New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[Herlock Sholmes]

When Keith Skinner and his partner Coral interviewed some of the Battlecrease witnesses, Coral noticed the diary being referred to, quite unprompted, as "the old book". I remarked on the same thing independently to Keith, when listening to the recordings. As far as I'm aware, the diary had been described variously in the available books as a diary, journal, photo album, scrapbook, guard book or ledger, but not as simply an old book, or the old book. It somehow only seems appropriate in conversation, and it is by far the simplest, clearest and most accurate description to use for the physical book which contains the words we all know and love so well.

Love,

Caz
X

Hold on Caz, which witnesses are you talking about, what did they witness and in what year did they give their accounts to Keith Skinner and Coral? I've no doubt that some of the electricians, having been told about a theory that one of their number had found a diary of Jack the Ripper, might well have spoken informally of the possibility of someone having found an old book. Perhaps someone had put the idea into their heads. But is there an actual witness to an actual event or conversation in 1992 who spoke, unprompted, of the discovery of an old book? Surely that must be very important information. Who is the witness, or witnesses, who mentioned "an old book" and in what context did they mention it? This all seems basic stuff that needs to be out there.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, I am presuming he didn't do it because the evidence for it has not been forthcoming and the evidence we do have points in another direction entirely, which would make it impossible for him to have done it, even if he might have had the intellect, the patience, the persistence, research skills and the literacy to forge a document of this nature.



'If' there were mistakes in it?? Of course there would have been a danger to Anne in Mike announcing to the world that they had forged the diary 'if' that had been the case, but the degree of danger would have depended on whether Mike would ever be capable of making yet another confession statement, but with all the right notes in the right order. Anne could only have crossed her fingers and hoped that day would never come. She might have guessed he didn't have any physical proof, such as the auction ticket, or a receipt for Diamine ink, or it would have saved him - not to mention Alan Gray - all the time and trouble of making such an error filled statement in the first place. But back in July 1994, when she came out with her new story, she couldn't have known that Mike hadn't managed to gather the hard evidence he needed, following the hasty retraction of his first forgery claim - unless no such evidence ever existed.



Not if the diary was the only 'weapon' Mike had to use against Anne. She had used it against him the previous July after all, so it would have been natural enough to throw it back in her face. Since the affidavit has managed to convince so many armchair theorists over the years, Mike might well have imagined it would have the power to scare Anne into making contact with him, if she thought enough people would actually believe what was in it.

But it didn't match with Melvin Harris's nest of forgers, and it wasn't made public until it reached the internet two years later, so Anne was right not to be intimidated by Mike's efforts.

Love,

Caz
X

Oh well if you're only presuming that Mike wasn't one of the forgers, that's fine. I thought you were telling us that Mike definitely couldn't have been involved because he wasn't capable. But if it's only an argument that he didn't do it because of a lack of evidence, that's fine. I'm not aware, incidentally, of the evidence which points elsewhere, and you didn't mention it in your post, but that may just be because I'm relatively new to the subject.

I still don't understand your point about the affidavit. My question was premised on the assumption that Anne assisted Mike in the forgery. So coming back with an argument based on the premise that she did not, doesn't get us anywhere. So to repeat what I said

"if she had assisted her husband in the forgery, wouldn't there have been a danger to her in him announcing this to the world?"

Are you willing to start with this premise? I'm not asking you to accept it, but, in the hypothetical, if she was one of the forgers there would have been a danger to her in Mike's affidavit being released to the world wouldn't there? And surely that's true whether the affidavit contained factual mistakes or not (and I'm not saying it didn't).

As for what was going on in Mike's mind, in another post you told me that Mike wasn't the type of person to hang around. Yet he'd told Alan Gray in October 1994 that his wife had assisted him with the forgery, hadn't he? He'd repeated this in November. Yet he'd said nothing in public. He didn't do anything through the whole of December. Is it your contention that Mike was slowly laying the groundwork through October, November and December ready for the big reveal in January when he could use this totally fake story about Anne's involvement in an affidavit to blackmail her into speaking to him? That idea doesn't sit well with me. Does it with you?

I find the idea that Anne was terrified about Mike falsely claiming that she was involved in forging the diary to be wholly unconvincing myself. And I have to say that, yes, Anne could have known very well in July 1994 that Mike hadn't managed to gather the hard evidence he needed to prove his story if she had destroyed it all herself, or was aware that it had all been destroyed.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Towards the end of June 1993, when Eddie agreed to meet Robert Smith and Mike Barrett in the Saddle, he volunteered a story that he had found an old book in Dodd's house, but said he had thrown it in a skip - which wasn't there. It would still have been taken from the house without Dodd's knowledge or permission, but Eddie must have thought the childish lie about the skip would satisfy Robert that he hadn't literally 'stolen' anything and it could not have been the diary in any case.

