New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[John Wheat]

I know, Herlock just can't stay away, despite having no new ideas or new research to post. Just question after question about the same old, same old, that has been answered, addressed, debated, discussed and argued about time and time again.

If he stops asking ancient questions, and raking over old ideas, I'll stop responding to him on this thread.

Fair enough?

Love,

Caz
X

To be fair though there's nothing new being brought forward by those who believe the Diary wasn't written by the Barretts.

[Pcdunn]

Tracing the photograph or photo album after all these years is wildly improbable, but the headstone reads "Chubby, the Dear & Affectionate Little Friend of H & M Pennell."

The 1921 UK Census lists Harriett & Mary Pennell, two spinster sisters, living at 9 Brougham Terrace, Everton, Liverpool.

Mary was a member of the Royal Human Society and ran a cat shelter in Brougham Terrace.

Excellent point. We do not know if the donkey in the scrapbook photo was standing beside a human-sized grave or a pet-sized one.

This doesn't matter, really, as the scrapbook "diary" is supposed to have a much earlier vintage than the photo of the donkey at the grave of the affectionate (cat?) "Chubby" (a name which could well be applied to either of my felines).

[Abby Normal]

whats the name of the donkey?

[caz]

Its not that I don't like it being called an "old book" Caz, it's just that I can't understand why you keep calling it that in quotation marks. I'm trying to work out who called it that. So far, you've not identified a single person who described the diary in that way, let alone someone who can be described as a witness.

It's "the old book", Herlock, and I use speech marks because that description can be heard on the recordings of more than one interview originally conducted by Keith and Coral during their own investigations into the electricians and associated witnesses. Maybe all three of us imagined it.

What you've said in your post could be extremely important so I find it hard believe that you're not prepared to expand on it. Which of those interviewed claimed to have personal knowledge of an old book? And what do you mean by "personal knowledge"? I wasn't aware of anyone claiming to have personal knowledge of anything relating to the discovery of the diary. So how they name something is less important than the fact that they claim to have had personal knowledge of something. What is it?

Maybe I should have called it 'inside' knowledge, that has been claimed by the various witnesses. They were interviewed separately, but their individual accounts add up to a consistent whole, which found totally unexpected support in the form of the double event of 9th March 1992, which nobody could have guessed had been sitting there on record all along, just waiting for Keith to stumble upon in 2004. By rights, the documentation should have been able to rule out those early rumours of the diary being found in Dodd's house if they had been false.

Is it possible to find out more about the witness accounts gathered by Keith and Coral? Or is this something else which is secret?

Not 'secret', just the fruits of someone else's labour, research and expense, which I am not at liberty to share until they are ready to do so.

The reason I press the point is because I have a suspicion that all the interviewees were doing was passing on to Keith and Coral second hand rumours which had been started by Feldman and his investigation, so that they weren't witnesses in any true sense of the word. Just electricians who had heard the famous story of Eddie's discovery of Jack the Ripper's diary. If that's the case, it doesn't matter what they called the diary, does it?

Just as I thought. You don't think it matters whether the diary was referred to as "the old book", or "an old book", or anything else, because you have been led to believe that all the interviewees had been 'got at' by Feldman - which is simply not the case.

But, truly, if there was someone who in 1992 had personal knowledge of the discovery of an "old book" in Battlecrease, please do tell us who that was and how they knew about it. It seems pretty important to me.

I doubt anyone could prove it to your satisfaction, but the evidence indicates that Eddie was known by certain individuals, and presumed by others, to have found "the old book" while working in Battlecrease, and this was back in 1992 before Feldman was involved.

Take it or leave it.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

It's "the old book", Herlock, and I use speech marks because that description can be heard on the recordings of more than one interview originally conducted by Keith and Coral during their own investigations into the electricians and associated witnesses. Maybe all three of us imagined it.



Maybe I should have called it 'inside' knowledge, that has been claimed by the various witnesses. They were interviewed separately, but their individual accounts add up to a consistent whole, which found totally unexpected support in the form of the double event of 9th March 1992, which nobody could have guessed had been sitting there on record all along, just waiting for Keith to stumble upon in 2004. By rights, the documentation should have been able to rule out those early rumours of the diary being found in Dodd's house if they had been false.



Not 'secret', just the fruits of someone else's labour, research and expense, which I am not at liberty to share until they are ready to do so.



Just as I thought. You don't think it matters whether the diary was referred to as "the old book", or "an old book", or anything else, because you have been led to believe that all the interviewees had been 'got at' by Feldman - which is simply not the case.



