New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[caz]

Herlock-- very intetesting account from an experienced auction attendee and bidder. It's hard to say what Mike really meant (though I wonder if he didn't attend farm sales during his scrap-metal dealer days, and hadn't encountered a different procedure at more casual auctions? Then the writer in him drew upon that recollection for his account of the O & L auction.) Who knows?

Hi Pat,

Back in June 1994, when Mike Barrett gave the first version of his forgery story to Harold Brough of the Liverpool Post, Brough went home to file the story for the next day's edition. He later checked with O & L and was told there was no record of the job lot Mike had described. When we visited the auctioneers for our book, Inside Story [page 273], we found that all prospective bidders had to complete a registration form in the office, and that this had always been the case. Mike didn't mention this fact in his detailed affidavit of 5th January 1995, a copy of which was sent straight to O & L for comment, when Shirley Harrison finally received it herself two years later.

Nothing about Mike's auction story was ever confirmed, or even recognised by O & L, as having any connection with the reality of their day-to-day business. All the excuses you may read for Mike getting it all wrong won't make any of it right. Alan Gray didn't even bother to check with O & L in the January when he had just typed up Mike's account, when confirmation of any of the details could have nailed it.

I'm reluctant to address Herlock's post on this, because I understood the casebook rules didn't allow any of Orsam's original posts to be requoted following his departure. Herlock might wish to contact Admin for the latest advice on this, because a link to a specific post might still be allowed, and would spare us all being faced with his entire back catalogue, and being expected to answer the same old questions about it, when this thread is for current members to post 'new' ideas.

Love,

Caz
X

[Pcdunn]

Or maybe he attended an O&L auction in 1992 but garbled some of the details slightly when recalling them to Alan Gray a few years later for the affidavit Pat?

Sure, anything is possible, Herlock.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Herlock-- very intetesting account from an experienced auction attendee and bidder. It's hard to say what Mike really meant (though I wonder if he didn't attend farm sales during his scrap-metal dealer days, and hadn't encountered a different procedure at more casual auctions? Then the writer in him drew upon that recollection for his account of the O & L auction.) Who knows?

Or maybe he attended an O&L auction in 1992 but garbled some of the details slightly when recalling them to Alan Gray a few years later for the affidavit Pat?

[John Wheat]

I'm not sure why the Diary is still discussed in such detail as it's clearly not written by Maybrick, it's clearly a modern forgery and in all likelihood was written by the Barretts.

[Pcdunn]

Herlock-- very intetesting account from an experienced auction attendee and bidder. It's hard to say what Mike really meant (though I wonder if he didn't attend farm sales during his scrap-metal dealer days, and hadn't encountered a different procedure at more casual auctions? Then the writer in him drew upon that recollection for his account of the O & L auction.) Who knows?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

What I recall from reading documents here on Casebook is that the very detailed account MB gave of getting a claim ticket after his winning bid for a lot of objects including the old photograph album-- was incorrect, according to how the auction house handled after-bid procedures.

I suppose this could be construed as covering "everything", I would consider it so in this case.

Hi Pat,

I've been tipped off that back in August 2016, before I joined, a poster called Caligo Umbrator said the following in Ike's long thread, at #1573:

