New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[Lombro2]

I think you meant the watch repairer, Tim Dundas, who claimed there were no scratches in a watch that had nothing in common with Albert's.

Suzanne's father could not tell anyone about anything by the time this became an issue, because he was suffering from dementia and couldn't be questioned.

He presumably told his daughter and son-in-law everything he knew about the history of the watch when still of sound mind, but they just never thought to pass on any of the details to their customer, which they remembered clearly enough when Albert returned a year later to ask.

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks for the correction, Caz.

So does that mean the “man from Liverpool” Provenance came from Murphy, who supposedly heard it from Stewart who supposedly recalled, out of all the whole stock of watches he handed over to Murphy upon retirement, that that watch came from some unknown Liverpudlian. And Murphy “recalled” that too? Do we have a third and imaginary Verity to go along with the Johnson and the Dundas Verities?

This would appear, to me, to mean that Suzanne’s father played no real or actual part in the cover-up. He already had dementia, I assume. Is he then the Watch version of Devereau?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I have no time left now, but from memory the divorce came through on 7th December 1994.

Mike could have hoped to sell his story to the newspapers whether it was a pack of lies or had any truth in it at all. But the evidence would suggest he used the affidavit as a bargaining tool to get Anne to speak to him - which would not have worked if he had instead sold the story to the highest bidder.

I have a lot to catch up with on this and some of the other threads, so you will have to be patient.

I don't recall Mike ever claiming that his motive for 'confessing' in June 1994 was because 'he had no idea how he was going to explain to Shirley and all the others' why he'd never told them about his brief encounter with journalism. May I ask who suggested this to you, assuming it wasn't your own speculation? The cause and effect seems all over the place. Why go to the extreme of a public confession to forgery, just because he hadn't previously confessed in private to this rather underwhelming episode of his life? Besides, he had already told Scotland Yard about his creative writing ambitions and achievements back in October 1993, and they had taken no further action, so what was the big deal in June 1994?

As for Alec Voller's visual observations, the best thing to suggest when you write to Robert Smith is to ask whether he has any plans to have the stains tested forensically.

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks for the answer, Caz, but Orsam posted on his website in 2020 an extract from a letter written to Mike by Anne dated 1 February 1995 in which she tells him that the decree absolute "will be through in a few weeks time and we will be divorced". You can find it on the Wayback archive if you're interested in seeing it. So you might want to amend your chronological timeline of events.

I'm surprised you ask me whether Mike actually claimed that his motive for confessing was because he never owned up to his years of paid journalism. You always tell us not to believe anything Mike said, so what would it matter if he claimed this or not? But I don't know if he was ever asked or if he explained why he had confessed at all. Didn't he say something about feeling under pressure? That would be consistent with the theory. Although I don't suppose you'd believe him if he did say that. But, no, that theory is one that has been put forward elsewhere which I read and I mentioned it to you to see what you thought about it. I'm surprised that you don't think it of significance. After all, Shirley had set out Barrett's life history in the book they had supposedly written together and there was not a word about his journalistic career in it, was there? You may not think it of importance today but I can't help feeling it would have been extremely important information back in 1994. A bombshell in fact. Wouldn't Shirley, Doreen, Smith, Feldman, Skinner and others asked him why he'd never mentioned it to them? After all, you would assume that he'd been pretty much eliminated as a suspect for having written the diary because he was a humble virtually illiterate scrap metal dealer. Isn't that right? Wouldn't news of his apparent writing ability have come as a massive shock to everyone at the time? Wasn't Barrett threatening to sue Nick Warren for libel if he published the article which contained this information?

Can you tell me what the evidence is that he told Scotland Yard of his journalistic career in October 1993? Where can I read a copy of this statement?

I'm not planning on writing to Robert Smith, and I guess your answer (or non answer) about Voller means that he wasn't able to positively determine there was any glue over any diary ink. The whole area of investigation is pointless anyway. The diary wasn't 90 years old in 1995. That's impossible due to the appearance of "one off instance" in the text.

[Herlock Sholmes]

My 'chronology of events' must stretch by now to many hundreds of pages, Herlock. Forgive me for not giving you chapter and verse on everything Mike Barrett ever tried to claim about the diary. If I lived that long, the readers would lose the will to do so.

Love,

Caz
X

I can only conclude then Caz that I'm right in thinking that there is no scientific evidence which tells us that sugar was not added to the ink.?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why not ask Robert yourself?

There's no need for me to do that, Caz. I already answered the question myself in the post which started this whole discussion. By way of reminder, I said:

"But in all these years neither he nor anyone else has taken that step. Why? Because they know what the answer would be. FAKE."