I doubt anyone could prove it to your satisfaction, but the evidence indicates that Eddie was known by certain individuals, and presumed by others, to have found "the old book" while working in Battlecrease, and this was back in 1992 before Feldman was involved.

Take it or leave it.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

What's the difference in your mind between saying an "old book" and the "old book"? And isn't me saying an "old book" the same as you saying the "old book"? Our use of quotation marks is identical after all.

As to that, I'm just following your quotation marks when you wrote earlier in this thread that "...Mike first clapped eyes on the "old book", as it has been referred to by Battlecrease witnesses."

But I note that on 19 January 2021 you posted this sentence:

"But exactly the same would apply if Mike had no idea what he had, but only knew how he had obtained it and from whom. He'd have been even more ignorant about literary hoaxes and what lay ahead in that case, but understandably wary of it all coming out in Liverpool if he, Michael Barrett, was on the verge of becoming a rich man off the back of an "old book"he had bought from an unsuspecting Saddle regular for a paltry sum."

So correcting me now in the way you are doing for writing the same thing seems a bit strange.

You speak of this being said in recordings "of more than one interview originally conducted by Keith and Coral during their own investigations into the electricians and associated witnesses." An investigation into a witness? What does that mean? Are you saying that a witness was interviewed and referred to "the old book". If that's the case, why can't you identify the so-called witness? Why can't you tell us what they witnessed and why they spoke of "the old book"? Who told them about it? Did they see it? The absence of this information is extraordinary.

You do understand what I'm suggesting don't you? It's not that anyone was "got at". It's that someone like Feldman innocently told at least one electrician about his theory that Eddie Lyons found an old book, or the old book (I can't see what difference it makes), being the diary, and this story then circulated amongst the other electricians, and this was then the term used by those same electricians as shorthand for the diary when speaking to Keith and Coral. As such, it's of no value. So I'm just not sure why you keep repeating it as if it has any meaning.

I remind you that you told me that the diary has been referred to as an "old book" by Battlecrease witnesses. I can only repeat my request for you to identify those witnesses and tell me what they witnessed at Battlecrease. Otherwise the only conclusion I can draw is that they are as imaginary as Scott’s 1992 Korsakoff syndrome.

What I can't understand is that if you're not at liberty to share the fruits of Keith and Coral's labour why you've been doing it by revealing that some of the people they interviewed spoke of an "old book", or "the old book" if you prefer. Are you saying they gave you permission to reveal this particular fruit of their labour but specifically told you that you weren't allowed to mention anything else? I also don't understand what Keith and Coral can possibly be waiting for. Can you enlighten us? Do they have a plan to reveal their findings in the near future? I remember reading that Melvin Harris was accused of suppressing information in the case. How would you describe what is happening now?

[Abby Normal]

Hi Caz,

What's the difference in your mind between saying an "old book" and the "old book"? And isn't me saying an "old book" the same as you saying the "old book"? Our use of quotation marks is identical after all.

As to that, I'm just following your quotation marks when you wrote earlier in this thread that "...Mike first clapped eyes on the "old book", as it has been referred to by Battlecrease witnesses."

But I note that on 19 January 2021 you posted this sentence:

"But exactly the same would apply if Mike had no idea what he had, but only knew how he had obtained it and from whom. He'd have been even more ignorant about literary hoaxes and what lay ahead in that case, but understandably wary of it all coming out in Liverpool if he, Michael Barrett, was on the verge of becoming a rich man off the back of an "old book"he had bought from an unsuspecting Saddle regular for a paltry sum."

So correcting me now in the way you are doing for writing the same thing seems a bit strange.

You speak of this being said in recordings "of more than one interview originally conducted by Keith and Coral during their own investigations into the electricians and associated witnesses." An investigation into a witness? What does that mean? Are you saying that a witness was interviewed and referred to "the old book". If that's the case, why can't you identify the so-called witness? Why can't you tell us what they witnessed and why they spoke of "the old book"? Who told them about it? Did they see it? The absence of this information is extraordinary.

You do understand what I'm suggesting don't you? It's not that anyone was "got at". It's that someone like Feldman innocently told at least one electrician about his theory that Eddie Lyons found an old book, or the old book (I can't see what difference it makes), being the diary, and this story then circulated amongst the other electricians, and this was then the term used by those same electricians as shorthand for the diary when speaking to Keith and Coral. As such, it's of no value. So I'm just not sure why you keep repeating it as if it has any meaning.

