New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[caz]

No, I'm aware you haven't asked to see any other extracts, Caz. My point was that it would seem that Orsam does have the whole letter because he's reproduced a number of extracts. But, as I said, I haven't asked him. I's not something that's ever occurred to me to ask.

There's no evidence as far as I'm aware that Anne ever privately told Mike that his confessions were all total bollocks. I suppose that's something which remains at issue on the basis that the Barretts could have forged the diary together.

As for your theory that Anne said she was not going to be blackmailed by an affidavit which was full of lies, the problem is that this isn't what she said in her letter, at least not in the extracts which have been reproduced (and it would seem that all the relevant extracts have been made available). On the contrary, what she wrote to Mike was, "If you want to destroy the diary get on with it! Because nothing I can say or nothing I can do will stop you doing what you want to do. And writing to me saying "speak to me or I'll.....will not work.". She then added, "if you want to make a public exhibition of yourself that is your decision not mine. But don't expect me to sit quietly back and take it because I won't." So, you see, she didn't actually say that his document was a pack of lies. On the face of it, she would appear to be saying that she was refusing to be blackmailed into speaking to Mike by his threat of destroying the diary (i.e. by circulating his affidavit) and was challenging him to go ahead and do it, but that, if he did, he should expect some strong retaliation from her. Which makes it surprising that she didn't say that it was an empty threat because the affidavit was all untrue. I do agree with you, though, that she would have been too clever to admit in the letter that they did jointly forge the diary, if that's what had happened. She would have surely left that part unsaid.

So basically, none of this is evidence that Anne was involved in creating the diary - which she tried and failed to destroy physically back in 1992, and which Mike tried and failed to destroy with all his forgery claims. She is challenging Mike to do so, but he doesn't make a public exhibition of himself in January 1995, by taking his affidavit to Harold Brough, does he? If he had, I don't suppose she would have sat quietly back and taken it, to be publicly accused of writing the diary, with Caroline as a witness. But there was no need for Anne to do anything, because Mike waited until April 1999 to make a semi-public exhibition of himself at a packed Cloak & Dagger Club meeting, by which time she had moved on with her life, and all Mike's attempts to get Anne to "speak to me or I'll....." had failed to work, just as she told him in that letter.

Love,

Caz
X

[John Wheat]

A frankly ridiculous thread that just gets more and more ridiculous.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Strange? Coming from Mike? Nope.



By all means carry on speculating about what Mike was asked, and why he said whatever he said. I've already explained why I won't be providing additional information to what has already been posted on these boards. And while we're at it, I won't be providing answers to questions that have already been asked and addressed a thousand times. I just don't have the time.



And I don't understand the logic of the point being made here. Okay, I realise that Mike wasn't exactly Mr Logic, but if he was expecting to be publicly 'exposed' as a former 'journalist' [a bit of a euphemism, but at least he didn't have a column in the Daily Mail], leading to 'very difficult questions' being asked by Shirley, Doreen et al, about why he hadn't told them, why in the name of sanity would that have compelled him to expose himself [oo-er, missus] as an active forger? Why would he not have fobbed them off instead with one of his stock answers or smart remarks? What on earth could they have done that was worse than what he did to himself by cutting off his own Scotch tokens so effectively? Isn't it a bit like asking for more offences to be taken into account, when he hasn't yet been charged with one? "All right, so I got some children's word puzzles and celebrity interviews published after Anne tidied them up and corrected all my mistakes, and I didn't tell you. It's a fair cop. I will now hold my hands up to forging Maybrick's diary and framing him as Jack the Ripper."



If you say so. I'm just struggling with the concept of Mike ever being 'absolved' if he had also concealed from Shirley and the others that he had forged the diary. How did he think it would help matters when he claimed to have done so?

Absolution is not a concept I had ever previously associated with Mike Barrett. But every day is a school day.



You say 'we' and claim this is a 'plausible' reason for Mike to confess to forgery, so nothing I could say is likely to alter that view. And it is only a view. I have explained why the logic escapes me, and I doubt that any amount of Herlocksplaining will help me to understand why you find it logical.

