clear that Michael Barrett was saying this.

In itself, the Mike Barrett affidavit which was written for him by someone else is not ambiguous. It details the purchase of the little red diary by Anne Barrett (as was) for £25.00 and it clarifies that that diary - when it arrived - was deemed to be too small by Mike Barrett for what he had evidently imagined would be his final product. The next thing that happened in the affidavit was that Barrett went to O&L where he found that a 'photograph album' was for sale and he successfully bid for it. Having butchered the diary for his purposes, he and Anne went to the Bluecoat Chambers and purchased a small bottle of Diamine Manuscript ink. At this point, according to someone else's interpretation of what the Barretts did, they "were now ready to go and start the Diary. We went home and on the same evening that we had purchased everything, that is the materials we needed, We decided to have a practise run and we used A4 paper for this, and at first we tried it in my handwriting, but we realised and I must emphasie (sic) this, my handwriting was to (sic) disstinctive (sic) so it had to be in Anne's handwriting, after the practise run which took us approximately two days, we decided to go for hell or bust. I sat in the living room by the rear lounge window in the corner with my word processor, Anne Barrett sat with her back on to me as she wrote the manuscript." Clearly, then, at this point, the actual writing in the scrapbook is occurring. No amount of appealing to the vagaries of ambiguity can contradict this. Mike worked on the text on his word processor and Anne "wrote it down in the photograph album and thus we produced the Diary of Jack the Ripper". This took them eleven days - the affidavit is very clear about this. The whole production occurred in just those eleven days. No more work is needed, the scrapbook is complete. The affidavit is absolutely unequivocal on this point and there is no room for interpretation based on the vagaries of ambiguity.

During these eleven days, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill "and in fact after we completed the Diary [remember, it has been created on the word processor and written in the scrapbook in just eleven days at this point and Tony is not yet deceased] we left it for a while ... and in fact he died ...". The word processor original was fully typed-up and the scrapbook fully-written in those eleven days and after those eleven days, Tony died. Tony died on August 8, 1991.

I assume you're referring to the sentence: "During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severly (sic) ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990." Taken on its own, this could simply be a reference to the writing of the diary's text, in draft form, during 1991, prior to the purchase of the photograph album, while Tony was alive. Different from Anne (if she was the scribe) writing out the same text in 1992.

No, this is not possible. The affidavit is very clear: the eleven days occurred before Tony died and both the original text and the scrapbook text had been completed by then. There is simply no room whatsoever for ambiguity on this point so please don't attempt to find any.

It seems to me that it's only because the previous sentence says that "Anne and I started to write the diary in all it took us 11 days" that you are linking the writing done while Tony was alive with the writing that Mike said was being done by him and Anne in 11 days. So it could just be Gray having got muddled by what Mike was had told him and mixing up "drafting" with "writing" when he typed Mike's affidavit. It's just not a good enough basis for saying "the red diary theory doesn't work".

Any fair-minded reader of Barrett's affidavit will see that his affidavit is incorrect because it claims that the purchase and production of the entire scrapbook and its text occurred prior to Tony Devereux's sad death on August 8, 1991. There is absolutely no room for interpretation on this point. None whatsoever, so please don't attempt to imply there is any.

The conclusion which must be drawn from the contents of the affidavit and the knowledge that we have (which Alan Gray may not have known in January 1995) that the red diary was ordered (by Mike Barrett) in mid-March 1992 is that the January 5, 1995, affidavit which was signed by Barrett but written for him by someone with insufficient knowledge of the evidence which would later emerge is a wholly unreliable account of a process which could not have taken place. It is not ambiguous: it is incorrect and it is impossible.

Any fair-minded person would conclude from this that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever - not even ambiguous evidence - that the scrapbook text was written after mid-March 1992. That is not to say that it wasn't nor that it could not have been but it categorically is to say that it could not possibly have happened in any way resembling the way it was described by Alan Gray in the affidavit which Mike Barrett signed.

Any fair-minded person would therefore not attempt to do so and - if they thus wished to continue claiming it was possible - they would need to find for their evidence something other than the purchase of the little red diary. Personally, I am unaware of any evidence that the scrapbook text was written after mid-March 1992 (and that includes my knowledge of Barrett's affidavit and the purchase of the little red diary).

The only 'evidence' I can think of off the top of my head is the comment in the Baxendale report of July 1992 which stated that the ink of the scrapbook text was 'freely soluble' but that is a different discussion altogether to that of the impossible account born of the January 5, 1995, affidavit.