"During the '90's I was an antique dealer based in the North of England and attended and made bids at a great number of auction houses.
The method employed by all of those I attended was nearly identical.
Usually, one was obliged to register by completing a paper form which required the prospective bidder's name, details of either your business or private address and, in some cases, an indication of which financial institution was to be used for issuing cheques, should a bid be successful. On the day of the auction, a bid card (about 4 inches square in size) would then be assigned to you with a unique 2 or 3 digit number printed upon it.
Only in open street or market-place auctions would it not be required to furnish such details before bidding, as these were smaller, more informal affairs.
When making a bid on any item, the practise was to attract the attention of the auctioneer and indicate the amount of your bid. Some did this vocally, calling out the amount. I generally did this silently, using my fingers as a display of the increment my bid offer was to rise in relation to the already established amount on that item. Very often only two or three persons would be interested in a particular lot and they would drop out of the bidding once the price reached to high an amount for their needs.
Should you be successful in your bid, you held up the numbered card and that number was recorded against the lot number. Then it was a simple matter of attending to the amount owed on your account. A receipt was drawn up, listing all items and the incurred buyers charge or commission(usually 10 or 15 %). Upon full payment, the receipt was stamped and signed to indicate payment was made and this document then entitled the holder to collect the item listed upon it.
While I do not believe I ever made a bid at Outhwaite & Litherland, I should think it most probable that the above system of operation would be one they followed.
I have not encountered the 'ticket' system that is described in the confession, as the receipt performs that function. As the item(s) upon the receipt are collected they are marked as such upon the receipt and within the auctioneer's ledger.
I was personally acquainted with some auctioneers and they observed the custom of keeping records for many years, so should there later arise a dispute regarding the provenance of an item or as to whether it was illegally obtained by the initial seller, the auction house was able to both supply those records and acquit itself of any implication of dishonesty or bad practise."

He was then asked this by David Orsam:

"Perhaps you can tell me this. If we replace the word "ticket" in Barrett's statement with the word "receipt", is it then in accord with the system you are describing? Hence:

"At this stage I was given a receipt on which was marked the item number and the price I had bid. I then had to hand this receipt over to the Office and I paid £50. The receipt was stamped.....I then returned to the Auction Room with my stamped receipt and handed it over to an assistant, a young man, who gave me the Lot I had purchased."

I've deleted from this the bit about him giving a false name when he paid his money (which I assume is inconsistent with what you are saying due to the registration system) but would the above section be roughly correct?"

Caligo Umbrator's reply was as follows:

"If we replace 'ticket' with 'receipt' then it would be generally consistent, yes.

However, I firstly find it odd that he wasn't required to register before bidding. This is required so as to ensure payment can be obtained on 'won' items. Without such a requirement a person could wander in from the street, bid on a few items and then never be seen again. It wouldn't be until the end of the day that the auctioneers would realise they had several items listed as sold but not paid for. Clearly, this would be an experience they should wish to avoid.
I further find issue with his statement that "I was then told to return my ticket to the Office, but I did not do this and left with the Photograph Album and Compass.".
If he meant that he was told to return the ticket permanently, then you can see that if one had been successful on bids for 20 different items, a system such as this would seem to require the generation and carrying of 20 separate tickets and a great deal more paperwork and legwork than efficiency might ordinarily dictate.
However, we could generously speculate that on this occasion the ticket was a receipt and that the porter engaged in distributing the purchased items had no ink left in his pen to indicate the goods on the receipt as being received and so asked Mike to return to the office so that they might mark the receipt instead.
Also, in the account of his statement that I have access to, the full address of where the auction was taking place was XXX'd out. Potentially it could have been a farm or estate clearance and, although I would expect these would be handled in the same manner, limited space or special circumstances may have altered the procedures for that one sale."

What was being said then by Caligo Umbrator was that by just replacing a single word of "ticket" with "receipt", Barrett's account of how the O&L auction was conducted was generally consistent with the way all auctions attended by Caligo Umbrator during the 1990s were conducted.

How do we know that when the O&L auctioneer said that Barrett's account of the sales process was wrong, he didn't mean something minor like this?

Or should we conclude that there was something unusual about the way O&L conducted their auctions compared to other auction houses at the time which hasn't been revealed to us?

[Pcdunn]

Hi Herlock,

What I recall from reading documents here on Casebook is that the very detailed account MB gave of getting a claim ticket after his winning bid for a lot of objects including the old photograph album-- was incorrect, according to how the auction house handled after-bid procedures.

I suppose this could be construed as covering "everything", I would consider it so in this case.

[Herlock Sholmes]

She's right, Herlock. The auction house said the claim ticket story Mike told about getting the things he'd won was not their procedure at that time, or ever.