Perhaps you could explain why Eddie said anything at all. Was he covering his back, or was he an even bigger fantasist than Mike?

Love,

Caz
X

According to Robert Smith, in his 2017 book, Eddie Lyons "told me that he had found a book under some floorboards at Battlecrease...". Then a little later he says, "Remember, Lyons told me at The Saddle on 26th June 1993 that he found a book under the floorboards at Battlecrease..." A little bit later in the same paragraph he asks "Had Lyons found "a book" at Battlecrease on 9th March 1992....?"

Three references to what Lyons told him, all of which are "a book", none of which are an "old book".

So Lyons can't be the "witness" who mentioned an old book, if Robert Smith's account is correct, of course.

The only issue I thought I was dealing with was who was the witness who mentioned an "old book". If you want me to comment on what Eddie Lyons said to Robert Smith in June 1993 Caz I'd be happy to have a stab at it but could you first tell me where I can find a copy of Robert Smith's contemporaneous note of his conversation with Eddie? If no such note exists, I'm worried that, writing 14 years later, Robert may have forgotten what Eddie said to him. Memory, as I've said elsewhere, can play tricks on anyone. I'd also like to see exactly what Eddie Lyons said when asked about this meeting. Are you able to direct me to a transcript of any interview in which he was asked this question?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Mike didn't have to 'confess' to anything, therefore he was under no pressure to do so. There is no logic behind the argument that he would have felt obliged to throw himself under the bus because he'd neglected to tell the bus company that he once had a dream about being a train driver.



But it wasn't, was it? It was neither a 'complete shock' or a 'complete disaster' for Shirley. The only thing that could be described as a 'bombshell' was Mike's claim to have forged the diary himself, but that simply wasn't believable. Shirley went on to write and sell more diary books, safe in the knowledge that Mike's former writing ventures did not amount to evidence that he had faked the diary, with or without his wife.



Why do you say I'm not 'too bothered' that the Barretts provably lied about the diary? I'm not keen on liars and I don't seek to defend their lies. While all forgers are liars, all liars are not forgers, and it's an important distinction to keep in mind before we start accusing individuals of more wrongdoing than the evidence allows. It's not so much a matter of justice for those individuals; it's about trying to establish the truth about the diary, so its creation doesn't end up attributed to the wrong person or persons by popular demand, or by the sheer force of a theorist's ego.

I'm not sure what you mean by Anne's new story getting Mike out of a hole. He didn't want to get out of a hole, did he? He went and dug himself a deeper one after Shirley's 1994 paperback came out and he wasn't happy with what she'd revealed about him and Anne. If they had written the diary together, Anne's new story, as told to Feldman in the July, was an open invitation to Mike to drag her down into the hole with him, by proving it. I think you've been paying far too much attention to the illogical arguments on that score.



Then don't be 'convinced'. If you prefer to believe Mike didn't change his mind and his story, to suit his audience and the circumstances, I'm not bothered enough to disabuse you by leading you to the evidence that he did. You probably know all about the most major change, when his affidavit of January 1995 gave a totally different account from the one he swore in April 1993. At least one of them, if not both, contained nothing but lies, and the circumstances in which he made each statement were as different as the statements themselves, providing context and plausible motives for the stories he came up with on each occasion.

Love,

Caz
X

Perhaps I'm not making myself clear, Caz. If Mike was the forger, he must have been under immense pressure due to the imminent exposure by Nick Warren of him having been a journalist. Indeed, assuming he was the forger, there is a very good chance that he realized that the game was up because he would inevitably be exposed as a liar and a scam artist who must have created the diary. For that reason, he could very well have decided to own it, get ahead of it, and tell the world about how he was a master forger who fooled everyone. That seems to fit perfectly with human behaviour as I understand it.

I note that you didn't quote (and respond to) the part of my post which said "And we certainly know that Mike was extremely agitated by Warren's forthcoming article in May 1994, don't we? He even threatened to sue him for libel if he went ahead with publication?" Was that a problem for you to deal with?

If the surprising news of Mike having been a journalist didn't come as a complete shock or disaster when it was revealed in July 1994, that can only be because there had been an even bigger shock and disaster of Mike having confessed to having forged the diary. So, of course, the journalism issue paled by comparison. Absent the confession, though, surely it would have led to some very uncomfortable questions for Mike, unless the researchers at the time were completely incompetent or, worse, unwilling to consider any evidence which pointed towards him being the forger.

As for Mike allegedly "changing his mind like the weather" I'm well aware that he told two different stories about where the diary came from. One was that he was given it by Tony Devereux, the other that he (and his wife) had forged it. But when saying that a person changes their mind like the weather it implies constant, irrational changes doesn't it? Yes, we can see that when Mike saw an opportunity from making money from the diary he would say he got it from Tony Devereux. But on other occasions - and I would suggest all other occasions - he said it was a forgery. I think it just paints a false picture to suggest he kept changing his mind like the weather as if he couldn't work out what story he liked best.