Ike

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thank goodness - for the pursuit and defence of the truth - the breweries have run dry and I have finally sobered-up ...

And not a day too soon, it appears, as someone has to point out that you cannot say categorically that 'they checked the wrong dates' unless you are seeking to mislead people.

The bit that you rely on is where Barrett claimed in his January 5, 1995 affidavit:


We know the red diary was ordered in March 1992 (and paid for in May 1992) so you want everyone to believe that the only possibility based upon Barrett's January 5, 1995 affidavit is that he misremembered the events of 1992 for two years earlier.

But you intentionally (because you have an angle to spin here) disregard the bit that buggers up your argument:


Tony Devereux sadly died on August 8, 1991, as well you know. So Barrett could not have been remembering 1992 at all when he went to O&L so the red diary could not have been required for the 1992 'hoax' you cling so desperately to. Barrett's affidavit is very clear that the O&L scrapbook came after the failed red diary and both came before Tony's sad demise which totally buggers up your argument that the purchase of the red diary is evidence that he was seeking a vehicle for a hoaxed diary of Jack the Ripper in the run-up to the only O&L auction that month (the 31st). He already had the scrapbook, didn't he (according to Barrett)? It had already been completed and there was a delay in operations due to the unexpected passing of co-conspirator Tony on August 8, 1991. The dates can all be ignored. All we need to understand is that the affidavit you place such faith in clearly states the following timeline: the red diary is ordered, it is too small, so Barrett gets the scrapbook from an O&L auction, the scrapbook is completed, Tony D sadly dies, and you and your lot are jolly rogered up the arse by man's inability so far to travel back and forth through time.

The red diary theory doesn't work, does it? Unless you argue that Tony D was still alive in March 1992 which can obviously be firmly contradicted by the sad evidence. And you can't believe some bits of the affidavit which you like and which work for the angle you're aiming for here and simultaneously skip over the awkward bits which make the 'key' bit of your theory simply incorrect, can you? I'm sure you can't. After all, as I understand it, your sort are almost bunged-up with all that integrity inside you.

Nope, 'they' didn't check the wrong dates. They checked the right dates - the ones the affidavit tell us must be the true ones. Ha ha.

It's all in black and white, Roger - Howe your team's strategy falls apart before it ever got started. Puts me in mind of a game of football I saw recently ...

Hi Ike,

With regard to your statement: "Barrett's affidavit is very clear that the O&L scrapbook came after the failed red diary and both came before Tony's sad demise", I don't think it's "very clear" at all. It may be your interpretation, and perhaps it is what Alan Gray thought had occurred, but it's by no means clear that Michael Barrett was saying this.

I assume you're referring to the sentence:

"During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severly (sic) ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990."

Taken on its own, this could simply be a reference to the writing of the diary's text, in draft form, during 1991, prior to the purchase of the photograph album, while Tony was alive. Different from Anne (if she was the scribe) writing out the same text in 1992.

It seems to me that it's only because the previous sentence says that "Anne and I started to write the diary in all it took us 11 days" that you are linking the writing done while Tony was alive with the writing that Mike said was being done by him and Anne in 11 days. So it could just be Gray having got muddled by what Mike was had told him and mixing up "drafting" with "writing" when he typed Mike's affidavit. It's just not a good enough basis for saying "the red diary theory doesn't work".

[Iconoclast]

One detail that if often ignored is that it is something of misnomer to call it "Mike's affidavit." It might be more accurate to call it Alan Gray's affidavit (written for and signed by Mike) which would explain some of the glitches and contradictions. Of course, on hearing this you'll hold the yellow card high in the air and announce an infraction.

I'm afraid that one would not even need to go to a VAR review - it would be a straight red and you'd be off the pitch. One of the things I learned during my self-imposed absence from the first team is that too much is said on the Casebook which is fundamentally reliant upon inference. Herlock's amazing Lord Orsam impersonations have reminded me that we must be ultra-circumspect in our claims: only the evidence really makes any difference. One can infer from the evidence, but not too far, nor too wide, nor too long. Keep the ball on the pitch but - yes - spray it around a bit, get it down the flanks then play through the channels, regain possession with the high press and defend what you've got with the low block. But keep the ball on the pitch, lads and lasses! Oh, and don't mark Big Dan Burn from Blyth with a 5-feet-zero lightweight midfield maestro - it's always going to end in tears. Yes, tears of joy!