Love,

Caz
X

You seem to be making this more complicated than it needs to be Caz.

It's really very simple. As at June 1994, Mike is expecting to be exposed by Nick Warren as having been a former journalist. You seem to quibble with the description of "journalist" but I can't think of any other word that is better or more accurate or appropriate. By this time, he had clearly concealed this information from Shirley Harrison and Doreen Montgomery. There was no good excuse for not having told them. He would have known for sure that they were going to ask him about it once Nick Warren's article was published. And, indeed, we know for a fact that Shirley was sufficiently interested to write to the editor of Celebrity to check the position. Mike only needed to be slightly paranoid to feel under enormous pressure that his entire cover story of being a mere scrap metal dealer was going to collapse around him. If we assume that he was responsible for the forgery, it's not difficult to appreciate that the guilt of all his lies, and the feeling of being suspected by everyone of the forgery, might have been weighing very heavily on him at this time. There is a well known saying that you might have heard of: "Confession is good for the soul".

Obviously, I can't say that this is definitely what happened. It's just a theory. But I don't think that anyone has offered a reason as to why it couldn't have happened. I don't need to know the details of what Mike did or did not say secretly to Scotland Yard because that's irrelevant if Shirley and the other researchers were unaware.

[caz]

I think I already explained why the dates don't work, Caz. Firstly, you said that the swearing of the affidavit in January 1995 occurred "just after she got a divorce from him." In fact, as at January 1995 the Barretts were still married. Secondly, you said that Mike was "attempting to throw Anne under that bus for having left him". But Anne left Mike a whole year before he swore his affidavit (which itself wasn't made public) and within that period, six months after she left him, Mike didn't mention Anne's name in his initial public confession. But then thirdly, and most importantly, the idea behind the affidavit appears to have come from Harris and thus had nothing to do with the state of the Barretts' marriage.

And I explained my objections in some detail. If you still don't or can't understand them, in the context of what was happening in 1994 and early 1995, in the lives of the Barretts, I'm not particularly inclined to go through it all over again - there is nothing new here. But how could Mike not have seen the affidavit in terms of his relationship with Anne, which was nearing the bitter end for him by then, when he put it through her door at the earliest opportunity? There is no evidence that he had any further purpose in mind for it, so what was it all for, from Mike's point of view? We know why Harris wanted it, but Mike was the one whose name was attached to the contents.

I also think I put forward believable motives for Mike's confessions.

Agree to disagree, Herlock. It'll be easier for both of us and our long-suffering readers.

In June 1994, he was expecting to be exposed by Nick Warren as having been a former journalist. I don't think there's any doubt about that fact. So I'm suggesting as a possibility that he figured that the game was up and that he might as well finally tell the truth, albeit that he wanted to keep Anne's name out of it as a courtesy to her because he still hoped they might get back together.

I disagree.

By December 1994, he was hoping to sell his story and had already told Alan Gray about his wife's involvement. He accepted the advice from Harris to put his story into writing (although no newspapers were sufficiently interested) and, instead, weaponised the affidavit by using it to "blackmaiil" Anne into speaking to him.

But Mike didn't get any money for his first forgery story back in June, so if he was hoping to sell a spiced-up version of it by the December, what happened? What is your source for the newspapers being approached but none of them being 'sufficiently interested'? Is this something new and real at last?

But he didn't go public with his claim that his wife wrote the manuscript until some years later. It may be that the first time he said so publicly was in 1999, more than five years after Anne walked out. That's a long time to wait to attempt to throw someone under the bus for having left him.

What's that saying about revenge being a dish best served cold?

I think Mike's problem was that it hadn't worked when it was still piping hot, so it was more a case of 'if at first you don't succeed...'.

I can't, of course, say this is definitely what happened...

Really? You sound pretty sure of yourself from where I'm sitting.

...but it seems believable to me, and has the advantage of being very simple and straightforward.