Hi Pat,

I know that one of the directors of the auction house said that they didn't conduct their sales in the manner Barrett described in his affidavit meaning that Barrett might have said some things about the sales process that were right but also some things that were wrong, so that, overall, his description wasn't accurate. What Caz posted was that the auctioneer stated that everything about Barrett's account was wrong. I want to know if that’s true? Or is Caz mistaken? Do you know of any quote from an auction house staff member saying that?

What I'm trying to get to the bottom of here is what specifically about Barrett's account of the sales process was wrong, and what was the auction house's actual sales process in March 1992.

[Pcdunn]

Everything. It's all been posted numerous times.

She's right, Herlock. The auction house said the claim ticket story Mike told about getting the things he'd won was not their procedure at that time, or ever.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Everything. It's all been posted numerous times.

So to be clear Caz, you are saying that the auctioneer has expressly said that "everything" posted about the Outhwaite & Litherland auction in Barrett's affidavit is incorrect?

So, for example, when it is stated in Barrett's affidavit: "At this stage I was given a ticket on which was marked the item number and the price I had bid. I then had to hand this ticket over to the Office and I paid £50. This ticked was stamped...I then returned to the Auction Room with my stamped ticket and handed it over to an assistant, a young man, who gave me the Lot I had purchased." the auctioneer has expressly said that this is not how Outhwaite & Litherland conducted their auctions? Is that right? So how did he say Outhwaite & Litherland, in fact, conducted their auctions? It will be interesting to know how it actually worked.

And when Mike said that he used the name "Williams", the auctioneer presumably said that this is wrong because they wouldn't have allowed false names? Is that right?

If it's all been posted before, could you direct me to where I can find it? The only thing I've been able to locate is from page 167 of your book in which Kevin Whay (who appears to have been a director of Outhwaite & Litherland, not an auctioneer as such) said, "we do not and have never conducted our sales in the manner in which he describes". But that isn't saying that "everything" in Barrett's affidavit about the auction is wrong. Do you have any additional information about what it was that Barrett got wrong? It's not clear to me if the difference between Barrett's account and the actual practice is a small one, possibly insignificant, or a major one which can't possibly be reconciled with how their auctions were conducted.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I simply meant that between the tapes dated 31st August and 24th October 1994, I seem to have nothing on record of any conversations between Mike and Alan Gray. I was asking you when Mike first told Alan that Anne had forged the diary, because you seemed to be better informed than I was on the subject. Then you revealed that you hadn't listened to any of the tapes dating back before the November, so I asked you about the 'multiple occasions' between June 1994 and January 1995 when you claimed that Mike had explained to Alan who had supposedly done what.



I only know of the one tape from October, and I'm not about to lose another hour of my life listening to it all again, when you could have done so if you really wanted to know what Mike was claiming or not claiming on that occasion. Seth Linder refers to it in Inside Story on page 147, and he writes that at one point Mike 'promises to show Gray how he forged the Diary'. Nothing there about Anne having done so.



So check. I now see that by 'multiple occasions' you meant on four dates in early November, and I remain a little surprised that you didn't have a note of all Alan's responses, and appear to have forgotten how he reacted to Mike's repeated claims, effectively accusing Anne of being the forger.

It must have come as a bit of a surprise to Alan, considering that on 24th October Mike had promised to show him how he had forged it. The very fact that Alan had to ask on 4th November whose handwriting it was in, and then how Anne did it, indicates that this was the first time he was made aware that it was supposedly Anne, not Mike, who had actually forged it, and one could hardly blame Alan for seeing it as a change of story, which soon became the norm. On page 152 of Inside Story comes Seth's reference to Alan saying to Mike: "You said Anne did it. You're still saying it's all her handwriting", upon which Mike says it was fifty-fifty and Alan asks if they can prove that. On the same day, Mike told Alan that Tony Devereux had given him his research, which Mike then checked for himself, before creating the diary on his word processor, for Anne to write into the photo album. Mike promised he would later specify which sections he wrote himself [referring to his fifty-fifty claim], which Anne had supposedly been having trouble with. The following day, 7th November, Alan was not pleased to discover that Mike had reverted to the claim that Anne wrote all the diary, telling Mike: "You've not got to be seen as telling any more lies."