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Are you able to provide the full quote in which Alec Voller confirms that it was glue above the ink (and how he managed to do so) and also that the ink was the same as the ink in the rest of the diary? Out of interest, whereabouts in the diary is this glue stained ink to be found?

Can I also ask you, when did the Barretts get divorced? I mean when did the divorce absolute come through? That's when a marriage ends, isn't it?

Might Mike's motive in "coming clean" in November 1994, which I think is when he started telling the story that ended up in his Jan 1995 affidavit, be that he was hoping to sell his story to the newspapers and Alan Gray was pressing him hard to finally tell the truth? Just a thought.

I asked you a question about Mike's motive in the "Hoax" thread but perhaps you've not yet had time to get round to responding. What do you think of the motive for Mike confessing in June 1994 (but leaving Anne's name out of it) being that he knew he was shortly about to be exposed as a former journalist and had no idea how he was going to explain to Shirley and all the others why he'd never told them about this before?

I have no time left now, but from memory the divorce came through on 7th December 1994.

Mike could have hoped to sell his story to the newspapers whether it was a pack of lies or had any truth in it at all. But the evidence would suggest he used the affidavit as a bargaining tool to get Anne to speak to him - which would not have worked if he had instead sold the story to the highest bidder.

I have a lot to catch up with on this and some of the other threads, so you will have to be patient.

I don't recall Mike ever claiming that his motive for 'confessing' in June 1994 was because 'he had no idea how he was going to explain to Shirley and all the others' why he'd never told them about his brief encounter with journalism. May I ask who suggested this to you, assuming it wasn't your own speculation? The cause and effect seems all over the place. Why go to the extreme of a public confession to forgery, just because he hadn't previously confessed in private to this rather underwhelming episode of his life? Besides, he had already told Scotland Yard about his creative writing ambitions and achievements back in October 1993, and they had taken no further action, so what was the big deal in June 1994?

As for Alec Voller's visual observations, the best thing to suggest when you write to Robert Smith is to ask whether he has any plans to have the stains tested forensically.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Apologies for intervening in a discussion you are having with Lombro but it's so rare to see what Mike said in 1999 even being mentioned that I wanted to ask you a question about it.

Is it fair to say that there is a very big difference between (a) Barrett, as the forger, adding sugar to the ink and (b) Barrett's understanding of what adding sugar might do to the ink?

Do you not think that (b) is somewhat irrelevant? As to (a) is there any scientific evidence which tells us that sugar was not added to the ink?

Isn't it also the case that Barrett said in 1999 that he forged the diary with his ex-wife who, he said wrote the manuscript, and that he also said this in November 1994? I only mention it because it's not in your chronology of events

My 'chronology of events' must stretch by now to many hundreds of pages, Herlock. Forgive me for not giving you chapter and verse on everything Mike Barrett ever tried to claim about the diary. If I lived that long, the readers would lose the will to do so.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I paid for the book Caz. Where else do you think the money might have gone? I'm not sure what this has got to do with him instructing a professional etymologist though? I think it’s a fair point to make. The strongest point against the diary being genuine is an anachronistic phrase. So why wouldn’t someone with a vested interest in proving that the diary was genuine want to knock refute that particular point?

Why not ask Robert yourself?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Glue?

Be careful what you wish for. If it is glue, it could have been upwards of 90 years old in 1995. Alec Voller observed a dot of diary ink beneath one particular glue stain.

Palmer should have Anne Graham 'tested' if he has the courage of his own convictions.

What are the odds? That Mike lied in June 1994? And again in January 1995 just after she got her divorce from him?

Or did he suddenly have a pressing need to tell the truth and ease his conscience, while attempting to throw Anne under that bus for having left him?

I may have missed it, but has anyone actually come up with a remotely convincing motive - or indeed any motive - for Mike to have changed the habit of a lifetime in January 1995, to become an honest and truthful witness?

Is a serial liar even capable of changing?

Hi Caz,

Are you able to provide the full quote in which Alec Voller confirms that it was glue above the ink (and how he managed to do so) and also that the ink was the same as the ink in the rest of the diary? Out of interest, whereabouts in the diary is this glue stained ink to be found?

Can I also ask you, when did the Barretts get divorced? I mean when did the divorce absolute come through? That's when a marriage ends, isn't it?

Might Mike's motive in "coming clean" in November 1994, which I think is when he started telling the story that ended up in his Jan 1995 affidavit, be that he was hoping to sell his story to the newspapers and Alan Gray was pressing him hard to finally tell the truth? Just a thought.