If you accept that 'Mike's affidavit' is actually Alan Gray's affidavit then you mustn't call it evidence because it is - for obvious reasons - littered with errors. How did Big Dan Burn score that towering opening goal on the hallowed, mainly unfortunate turf? Well, it depends if you ask him or if you ask the hapless Mac Allister who - in a surreal moment of optimism - thought no-one could score from beyond the penalty spot. If Alan Gray struggled to get Mike to write his own affidavit and resorted to writing one from what he felt Mike had said previously then it is no wonder that what we got was a confused smorgasbord of inconsistency and downright error and absolutely no-one should be calling it evidence and no-one should be building new castles on such dry sand.

Ike

[rjpalmer]

Hello again, Ike.

I'm not sure how that extra word creeped in. The correct quote is:

"I hope you all have better luck than I did with...Oathwaite."

One detail that if often ignored is that it is something of misnomer to call it "Mike's affidavit."

It might be more accurate to call it Alan Gray's affidavit (written for and signed by Mike) which would explain some of the glitches and contradictions.

Of course, on hearing this you'll hold the yellow card high in the air and announce an infraction.

[rjpalmer]

I notice you haven't commented on Shirley Harrison's statement, Ike.

"I hope you all have better luck like than I did with... Oathwaite...."

Doesn't really inspire confidence, does it?

[rjpalmer]

Tony Devereux sadly died on August 8, 1991, as well you know.

Indeed, I do know---which only proves that Barrett's dates were totally unreliable, since Devereux hadn't died in 'May or June 1990' as stated in the affidavit.

According to Barrett this was his dearest (and only) friend in the wide world and he's only off by 14 or 15 months.

Which is precisely why Peter Birchwood was concerned and baffled that people were still insisting that the O & L auction angle had been conclusively debunked when the more logical set of dates had not been checked (and we still don't know with certainty how O & L conducted their auctions).

It's all water under the bridge now, though. That ship has sailed, the records have been pulped, and after many a summer dies the swan.

[Iconoclast]

In other words, the desire to debunk Barrett overrides any willingness to investigate the matter thoroughly and competently.

Well, let's see how good a job you did of that ...

We know --not based on Barrett's unreliable memory but on ironclad documentation--- that the red diary was purchased in [B]March 1992.

Cast-iron, this definitely happened as we have the requisite evidence for it.

It was however (as Barrett describes) too small and useless for his purposes ...

Not cast-iron. We do not know with certainty what his 'purposes' were for it - only what he implied when he was trying to build a case for his hoax story.

... so he went to the auction house.

Please strike this from the record - it has been implied ('made up') by Orsam and you and others to suit an argument you want to make. There is absolutely no evidence that he attended the March 31, 1992, O&L auction. None whatsoever. Shame he didn't show us all that pesky ticket, eh?

Which dates the auction to late March 1992.

Well, there was apparently an auction at O&L on March 31, 1992.

Barrett's other unreliable dates be damned.

Happy to agree - but not his timeline of events.

That's what actual documentation suggests.

If you had some, I'd agree. He said red diary, scrapbook, Tony died. You might forget dates but you don't forget that timeline.

This is further borne out by Barrett's insistence, at various times, that the photo album confessional did not exist when he called Doreen in March 1992, and also that it took 11 days to transpose the typescript into the photo album before he headed off to London in April 1992.

It's not 'borne out' at all - it is simply inferred to support a specific set of claims by Orsam and the rest of you.

In brief, logic again dates the auction to March 1992.

You don't need logic, we know there was an auction on March 31, 1992. What you need is evidence that Barrett was there too. Evidence, not inference.

That said, it would have been completely correct for Doreen Montgomery to have asked O & L to check the dates around January 1990, but to have done a thorough, competent, and commonsensical job of it, the dates in March & April 1992 should also have been checked.

Not so, Roger. Tony D was dead so checking an auction after August 8, 1991 made no sense whatsoever. Not if - as you do - you believe Barrett.

Any fair-minded person would acknowledge that.

And any rogue would parcel up such a tale as fact.

Thank God I'm back, eh, dear readers?

[rjpalmer]

The only thing black & white, Ike, is that you've clearly abandoned the "commonsense" that Peter Birchwood mentioned nearly 25 years ago and are instead assuming a purely myopic stance toward Barrett's confessional affidavit.