Had Alan thought to listen again to the tape recording from 16th August, he would have heard Mike's giveaway comments on the phone about the diary being 100% genuine, but needing time before he could claim that Anne forged it. Why did he need any time at all, if it was the simple truth and the diary was 100% Barrett made?



How does that equate to the eleven days Mike went on to claim it took to create the diary? "Very slow on some occasions", but quicker on others? How did Mike know that Anne would have the skill to disguise her handwriting in the first place - or indeed the will, if he had persuaded her that she was only creating the diary as a marketing 'gimmick' to help sell the story?



You misunderstood my reference to no evidence existing. I meant no evidence ever existing, in the case of neither Barrett being involved in forging the diary. Have you ever considered that Anne knew it was rubbish, and that Melvin Harris was right to believe it was rubbish too?



Hang on a minute, I didn't summarise that conversation because, as I said previously, I made a note on my timeline that I found it unintelligible. I was referring to the tape dated 16th August, when Mike had supposedly only engaged Alan to find Anne, because she had apparently moved again. I presume he had heard about the statement she had made about the diary's origins at the end of July and was intent on having it out with her.



How did you manage to get the date wrong if you were listening to the conversation of 16th August? And how odd that you found the most significant bit inaudible:

"...because I can't turn round say "Anne forged it" if you understand what I mean?"

How can you be 'confident' that wasn't said, when you admit that the recording supplied to casebook is not good quality and there are so many gaps in your 'very best transcription'? My timeline for 16th August 1994 has copied and pasted extracts transcribed from the same conversation, so the recording used back then was evidently of better quality, and if I have 'imagined it', along with the reference to the British Museum, then so has everyone else involved.



Why do you keep referring to 'we', as if you have someone whispering words of comfort and encouragement in your ear? It's clear enough to me that what Alan Gray heard Mike saying on the phone on 16th August could have had no meaning for him then, because Mike had not yet had a chance to work on him and groom him with all his diary bullshi*. That indeed took time and didn't happen overnight. It now appears that it took nearly three months before Mike was ready to light the touch paper around Bonfire Night, 1994, when he set off a quick series of roman candles, which were more like damp squibs, and not a single penny for the poor Guy, Alan Gray.

Mike could have told the full story, if true, back in October 1993 when he had his bestseller, or at least when Anne left him in the New Year. He could have gone straight to the papers a whole year before his affidavit. What was he waiting for, Christmas? Not quite, he went off early and put his sprouts on to boil in the November.

Years later Barrat & Barrett [Deceased] went into the business of making April Fools of anyone falling for the original trumped-up charges against Anne Graham. That was the day after the Awesome Auction that Never Was.

You couldn't make it up - except that Barrett and Barrat did just that.



So you reckon young Caroline had to be 'coached' to tell the Devereux story, and to say nothing about watching the photo album being transformed into the diary before her very eyes? Wouldn't it have been a tad simpler and infinitely less risky just to send her to her bedroom, or for stay overs with school friends, while the deed was being done? If Mike could persuade her mother to sit down and disguise her handwriting over 63 pages, removing Caroline from the scene of crime for the duration should have been a piece of cake by comparison. It makes so much more sense that she was allowed to be in the same room because they were only preparing a transcript, which Mike took to London with the diary. Caroline may well have remembered this as it was coming up to the end of term and the Easter holidays. All three events connected with the diary coming into their lives: her Dad asking questions over the phone; the row between her parents; and the diary being transcribed, would have been the more memorable for happening in quick succession, and far less need for any special 'coaching' than if she'd been there to see the diary in its before, during and after condition.