[rjpalmer]

Let me help with the confusion.

The blog at Orsam Books directly quotes Robert Smith's own account, and Smith reported that Eddie described a 'book,' not an 'old book.'

What was being disputed is Lombro and C.A.M. putting 'old' into the horse's mouth, which disagrees with what Smith wrote in 2017.

--for those interested in the minutia being strictly accurate.

Of course, calling it an 'old book' is somewhat more suggestive than calling it a 'book,' which could have been a water damaged romance paperback by Danielle Steel circa 1984, which in Wonderland at least, is more likely to be tossed into a non-existent skip than an oversize photo album with a confession of Jack the Ripper inside.

Meanwhile, I'm still puzzled why Paul Dodd never pursued the lawsuit in light of Eddie's alleged "confession," since he had sought legal advice on the matter.

But now it seems that it wasn't Eddie who called it an old book, but people who had never even seen the book, but were passing along second and third hand accounts in interviews that have not been made public.

Okay, got it.

Thanks. I guess that's progress.

[caz]

That’s Eddy with the Old Book story.

It’s hard to keep up, I know, even with Google.

When Keith Skinner and his partner Coral interviewed some of the Battlecrease witnesses, Coral noticed the diary being referred to, quite unprompted, as "the old book". I remarked on the same thing independently to Keith, when listening to the recordings. As far as I'm aware, the diary had been described variously in the available books as a diary, journal, photo album, scrapbook, guard book or ledger, but not as simply an old book, or the old book. It somehow only seems appropriate in conversation, and it is by far the simplest, clearest and most accurate description to use for the physical book which contains the words we all know and love so well.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I’m sorry Caz, but there's no onus on me to say that Mike Barrett was involved in creating the diary because I'm not saying this. I'm saying I don't know of any reason why he couldn't have done it. I thought you, on the other hand, are positively saying that he definitely didn't do it. So surely the onus is on you to explain why not.

No, I am presuming he didn't do it because the evidence for it has not been forthcoming and the evidence we do have points in another direction entirely, which would make it impossible for him to have done it, even if he might have had the intellect, the patience, the persistence, research skills and the literacy to forge a document of this nature.

I don't really understand your point about the affidavit. Sure, if there were mistakes in it Anne would have realized that immediately but, if she had assisted her husband in the forgery, wouldn't there have been a danger to her in him announcing this to the world? After all, didn't she get extremely upset and defensive when Mike said in June 1994 that he had created the diary, without even mentioning Anne? Didn't she regard his confession as an attack on her personally even though she hadn't been mentioned in it?

'If' there were mistakes in it?? Of course there would have been a danger to Anne in Mike announcing to the world that they had forged the diary 'if' that had been the case, but the degree of danger would have depended on whether Mike would ever be capable of making yet another confession statement, but with all the right notes in the right order. Anne could only have crossed her fingers and hoped that day would never come. She might have guessed he didn't have any physical proof, such as the auction ticket, or a receipt for Diamine ink, or it would have saved him - not to mention Alan Gray - all the time and trouble of making such an error filled statement in the first place. But back in July 1994, when she came out with her new story, she couldn't have known that Mike hadn't managed to gather the hard evidence he needed, following the hasty retraction of his first forgery claim - unless no such evidence ever existed.

In any case, what Anne did or did not think when reading the affidavit isn't the relevant point here. Surely, the relevant point is what was in Mike's mind at the time. He, presumably, wouldn't have known about the mistakes in the affidavit. What I'm saying is that if the whole thing was a tissue of lies, he would have known that and Anne would have known that and he would have known that Anne knew that, which makes his attempt to use the affidavit for the purposes of blackmail very odd. You surely must agree with that at least?

Not if the diary was the only 'weapon' Mike had to use against Anne. She had used it against him the previous July after all, so it would have been natural enough to throw it back in her face. Since the affidavit has managed to convince so many armchair theorists over the years, Mike might well have imagined it would have the power to scare Anne into making contact with him, if she thought enough people would actually believe what was in it.

But it didn't match with Melvin Harris's nest of forgers, and it wasn't made public until it reached the internet two years later, so Anne was right not to be intimidated by Mike's efforts.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

If you've decided to mangle the English language by describing Eddie Lyons as a witness to his own alleged discovery, could you please provide the quote in which Lyons says he found an "old book"?

Towards the end of June 1993, when Eddie agreed to meet Robert Smith and Mike Barrett in the Saddle, he volunteered a story that he had found an old book in Dodd's house, but said he had thrown it in a skip - which wasn't there. It would still have been taken from the house without Dodd's knowledge or permission, but Eddie must have thought the childish lie about the skip would satisfy Robert that he hadn't literally 'stolen' anything and it could not have been the diary in any case.