I remind you that you told me that the diary has been referred to as an "old book" by Battlecrease witnesses. I can only repeat my request for you to identify those witnesses and tell me what they witnessed at Battlecrease. Otherwise the only conclusion I can draw is that they are as imaginary as Scott’s 1992 Korsakoff syndrome.

What I can't understand is that if you're not at liberty to share the fruits of Keith and Coral's labour why you've been doing it by revealing that some of the people they interviewed spoke of an "old book", or "the old book" if you prefer. Are you saying they gave you permission to reveal this particular fruit of their labour but specifically told you that you weren't allowed to mention anything else? I also don't understand what Keith and Coral can possibly be waiting for. Can you enlighten us? Do they have a plan to reveal their findings in the near future? I remember reading that Melvin Harris was accused of suppressing information in the case. How would you describe what is happening now?

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

[caz]

So the reason you mentioned a Battlecrease witness supposedly talking (vaguely) about "an old book" but didn't mention a Battlecrease witness supposedly talking (specifically) about a "leather-bound diary" is because you'd still be here at Christmas 2030 if you'd done so? Seriously?

No, the reason I haven't mentioned all kinds of things that have been spoken about over the years by a number of interviewees in the context of a Battlecrease find is that I'd be here doing so full-time, and that's if I had the permission of all those involved in gathering the material.

But now I think we're getting to the meat of the matter. You say "Tim Martin-Wright was told about Jack the Ripper's diary before Feldman arrived to muddy the waters." Can you please provide the evidence to support this claim?

Tim Martin-Wright gave his initial account of what he was told before Feldman knew of his existence - unless you know different. Judging from the stupid JFK thread, I thought conspiracy theories weren't your bag, but if there was any earlier contact between Tim and Feldman, they must have conspired together to keep it a closely guarded secret.

I note that we've miraculously now transmogrified from a leather-bound diary to Jack the Ripper's diary - another thing that I guess you didn't have time to mention previously (and something I don't find at all in Robert Smith's book) - but I'll let that pass.

How is that 'miraculously'? You seem to think that all the interviewees would have conspired together to speak with one voice and only ever describe the diary in the same way. I've got news for you. They didn't. They all had/have their own perspective, but their collective consistency speaks for itself.

Then, in respect of the Alan Davies story you've told me, about which you say: "All this happened before Feldman's involvement...". Is there any available evidence to support this claim?

Feldman didn't contact all the individuals who claimed inside knowledge of what was happening with the diary in 1992. He had no contact with Brian Rawes, for example, and I don't recall any with Alan Davies either, so I did a quick search but nothing came up. The focus of Feldman's investigation in 1993 was on the electricians who had worked in Dodd's house, so that's not surprising.

For what it's worth, Keith Skinner observed, just as I have, that the physical diary looks much more like a book than an actual diary, and in fact it's just an old scrap book with writing in it. Keith said that was precisely the way it was 'consistently described' to himself and Coral by the people they saw in Liverpool: "That old book". Coral quickly picked up on this and they used to chant it to each other using a Liverpool accent whenever they discussed the diary - which was often. I picked up on this independently when listening to the interviews. This has all been posted about before, so while it's not new, it's real.

I'm certainly not accusing you of lying Caz but am I to take from your reference to "the supporting evidence currently in Keith's possession" that this will turn out to be more "evidence" you're sadly unable to share with me to support what you're claiming?

Everyone who has been paying attention since 2007 will already know that not every scrap of material in existence, that is connected with this saga, has been posted here. I have given you nothing that has not previously been posted at some point, but you are entirely free to make up your mind based on what is currently available, or wait until there is more for you to consider.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I couldn’t help a smile, Caz, by your framing of the murdering and mutilation of women in London as something James Maybrick might have done in his spare time.

Just a little side hobby, eh?

I'd say that the difference between Monty and Maybrick is that Monty was an actual Scotland Yard suspect in the case, whereas Maybrick's possible involvement was the invention of a modern forger, but please yourself if you think he might have been Jack the Ripper, that's entirely your prerogative. I was just having a little chat with Abby who I knew would understand what I'm saying.

I said nothing about what Maybrick may or may not have done in his spare time, Herlock. That was my point. A fake diary wouldn't tell you that. I have always said there is no evidence that he ever murdered anyone, but I can forgive you for not being here long enough to know that.