In other words, the desire to debunk Barrett overrides any willingness to investigate the matter thoroughly and competently.

We know --not based on Barrett's unreliable memory but on ironclad documentation--- that the red diary was purchased in March 1992. It was however (as Barrett describes) too small and useless for his purposes, so he went to the auction house.

Which dates the auction to late March 1992. Barrett's other unreliable dates be damned. That's what actual documentation suggests.

This is further borne out by Barrett's insistence, at various times, that the photo album confessional did not exist when he called Doreen in March 1992, and also that it took 11 days to transpose the typescript into the photo album before he headed off to London in April 1992.

In brief, logic again dates the auction to March 1992.

That said, it would have been completely correct for Doreen Montgomery to have asked O & L to check the dates around January 1990, but to have done a thorough, competent, and commonsensical job of it, the dates in March & April 1992 should also have been checked.

Any fair-minded person would acknowledge that.

Indeed, any competent detective would insist on it. I'm sure our friend Fred Abberline would have done so.

What I still find fascinating is Shirley Harrison's cryptic comment of 1 June 2001.

If the investigation of O & L auctions was as definitive and conclusive as C.A.B. wants us to believe, why on earth does Shirley state--nine years after the auction, and four years after her friend and agent Doreen Montgomery's investigation:

"I hope you all have better luck like than I did with [Richard Bark-Jones] and Oathwaite...."

That's an awfully odd thing to say if Shirley thought the truth of the matter had been thoroughly sifted.


Why is she wishing them good luck instead of saying, as our New Zealand friends say, "been there, done that! You'll be wasting your time! Doreen and I have already checked!"

Curious and curioser!

RP

[Iconoclast]

And as Peter pointed out, they had checked the wrong dates. They had checked 1990 instead of 1992.

Thank goodness - for the pursuit and defence of the truth - the breweries have run dry and I have finally sobered-up ...

And not a day too soon, it appears, as someone has to point out that you cannot say categorically that 'they checked the wrong dates' unless you are seeking to mislead people.

The bit that you rely on is where Barrett claimed in his January 5, 1995 affidavit:

Roughly round about January, February 1990 Anne Barrett and I finally decided to go ahead and write the Diary of Jack the Ripper. In fact Anne purchased a Diary, a red leather backed Diary for L25.00p, she made the purchase through a firm in the 1986 Writters Year Book, I cannot remember their name, she paid for the Diary by cheque in the amount of L25 which was drawn on her Lloyds Bank Account, Water Street Branch, Liverpool. When this Diary arrived in teh post I decided it was of no use, it was very small. My wife is now in possession of this Diary in fact she asked for it specifically recently when I saw her at her home address XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

At about the same time as all this was being discussed by my wife and I. I spoke to William Graham about our idea. This was my wifes father and he said to me, its a good idea, if you can get away with it and in fact he gave me L50 towards expences which I expected to pay at least for the appropriate paper should I find it.

I feel sure it was the end of January 1990 when I went to the Auctioneer, Outhwaite & Litherland, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

We know the red diary was ordered in March 1992 (and paid for in May 1992) so you want everyone to believe that the only possibility based upon Barrett's January 5, 1995 affidavit is that he misremembered the events of 1992 for two years earlier.

But you intentionally (because you have an angle to spin here) disregard the bit that buggers up your argument:

During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severly (sic) ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990.

Tony Devereux sadly died on August 8, 1991, as well you know. So Barrett could not have been remembering 1992 at all when he went to O&L so the red diary could not have been required for the 1992 'hoax' you cling so desperately to. Barrett's affidavit is very clear that the O&L scrapbook came after the failed red diary and both came before Tony's sad demise which totally buggers up your argument that the purchase of the red diary is evidence that he was seeking a vehicle for a hoaxed diary of Jack the Ripper in the run-up to the only O&L auction that month (the 31st). He already had the scrapbook, didn't he (according to Barrett)? It had already been completed and there was a delay in operations due to the unexpected passing of co-conspirator Tony on August 8, 1991. The dates can all be ignored. All we need to understand is that the affidavit you place such faith in clearly states the following timeline: the red diary is ordered, it is too small, so Barrett gets the scrapbook from an O&L auction, the scrapbook is completed, Tony D sadly dies, and you and your lot are jolly rogered up the arse by man's inability so far to travel back and forth through time.