Perhaps you could explain why Eddie said anything at all. Was he covering his back, or was he an even bigger fantasist than Mike?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Devereux could have "created" the diary.

Along with thousands of other Liverpudlians, Scotty. In theory at least, which is all they've got with the Barretts.

Imagine Mike Barrett seeing a little old lady walking down a quiet street carrying a brown paper parcel. He grabs it from her and runs, and this time nobody sees it happen, so he gets away with it.

Who's the forger now? Is it Mike? Or is it the lady whose husband had recently died, leaving her a load of old books to sort through?

How long's a piece of string?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

You seem to be asking me to tell you what was in Mike Barrett's soul, Caz. I can't do that.

I've read your paragraph about what you refer to as "the journalist argument" carefully and I can't see for one second how or why it's absurd. How are you possibly able to say that Mike felt under "no pressure" to confess as a result of Nick Warren's forthcoming exposé? How do you know what he was feeling at the time? Can you provide some evidence if you say this is the case Caz?

Mike didn't have to 'confess' to anything, therefore he was under no pressure to do so. There is no logic behind the argument that he would have felt obliged to throw himself under the bus because he'd neglected to tell the bus company that he once had a dream about being a train driver.

How could Shirley's reaction to discovering in July 1994 that Mike was a former journalist, absent his confession in June, have been anything other than one of complete shock? How could she have not instantly demanded an explanation for this bombshell from Mike? She had told the world that Barrett was only ever a merchant seaman, chef and scrap metal dealer in her book. How was she going to explain the omission of journalist to the world? It would have been a complete disaster, surely.

But it wasn't, was it? It was neither a 'complete shock' or a 'complete disaster' for Shirley. The only thing that could be described as a 'bombshell' was Mike's claim to have forged the diary himself, but that simply wasn't believable. Shirley went on to write and sell more diary books, safe in the knowledge that Mike's former writing ventures did not amount to evidence that he had faked the diary, with or without his wife.

Of course, Mike's confession in June, followed fast by Anne's new story about where the diary came from - which I assume you think is a complete lie but, curiously, aren't too bothered - changed the entire dynamic but it got Mike out of a hole.

Why do you say I'm not 'too bothered' that the Barretts provably lied about the diary? I'm not keen on liars and I don't seek to defend their lies. While all forgers are liars, all liars are not forgers, and it's an important distinction to keep in mind before we start accusing individuals of more wrongdoing than the evidence allows. It's not so much a matter of justice for those individuals; it's about trying to establish the truth about the diary, so its creation doesn't end up attributed to the wrong person or persons by popular demand, or by the sheer force of a theorist's ego.

I'm not sure what you mean by Anne's new story getting Mike out of a hole. He didn't want to get out of a hole, did he? He went and dug himself a deeper one after Shirley's 1994 paperback came out and he wasn't happy with what she'd revealed about him and Anne. If they had written the diary together, Anne's new story, as told to Feldman in the July, was an open invitation to Mike to drag her down into the hole with him, by proving it. I think you've been paying far too much attention to the illogical arguments on that score.

I'm not convinced, incidentally, that Mike "changed his mind like the weather". If you want to make that point good you'll need to set out some evidence for it.

Then don't be 'convinced'. If you prefer to believe Mike didn't change his mind and his story, to suit his audience and the circumstances, I'm not bothered enough to disabuse you by leading you to the evidence that he did. You probably know all about the most major change, when his affidavit of January 1995 gave a totally different account from the one he swore in April 1993. At least one of them, if not both, contained nothing but lies, and the circumstances in which he made each statement were as different as the statements themselves, providing context and plausible motives for the stories he came up with on each occasion.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

There was a movie deal in the works. William Friedkin was set to direct in 1995 with Anthony Hopkins so it was a real deal. Michael was sabotaging it with "blackmail" or whatever you want to call it.

What's there not to understand?

So you think Anne's concern was ensuring she received the money from the film deal?

[Herlock Sholmes]

That’s Eddy with the Old Book story.

It’s hard to keep up, I know, even with Google.

If you've decided to mangle the English language by describing Eddie Lyons as a witness to his own alleged discovery, could you please provide the quote in which Lyons says he found an "old book"?

[Lombro2]

There was a movie deal in the works. William Friedkin was set to direct in 1995 with Anthony Hopkins so it was a real deal. Michael was sabotaging it with "blackmail" or whatever you want to call it.

What's there not to understand?

[Lombro2]

That’s a witness, of course, that corroborated other witnesses (the only ones that count) even when he’s the accused.

[Lombro2]

That’s Eddy with the Old Book story.

It’s hard to keep up, I know, even with Google.