I asked you a question about Mike's motive in the "Hoax" thread but perhaps you've not yet had time to get round to responding. What do you think of the motive for Mike confessing in June 1994 (but leaving Anne's name out of it) being that he knew he was shortly about to be exposed as a former journalist and had no idea how he was going to explain to Shirley and all the others why he'd never told them about this before?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Lombro2,

I think it more likely that this was a one off instance of two local men, with different reasons for being in the same pub on that Monday lunchtime in March. Eddie was living within a stone's throw at the time, and the long-term contract he had been working on with Jim Bowling right up until the Saturday, had been put on hold for a few days, resulting in their boss sending the pair to Battlecrease to help Arthur Rigby and his apprentice on an unofficial basis. Mike was known to frequent the Saddle anyway, on weekdays in term time, before collecting his young daughter from school, but Eddie had previously been tied up elsewhere all day, Mondays to Saturdays, with no opportunity to pop in when Mike was there. There is no evidence that they already knew each other, or that either man knew the other would be there that day.

Seeing the diary, unwrapped from its brown paper, was all Mike would have needed to spot an opportunity he couldn't resist, and then brag about his celebrity contacts and what have you, just as he used to do when bending the late Tony Devereux's ear over a pint in the same hostelry [if I am allowed to use an archaic word in good humour, without the language police clapping the darbies on me]. Promising not to "split on his new mate", when Eddie wasn't exactly forthcoming about where he'd got the old book from, except to say that "no effing bugger alive" knew about it, Mike then offered to take it off his hands and find a buyer.

It's really quite simple and fits in well enough with the evidence from witness testimony, in combination with the chronology and context of known events. Nothing has to be forced backwards or forwards in time, or adapted to comply with any of the claims made about the diary's origins by the serial liar at centre stage. The mere fact that he studiously avoided making Battlecrease the provenance, while working his way through pretty much any other way he could think of to explain how he came to own it, is suggestive of a liar who would say anything but the truth.

Every time Mike made a 'confession', the story changed and included at least one eye-wateringly childish claim that you won't find anyone falling for today.

In June 1994 he said he forged the diary all by himself.

In January 1995 he said he had forged it with his ex-wife, then they waited for Tony Devereux to recover before deciding what to do with the finished forgery, but instead he died and gave them the provenance they needed.

Another time he said Anne had dropped a real kidney on the diary, causing the kidney-shaped stain.

Then he claimed he had faked the watch too, by putting the scratches in it himself.

In 1999, he said he had added sugar to the diary ink to do something or other to the molecules.

Molecules, bollecules.

Now there's a two-word phrase you won't see very often.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Apologies for intervening in a discussion you are having with Lombro but it's so rare to see what Mike said in 1999 even being mentioned that I wanted to ask you a question about it.

Is it fair to say that there is a very big difference between (a) Barrett, as the forger, adding sugar to the ink and (b) Barrett's understanding of what adding sugar might do to the ink?

Do you not think that (b) is somewhat irrelevant? As to (a) is there any scientific evidence which tells us that sugar was not added to the ink?

Isn't it also the case that Barrett said in 1999 that he forged the diary with his ex-wife who, he said wrote the manuscript, and that he also said this in November 1994? I only mention it because it's not in your chronology of events

[Herlock Sholmes]

So you don't actually know if Robert got his hands on any of your cash?

I paid for the book Caz. Where else do you think the money might have gone? I'm not sure what this has got to do with him instructing a professional etymologist though? I think it’s a fair point to make. The strongest point against the diary being genuine is an anachronistic phrase. So why wouldn’t someone with a vested interest in proving that the diary was genuine want to knock refute that particular point?

[caz]

There are things that you know are things that you just can't make up. Are you convinced that this is something that you just can't make up?

I know what are things that you can't just make up. They are real things that are beyond anyone's or almost anyone's imagination.

But congratulations on actually researching your theory. Any luck on the square compass? I found a modern "square type compass" for boats. Again it's not something I would consider to be something you just can't make up.

Why even the need to mention the square part or a donkey picture? That to me is suspicious of someone trying to sell a story.

Mike could have simply produced his donkey photo - assuming he ever had it and still had it - to accompany and support that detail in his affidavit.

Once again, the silly ass must have offloaded every last scrap of physical evidence by the time he needed it most:

the compass and various other raw materials to his sister - who denied everything when she learned about the affidavit and threatened to sue her own brother for libel [is she included in Palmer's little list of liars and co-conspirators?];

the red diary for 1891 to his ex-wife of all people, which he claimed was shortly before he tried to use it against her;

the Sphere volume 2, which he thought he'd given to his new girlfriend Jenny in the summer of '94, but then had to track down a used copy by the December, to keep Alan Gray in his good books;

a copy of Tales of Liverpool, which Mike allegedly left with Tony Devereux, forgetting to ask for it back. Feldman's original misinformation, that it had Mike's name in it, has been corrected several times on the boards since, after subsequent research by Keith Skinner established once and for all that the copy Janet Devereux ended up with had nothing to identify it as Mike's, nor any markings around the two chapters on the Maybrick case. Just be wary of anyone repeating Feldman's misinformation - or going one further, to say that he claimed 'Mike's name was written inside the front cover' - it will not be true;

the auction ticket, which Mike never did show to anyone - and for which there is no evidence it ever existed outside of his own imagination;

and now the donkey photo, which Mike presumably gave away, while retaining just a fond memory of the image when he decided to confess all.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Robert Smith should have the stain tested if he has the courage of his convictions.