But a failed marriage is rarely simple and never straightforward. I left two of my own, but what do I know?

I have to repeat that no-one has given me any reason to think that the Barretts weren't capable of forging the diary and no alternative candidate outside the Barretts or their immediate circle has ever been put forward who could have done it in the post WW2 period.

No, you don't 'have' to repeat yourself on that score. I think we all know that you believe the Barretts were perfectly capable, but you haven't produced any actual evidence of it, or that they had the means, motive or opportunity to turn a partly used photo album, allegedly bought at an auction sale, into the Maybrick diary. I don't need to prove they did nothing of the sort. I'll just sit and wait for the evidence that they did - and I don't mean what Mike Barrett claimed they did.

In RJ Palmer's dreams, for one, he seems to have been with the Barretts throughout their adult lives, and on intimate terms with their individual capabilities back in the early 1990s. Hell, he's probably joined them on cycling tours round the moon - when he wasn't escorting the brothers Johnson to see life on Mars.

Back in the real world, has anyone whose views you most admire and repeat ever even met these people, never mind got to know anything about them as individuals? Or would you not consider that to be of any importance?

If everyone who knew Charles Lechmere in the 1880s had been asked if they thought he was capable of extreme violence, and they all said "not a chance", whose views would you take more seriously? Theirs, or some armchair theorist in the future, who didn't know the man from Adam?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

A frankly ridiculous thread that just gets more and more ridiculous.

I tend to agree for once, John. Certainly nothing new here.

[caz]

You seem to be making this more complicated than it needs to be Caz.

Really? I thought the same regarding your arguments to keep the Barretts in a distinctly ill-fitting frame.

It's really very simple. As at June 1994, Mike is expecting to be exposed by Nick Warren as having been a former journalist. You seem to quibble with the description of "journalist" but I can't think of any other word that is better or more accurate or appropriate. By this time, he had clearly concealed this information from Shirley Harrison and Doreen Montgomery. There was no good excuse for not having told them. He would have known for sure that they were going to ask him about it once Nick Warren's article was published. And, indeed, we know for a fact that Shirley was sufficiently interested to write to the editor of Celebrity to check the position. Mike only needed to be slightly paranoid to feel under enormous pressure that his entire cover story of being a mere scrap metal dealer was going to collapse around him. If we assume that he was responsible for the forgery, it's not difficult to appreciate that the guilt of all his lies, and the feeling of being suspected by everyone of the forgery, might have been weighing very heavily on him at this time. There is a well known saying that you might have heard of: "Confession is good for the soul".

But is confession ever any good for arsouls like Mike? How much good did his forgery claims do his soul, when he was still at it five years later? He didn't even leave a dying declaration of his supposed skulduggery, but instead claimed that the transcript taken from the diary - which has its own thread here - was all his own unaided work. He couldn't even tell the truth when all he had left to look after was his soul.

The whole 'journalist' argument is beyond absurd as far as I'm concerned, and I can only wonder how anyone was able to sell it to you, unless they were banking on you being unfamiliar with all the twists and turns and thought they could add - or subtract - one or two of their own. Nothing about the argument makes the least bit of sense. There was no pressure on Mike to confess to anything in June 1994, nor in January 1995, nor yet in April 1999, whenever he came out with his various forgery claims, or changed his story like the weather to suit himself and his audience - much less that all this nonsense was triggered by his failure to mention his previous attempts to make a living out of writing. The idea that Mike, of all people, was remotely bothered by this 'revelation' - apart from possibly the humiliation factor of having needed Anne's help - let alone that his minuscule conscience had weighed 'very heavily on him' at any time in his entire life, is purely theoretical, as you yourself admit, while all the evidence screams out against it.