Caroline could not have known how her Dad ended up with that old book, or who gave it to him, if all she really remembered was that one day there was no diary in their lives and everything was relatively normal, and the next there was this 'thing', that created so much friction in the home. If her Dad was on the phone to someone, pestering them with questions, how would Caroline have known who he was talking to? It's not known how much she was ever told about her Dad's acquaintances, including Tony, before or after his fatal heart attack, which happened while the Barretts were away on holiday. Would Caroline have twigged that her Dad couldn't possibly have been phoning Tony about the diary? Or was she too young to think or care deeply enough about what she was hearing from her parents to notice any contradictions in the story? If she had not questioned them about this by February 1993, they could have been reasonably confident that she had accepted what she had heard.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

You specifically asked me what I thought of a telephone conversation captured on the 16th August 1994 recording, so surely it was reasonable for me to assume that what you describe as "the most significant bit" was audible on the recording available on Casebook, otherwise why ask me about it? Now you seem to be telling me that you must have heard a better quality recording which isn't available to me. Why wasn't this better quality recording provided to Casebook? All I can say is that there is no way, on the recording I've listened to (and I obviously meant the 16th August one), is it possible to hear Barrett saying the words "Anne forged it". It wouldn't make sense in the context of a conversation in which he says "the diary is 100% genuine" and in which he's talking about sending something to his solicitors. Isn’t it possible that you are mistaken on this point Caz?

It's somewhat surprising that I have to tell you that there are two tapes from October 1994 on Casebook, one dated 24th October and one dated 31st October. While I haven't listened to either of them, extracts from a transcript of the 24th October recording are available on the internet. Apparently, Barrett says to Gray on that date:

'I done it on a word processor. She’s transcribed it....I thought it was a bit clever. The writing and that. Write it down then. So I forged it, she transcribed it.'

I was hoping you would confirm this for me, to save me having to listen to it. If correct, it seems like there is a consistent pattern through October and November 1994 of Barrett saying that Anne wrote the manuscript. If you're interested in Gray's reactions to what Barrett said in November, I can only advise you to listen to the tapes yourself and am surprised you either haven't done so or didn't make notes when you did. I can't see how his reactions are in any way relevant or of the slightest interest.

It may be that you haven't read the extended discussion I had with Ike about the supposed "50/50" conversation earlier in the year but I can’t see how Seth Linder has portrayed the exchange accurately on page 152 of your book without listening to the recording myself but...surprise surprise, it's gone missing and isn't available (or is inaudible). What I think it's most likely that Mike was conveying was that the creation of the diary was 50% done by him and 50% by Anne, not the handwriting being 50/50. But how can this be checked if the recording isn't available to listen to? In relying on Seth Liinder, it seems like you haven't even heard it yourself. Am I right to think that?

Your claim that Barrett could have told "the full story" in October 1993 doesn't make any sense to me. As we've discussed, I think it plausible that he only confessed in June 1994 due to his imminent forthcoming exposure of having been a journalist and he didn't then want to implicate his wife in a public newspaper confession, which seems reasonable to me. But then he privately told Gray the full story about Anne's involvement when questioned in detail about the forgery for the first time. I don’t understand why do you have such a problem with that Caz?

I truly can't see any inconsistency with Barrett saying that Anne wrote "very slow on some occasions" and the diary being written in eleven days. Why does it have to have been written quickly? Eleven days seems plenty of time for the forger to have taken some care over the handwriting.

I certainly have considered that Anne would have known that Mike's affidavit was rubbish if she wasn't involved in the forgery - because it's obvious - but, as I've explained, if that was the case, it surprises me that she regarded the affidavit as a form of blackmail. Could you please provide some evidence that Melvin Harris believed that Mike's affidavit was "rubbish"?

In asking me if I reckon that young Caroline had to be coached to tell the Devereux story, you've failed to deal with the question of why young Caroline's parents were happy to leave her alone with Feldman (assuming that happened and I'll take your word for it) when she could surely have told him that she remembered her father coming home with the diary in the Spring of the previous year, i.e. 1992, which would immediately have exposed the Devereux origin story as bogus. When she said that she remembered her father pestering Tony with questions about the diary, was it, in your opinion, an incredible stroke of luck for the Barretts that she innocently confirmed their false story? And do you think that when her father telephoned Eddie (as you presumably believe happened) she couldn't possibly have known who he was speaking to? Might not Mike having said something like "Hello Eddie" have given it away? I'm also very dubious about her story that her mother wanted to burn the diary when we know for a fact that the truth is that Anne wanted the diary put into a bank safe to protect it from fire. I've been re-reading your book and I note that Caroline, as a young adult, failed to turn up for an interview with you or your co-authors in which she could have cleared up many of these issues and told you what she remembered about the diary. Shame that, eh?