For your information, Keith Skinner's suspect of choice is still Druitt, so you are not alone if you think his little side hobby was the murdering and mutilation of women in London - when he wasn't down to play cricket.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

What I note you didn't do is answer my question: "If we assume that the ticket had been destroyed in 1992 (or in 1993, along with the other physical evidence of the diary's creation) how do you say Mike could have proved to your or anyone else's satisfaction that he was the forger?" Or do you accept that proving authorship in the absence of physical evidence would have been a difficult thing for Barrett to do, if he'd been the forger?

Oh, I'm sure you will tell me that it would have been 'impossible' for Mike to have proven his [or Anne's?] authorship of the diary - whether or not he was involved in its creation. And this is somewhat supported by the fact that he had to resort to an affidavit, which would not have been needed if he had the evidence to prove his claims.

The little problem for you here is that you have to imagine Mike had that evidence at one time, but it no longer existed by June 1994. I have been given no reason to believe it ever did exist, and my imagination doesn't extend to seeing fairies at the bottom of the garden either.

It's like Auction Theory in reverse, where the diary's existence has to be wished away until just a day or two before Mike took it to London for the first time.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

But hold on Caz. If Eddie was actually going to "run past" Brian the discovery of the diary you say he'd made in Battlecrease in March, he was going to have to tell Brian he'd stolen it, wasn't he? What else could he have said about it? You can't seriously be saying that all he was intending to say to Brian was that he'd found something without telling him what it was or giving him any further information. So what I'm saying is that it would have been very odd for him to have approached Brian to tell him this important but otherwise secret information as Brian was collecting the firm's van and was about to back down the drive to go to another job. Certainly at least as odd, if not odder, as him mentioning to Brian that he'd seen a lot of old books in the house.

Whatever. We can only go by what Brian has said about the conversation, and how Eddie responded when asked about it. We can't invent what wasn't said, or wish they had said something else. The whole incident may look 'odd', but Brian had nothing to gain by going on record with it, while Eddie had everything to gain by playing it down. He didn't deny having any conversation with Brian at all on the one occasion when he was working in the house and Brian came to pick up the van.

If you're denying that no identifiable witness has referred to the diary as an "old book" why haven't you identified him, her or them? it doesn't bother me at all if anyone has spoken of "an old book", "the old book", "Uncle Tom Cobbley's old book" etc., I just want to know who has done it. And the only reason I want to know is because you keep saying it! But now you've gone all secret squirrel and won't tell me who that person or persons is/are. I also don't care if it's an electrician or not an electrician. I just want to know who it is. Your refusal to tell me leads me to think that there isn't anyone and you realize you're mistaken.

I'm not mistaken, and your suggestion that I realised I was mistaken and was too cowardly to say so is frankly offensive and beneath you. If you were given all the information you claim to want, you would then demand to listen to the interviews for yourself, because you evidently don't trust me [and Keith and Coral] not to have misheard what was said.

As for commenting on whether you want to keep evidence hidden and secret, I do feel fully informed about that because you've basically told me that this is what you are doing. Remember when I asked you for the evidence of Mike telling Scotland Yard about his journalistic background? You refused to provide it and it remains hidden and secret to this day. I've literally no idea why. And why haven't the recorded and transcribed interviews been made available to everyone? Don't you think that's a shameful state of affairs?

I had to check it was your name at the top of the post for a minute there, because we've heard this all before, many times over, and the answer will be the same as it was on all those other occasions:

Any material not already in the public domain, either in the books or on the websites or message boards, will not be mine to share - with you, or with whoever else may be hiding behind the scenes, willing you on to keep asking for information until you are blue in the face.

Do yourself a favour, Herlock, and make a note for future reference: if the information you want is not currently available, it's because it hasn't yet been made available by others. There is literally nothing you or I can do about that.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

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

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, the reason I haven't mentioned all kinds of things that have been spoken about over the years by a number of interviewees in the context of a Battlecrease find is that I'd be here doing so full-time, and that's if I had the permission of all those involved in gathering the material.



Tim Martin-Wright gave his initial account of what he was told before Feldman knew of his existence - unless you know different. Judging from the stupid JFK thread, I thought conspiracy theories weren't your bag, but if there was any earlier contact between Tim and Feldman, they must have conspired together to keep it a closely guarded secret.



How is that 'miraculously'? You seem to think that all the interviewees would have conspired together to speak with one voice and only ever describe the diary in the same way. I've got news for you. They didn't. They all had/have their own perspective, but their collective consistency speaks for itself.



Feldman didn't contact all the individuals who claimed inside knowledge of what was happening with the diary in 1992. He had no contact with Brian Rawes, for example, and I don't recall any with Alan Davies either, so I did a quick search but nothing came up. The focus of Feldman's investigation in 1993 was on the electricians who had worked in Dodd's house, so that's not surprising.