The red diary theory doesn't work, does it? Unless you argue that Tony D was still alive in March 1992 which can obviously be firmly contradicted by the sad evidence. And you can't believe some bits of the affidavit which you like and which work for the angle you're aiming for here and simultaneously skip over the awkward bits which make the 'key' bit of your theory simply incorrect, can you? I'm sure you can't. After all, as I understand it, your sort are almost bunged-up with all that integrity inside you.

Nope, 'they' didn't check the wrong dates. They checked the right dates - the ones the affidavit tell us must be the true ones. Ha ha.

It's all in black and white, Roger - Howe your team's strategy falls apart before it ever got started. Puts me in mind of a game of football I saw recently ...

[Herlock Sholmes]

Indeed.

Here are two of P. Birchwood's posts on the topic:



And



I never learned whether he received a response.

Curiously, a short time after these posts, there is a cryptic message from Shirley Harrison, who hopes that others will have 'better luck than I did with....Oathwaite"....

I wonder what she means? Better luck? Didn't she get to the bottom of the matter?




It sounds as if the auction house wasn't too cooperative with Shirley. As I said earlier, Gray had requested to see O & L's books and was turned down.

From what I've read, it wasn't Shirley but Doreen Montgomery, writing in 1997, that received a written response from O & L. And as Peter pointed out, they had checked the wrong dates. They had checked 1990 instead of 1992.

Interesting stuff. Thanks for that Roger.

[rjpalmer]

It's a funny thing, Roger. I was criticised yesterday for asking "the same old questions". Well, this may be true but, from what you've told me, it would seem that those questions have never been answered!

Indeed.

Here are two of P. Birchwood's posts on the topic:



And



I never learned whether he received a response.

Curiously, a short time after these posts, there is a cryptic message from Shirley Harrison, who hopes that others will have 'better luck than I did with....Oathwaite"....

I wonder what she means? Better luck? Didn't she get to the bottom of the matter?




It sounds as if the auction house wasn't too cooperative with Shirley. As I said earlier, Gray had requested to see O & L's books and was turned down.

From what I've read, it wasn't Shirley but Doreen Montgomery, writing in 1997, that received a written response from O & L. And as Peter pointed out, they had checked the wrong dates. They had checked 1990 instead of 1992.

[Herlock Sholmes]

If you really want to be depressed, Herlock, go look in the archives for May 2001.

Peter Birchwood asked the same question nearly a quarter of a century ago. He was trying to find out what the actual procedure was at O & L from Shirley Harrison. Whether he ever found out or reached out to O & L himself, I have no idea. The conversation turned in another direction and not long afterwards both Peter and Shirley quit contributing.

Peter wrote something that resonated with me. He got the feeling that Mr. Whay and Ms. Harrison were a little too eager to dismiss Barrett's account--to debunk it rather than to 'get at the truth of the matter.'

I got the same feeling. I'm not suggesting that Mr. Whay was being evasive--not at all. He no doubt said what he believed--but businessmen can be very protective of their businesses, and he might not have relished the idea that the good name of his company would forever be associated with something as distasteful as Jack the Ripper or a fake document that had gained local notoriety. It would hardly have been the fault of the auction if they had unwittingly sold the photo album to a scammer, but people can be irrational. Whay's impulse might have been to quickly dismiss any such association. "He didn't get that damned thing from us!"

Barrett's less-than-competent description of the auction might have made for a convenient 'off ramp'--- enough for Whay to throw his hands in the air and to put the matter to bed quickly.

Personally, I'm not convinced Barrett made it up. There is a logic to his chronology. The red diary Barrett had secretly received from the bookseller in Oxford WAS too small and useless, so he would have needed to seek something else. The 11/12 day span between the auction and Barrett showing up in London jives with the facts. The photo album has suspicious, oily patterns on the inside cover as if someone had peeled off a tag or had removed a stamp.

David B's research has revealed that old turn-of-the-century photo albums did often have such tags. I didn't know that. Did you know that? How did Barrett know it--unless he had lived it?

No, I'm not a Barrett Believer--but there's a logic to his account, and some evidence to back it up. I've only met one Barrett Believer in my life--a person who has excepted two of Barrett's most outlandish claims despite there being no other source for them other than Barrett himself--- and she takes a different view of the diary than I do.

It's a funny thing, Roger. I was criticised yesterday for asking "the same old questions". Well, this may be true but, from what you've told me, it would seem that those questions have never been answered!