[caz]

Hi Caz,

What did the auctioneer say was wrong about the way Barrett described the conduct of the auction in his affidavit?

Everything. It's all been posted numerous times.

[caz]

So the answer to my question, based on the information you've provided, is that Mike did notsay in June 1994 that he wrote the diary, including the manuscript, on his own. Why not just say that Caz?

Hence he can't be said to have changed his story, only augmented it.

I thought you confirmed in #208 that Mike told Alan Gray in "late October 1994" that Anne wrote the manuscript. Have I got that wrong? If so, what did you mean by saying "Then I have nothing until late October 1994"?

I simply meant that between the tapes dated 31st August and 24th October 1994, I seem to have nothing on record of any conversations between Mike and Alan Gray. I was asking you when Mike first told Alan that Anne had forged the diary, because you seemed to be better informed than I was on the subject. Then you revealed that you hadn't listened to any of the tapes dating back before the November, so I asked you about the 'multiple occasions' between June 1994 and January 1995 when you claimed that Mike had explained to Alan who had supposedly done what.

Does Mike say on one of the tapes from October 1994 that Anne wrote the manuscript or not?

I only know of the one tape from October, and I'm not about to lose another hour of my life listening to it all again, when you could have done so if you really wanted to know what Mike was claiming or not claiming on that occasion. Seth Linder refers to it in Inside Story on page 147, and he writes that at one point Mike 'promises to show Gray how he forged the Diary'. Nothing there about Anne having done so.

Never mind the exact words, "the actual manuscript", did he make clear to Gray in October 1994 that Anne wrote the manuscript? I need to check if you are asking me questions in good faith.

So check. I now see that by 'multiple occasions' you meant on four dates in early November, and I remain a little surprised that you didn't have a note of all Alan's responses, and appear to have forgotten how he reacted to Mike's repeated claims, effectively accusing Anne of being the forger.

It must have come as a bit of a surprise to Alan, considering that on 24th October Mike had promised to show him how he had forged it. The very fact that Alan had to ask on 4th November whose handwriting it was in, and then how Anne did it, indicates that this was the first time he was made aware that it was supposedly Anne, not Mike, who had actually forged it, and one could hardly blame Alan for seeing it as a change of story, which soon became the norm. On page 152 of Inside Story comes Seth's reference to Alan saying to Mike: "You said Anne did it. You're still saying it's all her handwriting", upon which Mike says it was fifty-fifty and Alan asks if they can prove that. On the same day, Mike told Alan that Tony Devereux had given him his research, which Mike then checked for himself, before creating the diary on his word processor, for Anne to write into the photo album. Mike promised he would later specify which sections he wrote himself [referring to his fifty-fifty claim], which Anne had supposedly been having trouble with. The following day, 7th November, Alan was not pleased to discover that Mike had reverted to the claim that Anne wrote all the diary, telling Mike: "You've not got to be seen as telling any more lies."

Had Alan thought to listen again to the tape recording from 16th August, he would have heard Mike's giveaway comments on the phone about the diary being 100% genuine, but needing time before he could claim that Anne forged it. Why did he need any time at all, if it was the simple truth and the diary was 100% Barrett made?

Gray then asks him "How did she do the handwriting?" to which Barrett replies: "Easy. She just wrote very slow on some occasions". (4th November)

How does that equate to the eleven days Mike went on to claim it took to create the diary? "Very slow on some occasions", but quicker on others? How did Mike know that Anne would have the skill to disguise her handwriting in the first place - or indeed the will, if he had persuaded her that she was only creating the diary as a marketing 'gimmick' to help sell the story?