What are the odds? Human blood or flaxseed oil?

Glue?

Be careful what you wish for. If it is glue, it could have been upwards of 90 years old in 1995. Alec Voller observed a dot of diary ink beneath one particular glue stain.

Palmer should have Anne Graham 'tested' if he has the courage of his own convictions.

What are the odds? That Mike lied in June 1994? And again in January 1995 just after she got her divorce from him?

Or did he suddenly have a pressing need to tell the truth and ease his conscience, while attempting to throw Anne under that bus for having left him?

I may have missed it, but has anyone actually come up with a remotely convincing motive - or indeed any motive - for Mike to have changed the habit of a lifetime in January 1995, to become an honest and truthful witness?

Is a serial liar even capable of changing?

[caz]

I didn't use Suzanne's father as a patsy to describe a completely different Verity watch. Obviously, he wasn't coached so probably wasn't in on it.

As for the Sock Drawer Caper, well I'll just leave that to the imagination of those who dream of golden sock drawers and sugar lumps.

I think you meant the watch repairer, Tim Dundas, who claimed there were no scratches in a watch that had nothing in common with Albert's.

Suzanne's father could not tell anyone about anything by the time this became an issue, because he was suffering from dementia and couldn't be questioned.

He presumably told his daughter and son-in-law everything he knew about the history of the watch when still of sound mind, but they just never thought to pass on any of the details to their customer, which they remembered clearly enough when Albert returned a year later to ask.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Yes, I've heard of the expression caveat emptor, Caz, usually in the context of scam merchants and dodgy sellers of goods. But I'm not asking for a refund. All I said was that I expected better from someone taking my cash. My original suggestion, to which you seem to have taken umbrage, was that Robert Smith instruct a professional etymologist to investigate the origin of "one off" in order to satisfy himself as to whether it could have been used in 1888 or not. I don't know why that's so offensive. It seems like common sense to me. But perhaps he already knows what the result would be. I certainly do.

So you don't actually know if Robert got his hands on any of your cash?

[caz]

This is why I don't enjoy discussing the hoax with you, Ike. You don't act in good faith.

I did not suggest Anne was "tricked" into writing the hoax. This shows the fundamental dishonesty of your approach.

I suggested the hoax could have started out as a fictional diary. One doesn't need to "trick" someone into writing a work of fiction. (Although it is somewhat interesting that Anne herself claims she tried to "manipulate" Mike into doing so).

And it would hardly have been the first or last time a Ripper theory was presented as fiction. Martin Fido appears to have had the same suspicion.

I also suggested that Mike could have come up with the idea of creating a physical diary as a marketing gimmick and Anne--as a codependent to an alcoholic--went along to humor him, even though she would have been suspicious of his intent.

rjpalmer 12-31-2024:

"My suggestion--and that's all it is---but it's a damn good one--is that Barrett could have told his missus that the physical photo album confessional was just a marketing gimmick for their joint novella (and I hate to tell you this, old boy, but back in the 1980s there was a mystery novel marketed along similar lines in the United States)--which allowed her to suspend just enough belief to go along with Barrett's mad scheme.

Of course, the real reason was to humor him and thus keep peace in the house.

Would she have believed him?

Probably not.

But that's where the other angle comes in.

As I've told Caz about a zillion times, look no further than Anne Graham's own words.

I think Anne helped Barrett for the very reason she said she did--she assumed that when Barrett got to London with the ridiculous Diary, the literary agent Doreen Montgomery would "just send Mike packing."

--

She wasn't "tricked" Ike---that's a superficial rendering of what I suggested.

And if this suggestion is wrong, all it means is that Anne was a more willing co-conspirator than I suspect.

But still a co-conspirator, who went from trying to destroy her own handiwork, because she was 'terrified' at the prospect of it being published, to letting her heavy drinking husband take their darling daughter, and what he now saw as his darling diary, to London in June 1992 with the sole purpose of - er - getting it published.

All Palmer's suggestions have their off-notes when the known chronology is carefully consulted, so he has to pick and choose from the words of the 'accused' in order to write his next merry tune.