For what it's worth, Keith Skinner observed, just as I have, that the physical diary looks much more like a book than an actual diary, and in fact it's just an old scrap book with writing in it. Keith said that was precisely the way it was 'consistently described' to himself and Coral by the people they saw in Liverpool: "That old book". Coral quickly picked up on this and they used to chant it to each other using a Liverpool accent whenever they discussed the diary - which was often. I picked up on this independently when listening to the interviews. This has all been posted about before, so while it's not new, it's real.



Everyone who has been paying attention since 2007 will already know that not every scrap of material in existence, that is connected with this saga, has been posted here. I have given you nothing that has not previously been posted at some point, but you are entirely free to make up your mind based on what is currently available, or wait until there is more for you to consider.

Love,

Caz
X

You keep misunderstanding me, Caz. I'm not suggesting for one second that there's any kind of conspiracy. Nor am I suggesting that Martin-Wright got his information from Feldman (although I thought Martin-Wright gave his initial account to Feldman, so I've no idea what you mean when you say he gave his initial account before Feldman knew of his existence). No, what I'm suggesting is what seems obvious. Feldman told his theory about the diary origin to at least one electrician, who told someone else, passing around the story like Chinese Whispers, until one electrician mistakenly told Martin-Wright that Jack the Ripper's diary was available. This, of course, would have been at a time when the existence of the diary wasn't public knowledge. Much later, when he read Shirley's book, Martin-Wright thought he must have been told secret information but misdated it to 1992 when it actually occurred in 1993. Is there any actual evidence to contradict this?

And it's "that old book" is it now? I thought it was "the old book". It seems to change like the weather!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Oh, I'm sure you will tell me that it would have been 'impossible' for Mike to have proven his [or Anne's?] authorship of the diary - whether or not he was involved in its creation. And this is somewhat supported by the fact that he had to resort to an affidavit, which would not have been needed if he had the evidence to prove his claims.

The little problem for you here is that you have to imagine Mike had that evidence at one time, but it no longer existed by June 1994. I have been given no reason to believe it ever did exist, and my imagination doesn't extend to seeing fairies at the bottom of the garden either.

It's like Auction Theory in reverse, where the diary's existence has to be wished away until just a day or two before Mike took it to London for the first time.

Love,

Caz
X

Why would it a problem for me in any way that Mike or Anne might have sensibly destroyed the physical evidence of the forgery, either immediately in April 1992 or when Scotland Yard got involved in 1993? What would be odd, surely, is if they had decided to keep it.

I note that you've side-stepped my question, presumably because you are unable to tell me how Mike could have proved to your satisfaction that he was the forger in the absence of any physical evidence. Has it ever occurred to you that this was the precise problem he was struggling with in 1994 and 1995 when no one seemed to believe him?

And I thought you told me recently that Mike was an impulsive person who didn't like to hang around. Isn't that personality characteristic entirely consistent with him showing the diary to someone just a day or two after its creation?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Oh, I'm sure you will tell me that it would have been 'impossible' for Mike to have proven his [or Anne's?] authorship of the diary - whether or not he was involved in its creation. And this is somewhat supported by the fact that he had to resort to an affidavit, which would not have been needed if he had the evidence to prove his claims.

The little problem for you here is that you have to imagine Mike had that evidence at one time, but it no longer existed by June 1994. I have been given no reason to believe it ever did exist, and my imagination doesn't extend to seeing fairies at the bottom of the garden either.

It's like Auction Theory in reverse, where the diary's existence has to be wished away until just a day or two before Mike took it to London for the first time.

Love,

Caz
X

Cancelled post

[rjpalmer]

And it's "that old book" is it now? I thought it was "the old book". It seems to change like the weather!

Hi Herlock.

It's vitally important, for the sake of the theory, to call it 'that old book' or 'the old book' or 'an old book'---anything other than THE SECRET DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER FOUND UNDER JAMES MAYBRICK'S FLOORBOARDS.

Why? Because if one actually calls it by what it was, the secret diary of Jack the Ripper, it becomes embarrassingly obvious that no one would have immediately sold it in a pub to a stranger for five pounds or twenty-five pounds or whatever other imaginary figure one wants to dream up.

Calling it 'the old book,' and painting Ed Lyons as an ignoramus as well as a thief, makes the theory go down. It's like Mary Poppins using a teaspoon of sugar, except that no one in their right mind is swallowing it.

RP