Your question, "Have you ever even considered that Anne 'knew it was rubbish' because no evidence existed?" strikes me as bizarre. If she wasn't involved in the forgery, she would have known by virtue of that fact alone that the affidavit was rubbish. It wouldn't have had anything to do with the lack of evidence.

You misunderstood my reference to no evidence existing. I meant no evidence ever existing, in the case of neither Barrett being involved in forging the diary. Have you ever considered that Anne knew it was rubbish, and that Melvin Harris was right to believe it was rubbish too?

As the conversation on 31st August seems to be important to you, I've had a listen to the recording myself. The result of the exercise is that I don't believe your summary of it is correct or anything near to being correct.

Hang on a minute, I didn't summarise that conversation because, as I said previously, I made a note on my timeline that I found it unintelligible. I was referring to the tape dated 16th August, when Mike had supposedly only engaged Alan to find Anne, because she had apparently moved again. I presume he had heard about the statement she had made about the diary's origins at the end of July and was intent on having it out with her.

Here's my very best transcription of what Mike can be heard saying:

“Hello….super….100% genuine…misquotes….the Sunday Times, the Sunday Times just, shall we say, attacked me…yeah, yeah…they attacked me for want of a better word…yeah, yeah… several… I’ve got to get permission as well before I can ….getting a Victorian…I’ll send it up to me solicitors… I’ll send it to me solicitors.…I can’t turn round and say yes [I have]…if you understand what I mean, you know....that’s slowly but surely, you know, and that takes time as you can well imagine, these things don’t happen overnight….but that diary is 100% genuine…so… I hope you understand…sensible….the diary….none whatsoever…it’s entirely up to you…as I say it’s 100% genuine….I mean, all they have to do is read the book themselves…100% genuine…there’s no problem.....absolutely incredible…put it that way...just the way they reacted…totally ridiculous....publishers…got nervous…ridiculous...when the paperback comes out surely….no….anyway can we talk about it tomorrow because it’s too long and complicated a story.…Yeah, it’s number 12, 12 Goldie Street, Anfield, Liverpool, L4….okay then…thank you, bye, bye.”

It's not a good quality recording but I'm confident that he never once mentions Anne during the call. It seems to me that you've imagined it. I also don't hear him mentioning the British Museum. But please feel free to provide an alternative transcript if you think your hearing is better than mine.

How did you manage to get the date wrong if you were listening to the conversation of 16th August? And how odd that you found the most significant bit inaudible:

"...because I can't turn round say "Anne forged it" if you understand what I mean?"

How can you be 'confident' that wasn't said, when you admit that the recording supplied to casebook is not good quality and there are so many gaps in your 'very best transcription'? My timeline for 16th August 1994 has copied and pasted extracts transcribed from the same conversation, so the recording used back then was evidently of better quality, and if I have 'imagined it', along with the reference to the British Museum, then so has everyone else involved.

For the moment though, we can, I think, safely ignore your speculations as to why Mike said what you think he did in August 1994 about slowly revealing that Anne wrote the diary.

Why do you keep referring to 'we', as if you have someone whispering words of comfort and encouragement in your ear? It's clear enough to me that what Alan Gray heard Mike saying on the phone on 16th August could have had no meaning for him then, because Mike had not yet had a chance to work on him and groom him with all his diary bullshi*. That indeed took time and didn't happen overnight. It now appears that it took nearly three months before Mike was ready to light the touch paper around Bonfire Night, 1994, when he set off a quick series of roman candles, which were more like damp squibs, and not a single penny for the poor Guy, Alan Gray.

Mike could have told the full story, if true, back in October 1993 when he had his bestseller, or at least when Anne left him in the New Year. He could have gone straight to the papers a whole year before his affidavit. What was he waiting for, Christmas? Not quite, he went off early and put his sprouts on to boil in the November.

Years later Barrat & Barrett [Deceased] went into the business of making April Fools of anyone falling for the original trumped-up charges against Anne Graham. That was the day after the Awesome Auction that Never Was.