Advice, meant kindly: a theory that lacks evidence is not a new idea in Diary World, but a theory that falls under the weight of what evidence is available is not going to get up off the ground by itself.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

So basically, none of this is evidence that Anne was involved in creating the diary - which she tried and failed to destroy physically back in 1992, and which Mike tried and failed to destroy with all his forgery claims. She is challenging Mike to do so, but he doesn't make a public exhibition of himself in January 1995, by taking his affidavit to Harold Brough, does he? If he had, I don't suppose she would have sat quietly back and taken it, to be publicly accused of writing the diary, with Caroline as a witness. But there was no need for Anne to do anything, because Mike waited until April 1999 to make a semi-public exhibition of himself at a packed Cloak & Dagger Club meeting, by which time she had moved on with her life, and all Mike's attempts to get Anne to "speak to me or I'll....." had failed to work, just as she told him in that letter.

Love,

Caz
X

I wasn't putting Anne's letter forward as evidence of anything relating to the affidavit, Caz.

Can I remind you how this discussion started? I only mentioned the letter (in #96) because it shows that the Barretts weren't yet divorced as at February 1st, 1995. You then raised a question (in #106) about what else was in the letter, so I told you what else was in the letter.

The good thing is that I think we both agree that Mike had said to Anne something along the lines of "Speak to me or else I'll publicize this affidavit". For me, that's kind of odd if the entire story was untrue and Mike knows that Anne knows it's all untrue. It's also odd to my mind that Anne described it as blackmail and seemed to be upset by the prospect of Mike circulating the affidavit to the point where she threatened to retaliate. But, hey ho, people do odd things. At the very least, though, Mike's threat and Anne's response is consistent with them both being involved in the forgery. And Anne never says in her letter to Mike that his affidavit is a pack of lies, which, frankly, I would have expected her to do if that was the case.

So, anyway, I'm still waiting to be told why the Barretts weren't capable of doing the forgery

[Herlock Sholmes]

And I explained my objections in some detail. If you still don't or can't understand them, in the context of what was happening in 1994 and early 1995, in the lives of the Barretts, I'm not particularly inclined to go through it all over again - there is nothing new here. But how could Mike not have seen the affidavit in terms of his relationship with Anne, which was nearing the bitter end for him by then, when he put it through her door at the earliest opportunity? There is no evidence that he had any further purpose in mind for it, so what was it all for, from Mike's point of view? We know why Harris wanted it, but Mike was the one whose name was attached to the contents.



Agree to disagree, Herlock. It'll be easier for both of us and our long-suffering readers.



I disagree.



But Mike didn't get any money for his first forgery story back in June, so if he was hoping to sell a spiced-up version of it by the December, what happened? What is your source for the newspapers being approached but none of them being 'sufficiently interested'? Is this something new and real at last?



What's that saying about revenge being a dish best served cold?

I think Mike's problem was that it hadn't worked when it was still piping hot, so it was more a case of 'if at first you don't succeed...'.



Really? You sound pretty sure of yourself from where I'm sitting.



But a failed marriage is rarely simple and never straightforward. I left two of my own, but what do I know?



No, you don't 'have' to repeat yourself on that score. I think we all know that you believe the Barretts were perfectly capable, but you haven't produced any actual evidence of it, or that they had the means, motive or opportunity to turn a partly used photo album, allegedly bought at an auction sale, into the Maybrick diary. I don't need to prove they did nothing of the sort. I'll just sit and wait for the evidence that they did - and I don't mean what Mike Barrett claimed they did.

In RJ Palmer's dreams, for one, he seems to have been with the Barretts throughout their adult lives, and on intimate terms with their individual capabilities back in the early 1990s. Hell, he's probably joined them on cycling tours round the moon - when he wasn't escorting the brothers Johnson to see life on Mars.

Back in the real world, has anyone whose views you most admire and repeat ever even met these people, never mind got to know anything about them as individuals? Or would you not consider that to be of any importance?

If everyone who knew Charles Lechmere in the 1880s had been asked if they thought he was capable of extreme violence, and they all said "not a chance", whose views would you take more seriously? Theirs, or some armchair theorist in the future, who didn't know the man from Adam?