You couldn't make it up - except that Barrett and Barrat did just that.

The question you asked me about the Barretts leaving their daughter alone with Feldman in early 1993 applies equally to you as to me. Why weren't they worried Caroline was going to blurt out that daddy bought the diary home in the spring of last year? How could they be sure that Caroline was going to say that her daddy got the diary off Tony and that he pestered Tony with questions, even though, according to you, the diary didn't emerge until long after Tony's death? Perhaps the Barretts were supremely confident their daughter would stick to the pre-arranged story, as she appears to have done.

So you reckon young Caroline had to be 'coached' to tell the Devereux story, and to say nothing about watching the photo album being transformed into the diary before her very eyes? Wouldn't it have been a tad simpler and infinitely less risky just to send her to her bedroom, or for stay overs with school friends, while the deed was being done? If Mike could persuade her mother to sit down and disguise her handwriting over 63 pages, removing Caroline from the scene of crime for the duration should have been a piece of cake by comparison. It makes so much more sense that she was allowed to be in the same room because they were only preparing a transcript, which Mike took to London with the diary. Caroline may well have remembered this as it was coming up to the end of term and the Easter holidays. All three events connected with the diary coming into their lives: her Dad asking questions over the phone; the row between her parents; and the diary being transcribed, would have been the more memorable for happening in quick succession, and far less need for any special 'coaching' than if she'd been there to see the diary in its before, during and after condition.

Caroline could not have known how her Dad ended up with that old book, or who gave it to him, if all she really remembered was that one day there was no diary in their lives and everything was relatively normal, and the next there was this 'thing', that created so much friction in the home. If her Dad was on the phone to someone, pestering them with questions, how would Caroline have known who he was talking to? It's not known how much she was ever told about her Dad's acquaintances, including Tony, before or after his fatal heart attack, which happened while the Barretts were away on holiday. Would Caroline have twigged that her Dad couldn't possibly have been phoning Tony about the diary? Or was she too young to think or care deeply enough about what she was hearing from her parents to notice any contradictions in the story? If she had not questioned them about this by February 1993, they could have been reasonably confident that she had accepted what she had heard.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Abby,

Perhaps 'they' are, but nobody has told me about it.

But tell me, if the research was yours, as a result of your own work, effort and expense, would you reveal all the details here for free, just to see all the mental gymnastics involved in wishing it away?

There's no need to wish away the auction, where Mike Barrett claimed to buy the photo album, because there is zero evidence for it.

You either believe Mike, who lied as easily as other people breathe, or you believe the auctioneer, who denied that their sales were ever conducted in the way Mike described in his affidavit. That's it. One or the other.

If this was any other subject, 99.9% of reasonably informed posters would be in agreement that an auctioneer was better placed to know his own business practices than a fantasist like Barrett. But for some reason, the master bullshi**er still has the power to groom people from beyond the grave if they choose to let him. As I've said before, thank goodness he wasn't filthy rich and a politician. Brains would have been optional.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

What did the auctioneer say was wrong about the way Barrett described the conduct of the auction in his affidavit?

[caz]

hi herlock
perhaps they are waiting to reveal the names and details surrounding the discovery of "the old book" in yet another "new book".

Hi Abby,

Perhaps 'they' are, but nobody has told me about it.

But tell me, if the research was yours, as a result of your own work, effort and expense, would you reveal all the details here for free, just to see all the mental gymnastics involved in wishing it away?

There's no need to wish away the auction, where Mike Barrett claimed to buy the photo album, because there is zero evidence for it.

You either believe Mike, who lied as easily as other people breathe, or you believe the auctioneer, who denied that their sales were ever conducted in the way Mike described in his affidavit. That's it. One or the other.

If this was any other subject, 99.9% of reasonably informed posters would be in agreement that an auctioneer was better placed to know his own business practices than a fantasist like Barrett. But for some reason, the master bullshi**er still has the power to groom people from beyond the grave if they choose to let him. As I've said before, thank goodness he wasn't filthy rich and a politician. Brains would have been optional.

Love,

Caz
X