Love,

Caz
X

I think we both agree that once Mike swore his affidavit he put it through Anne's letterbox, and then did nothing else with it.

What I'm saying, however, is that this doesn't necessarily tell us why he agreed to do the affidavit in the first place.

But even if showing it to Anne was prominent in his mind, and he was hell bent on revenge for Anne wanting to divorce him, it doesn't necessarily mean that he had a motive to lie about having done the forgery with Anne. To my mind, the fact that he only sent it to Anne as a form of blackmail is more consistent with Anne having been involved the forgery.

I appreciate that you disagree with me but that's because you don't think that Mike was involved in the forgery. What you're not giving me are reasons why what I'm saying can't be true.

It's interesting that you tell me that I sound "pretty sure of myself" because I fear that all along you've misunderstood what I'm saying which is no more than that the diary is a modern forgery (of which I'm sure) and that I don't know any reason why the Barretts couldn't have forged it. But I'm not saying any more than that.

And to clarify - because this is very important - I'm not saying the Barretts were capable of doing the forgery. I have no idea about their capabilities. I think I said this to you many weeks ago. I'm saying that no one has explained to me why they weren't capable.

Just to add that my source for the newspapers not being sufficiently interested in Mike's story is in the Alan Gray tapes where Gray was obviously trying to get newspapers interested in the story but none of them were biting. I'm not saying that they were offered the affidavit, only that if they weren't interested in the story in the first place, the affidavit, which could only ever have been supporting evidence for the story, was of no practical use for that purpose

[Herlock Sholmes]

I tend to agree for once, John. Certainly nothing new here.

I agree entirely with both you and John, Caz. This thread is utterly pointless and should never have been started.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Really? I thought the same regarding your arguments to keep the Barretts in a distinctly ill-fitting frame.



But is confession ever any good for arsouls like Mike? How much good did his forgery claims do his soul, when he was still at it five years later? He didn't even leave a dying declaration of his supposed skulduggery, but instead claimed that the transcript taken from the diary - which has its own thread here - was all his own unaided work. He couldn't even tell the truth when all he had left to look after was his soul.

The whole 'journalist' argument is beyond absurd as far as I'm concerned, and I can only wonder how anyone was able to sell it to you, unless they were banking on you being unfamiliar with all the twists and turns and thought they could add - or subtract - one or two of their own. Nothing about the argument makes the least bit of sense. There was no pressure on Mike to confess to anything in June 1994, nor in January 1995, nor yet in April 1999, whenever he came out with his various forgery claims, or changed his story like the weather to suit himself and his audience - much less that all this nonsense was triggered by his failure to mention his previous attempts to make a living out of writing. The idea that Mike, of all people, was remotely bothered by this 'revelation' - apart from possibly the humiliation factor of having needed Anne's help - let alone that his minuscule conscience had weighed 'very heavily on him' at any time in his entire life, is purely theoretical, as you yourself admit, while all the evidence screams out against it.

Advice, meant kindly: a theory that lacks evidence is not a new idea in Diary World, but a theory that falls under the weight of what evidence is available is not going to get up off the ground by itself.

Love,

Caz
X

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?

My argument may be theoretical but it fits the timing. 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?

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.

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.

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. But I certainly don't think you've pointed to any evidence yet against the idea that Mike confessed because of the imminent exposure of his journalism. It certainly seems to fit the timing better than him doing it to get back at Anne a full six months after she had left him while not even mentioning Anne in the confession! I can't see how that one even makes any sense to be honest Caz.

[Lombro2]

A frankly ridiculous thread that just gets more and more ridiculous.

More and more ridiculous as one of your fellow Barrett Believers tries to express your shared belief.

[John Wheat]

More and more ridiculous as one of your fellow Barrett Believers tries to express your shared belief.

Ridiculous post the Barretts created the diary.

[Scott Nelson]

Devereux could have "created" the diary.

[Lombro2]

James Maybrick could have created the diary.

In which case, we’d all look foolish in front of the whole, wide, World Wide Web!