New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[Iconoclast]

If you seriously think that workmen doing work in an old house on the day that Michael Barrett called Doreen Montgomery is the greatest coincidence in the history of the human race, it really is about time for you to call it a day, Ike old friend.

I love the way you take Caz's and my posts literally but you cunningly rewrite the above. Read it back, old friend, and don't misrepresent me to pretend you're making a point.

And don't think I didn't notice the old switcheroo you pulled. One minute we were talking about what happened on 9th March 1992, next minute you're saying "one of the workmen drank in the same pub that Michael Barrett drank in". What's that got to do with 9th March 1992?

Nope, you're doing a really bad job of this, old friend. If you don't know the relevance of this, you don't want to know it, and no-one will be able to explain it to you. Please don't ask me to - I honestly think you're taking the piss.

Maybe you forgot, or just blanked it out of your mind, but an actual expert in statistics, Jeff Hamm, did comment on your statistical theory and told us that there was nothing amazing or extraordinary going on.

Never, never, never happened. I answered every one of his claims and I'm happy to do it again if he wants to start it up again. I may not have any serious lecturing creds in statistics but I do have undergraduate and postgraduate experience and I had sufficient experience that the Metropolitan Police were happy to employ me as a statistician in their management services directorate at the old New Scotland Yard so I feel I can hold my head above water on a simple matter such as this.

Do I really have to explain things that are really very simple? I've already explained why Mike might have felt the need to confess due to his imminent exposure as a journalist. But, hoping for a reconciliation with Anne, he kept her name out of it. It seems reasonable to think that this would have kept her happy but, as we know, she regarded his confession as an attack on her, personally. I don't think he could reasonably have anticipated this reaction.

I'm a bit confused now, old friend. I've noticed that you Barrett-believers will just grab hold of whatever you think will suit your argument in the moment. I'm not sure which story you're backing here: was Anne involved in a forgery in this version or did she have nothing to do with it? I only ask because if it was the former, then Mike confessing it was a hoax would clearly not have suited his co-writer now, would it? Hardly grounds for a reconciliation, even in 'the mind of Mike'.

As for your views on Mike's writing career, you contradict yourself. On the one hand, you seem to accept that Anne helped Mike tidy up his articles, as she claimed, on the other hand you say there's "no evidence" that Mike was part of a writing team with his wife. But you already cited the evidence! If she helped him with his articles she was obviously part of a writing team with him. Talk about trying to deny the obvious!

Stop it, old friend - you're showing yourself up! The only 'evidence' we have is Anne and Mike claiming it. Taking a lead from you, maybe Anne didn't help Mike? If you can chuck in mysterious auctions and mysterious auction-attenders, I don't think you should be questioning my strict adherence here to the actual evidence of co-authorship which is non-existent other than Mike and Anne's claims. They are claims, not evidence. They aren't even circumstantial evidence. Now you may scurry off and look for occasions where you feel I may have done the same, but that will be because you want to run from the fact that you are patently seeking to have your cake and eat it. Isn't that unusual from the anything-is-possible-whenever-it-suits brigade?

The good reason to think that Caroline Brown wasn't telling the truth has already been discussed. She said that she remembered her father getting the diary from Tony Devereux and then asking Tony Devereux questions about the diary at a time when we all accept Tony Devereux was dead. Or do you think she was telling the truth about this? If so, where does that leave the Battlecrease discovery theory?

Well, she was either lying or telling the truth (Caroline Barrett was, that is) - that's true of most undocumented events. My challenge to you was how you knew which was the case that you could slander her if she was actually telling the truth? How did you know she was lying?

[Iconoclast]

Like I've said to you before, the date of Barrett's confession is a matter of record.

That is obviously true.

There was no point him trying to lie about it.

That is obviously not. He had every reason to lie if nothing (or practically nothing) of what he described actually happened in the way and for the reasons he gave.

So the obvious conclusion is that it was a mistake in the affidavit, whether made by Barrett or Gray.

So many errors, old friend. Not just 'a mistake' but a series of mistakes. You'll let them off with anything, won't you?

The time spent obsessing over it is out of proportion to any significance it can possibly have.

I couldn't agree more. There is absolutely no justification in twisting and turning the way you do to try to create a purse out of your sow's ear. Mike Barrett did not create the Maybrick scrapbook text. End of.

And, oh dear, do I really have to explain the possible motive for the June 1994 confession all over again? Clearly I do. Mike had been lying for two years flat about how he obtained the diary, quite possibly to people he liked and who he felt trusted him. He had deliberately kept secret from them all that he'd been a former journalist. He'd allowed Shirley to publish a book, of which he was supposed to be the co-author, where this information was omitted. Now he knows his secret is about to be exposed. He's not looking forward to all the people asking him why he hadn't told them about being a journalist. More than this, he probably felt that the game was up. Once they discovered he was a journalist, they'd know he had authored the diary. It was blooming obvious! The pressure was too much for him. He thought he'd get ahead of the story and own it, doing the exposure on his own terms in the newspaper. He then got blind drunk so he didn't have to speak to anyone. Oddly enough, it seemed to work! With a few months all was forgotten, there were no consequences and he was allowed to continue to say that Tony had given him the diary.

The man who pulled off the greatest hoax in history (his words, not mine) was so spineless that the threat of a few Celebrity articles being uncovered would suddenly scare the **** out of him? Look, I can't say to you it definitely wasn't the case (just as you can't say it was), but surely I'm not alone in thinking how desperately implausible your little scenario is? And you think this was all part of a plan to reconcile with Anne - confessing that the scrapbook she was so intimately associated with hoaxing was a hoax??? Come on, old friend, please concentrate before you type your latest 'new version of an old theory' and add yet another to the pile which one day will undoubtedly be immolated in a gigantic blaze.

There's no doubt that Anne knew of the affidavit because Mike posted it through her letterbox immediately after swearing it.

I'm not querying this (I believe it too) but I don't think either of us can be 'certain'. Maybe I've forgotten the actual evidence but - as I recall it - we have to rely on Mike claiming it was true and I get the jitters whenever I have to do that thing.

Where there is a great deal of doubt is that she mentioned the affidavit, even obliquely, when she spoke to Keith and Shirley on January 18 1995. I've looked back at what you posted in September last year about this meeting. All you're relying on is that Anne said to them, "Did anything else come up? I, I, I was expecting you – to be honest – to come back and go on about the forgery thing". According to you, that was a reference to the affidavit but I've no idea why you think that. Mike had publicly confessed in June 1994, and by January 1995 had never retracted, so why shouldn't Anne have told Keith and Shirley that expected Mike to "go on" about having forged the diary, especially if, as she knew, Mike did forge the diary, with her assistance. Why does that need to be a mention of the affidavit?

Well, you've just said Mike delivered it through Anne's door so that would be a good start, surely? If he hadn't, then maybe she was indeed referring to his claims of June 1994, but so much had gone down since then, it feels less likely than that she was referring to something very recent. We don't know for 'certain' but a recent source for her comment doesn't feel unrealistic to me.

And surely if it was a mention of the affidavit she would have first ask Keith and Shirley if they'd seen the affidavit, wouldn't she? In fact, as far as I'm concerned this just shows Anne being worried about what Mike was going to say about the forgery, especially bearing in mind what she knew he'd said in his affidavit.

And if Anne had received the affidavit and had thought "Oh good God, this man is such an embarrassment to this family" and had hoped desperately he hadn't shared it with anyone else? Perfectly plausible that she would test the water the way she did and then move on if she thought her company were unaware of what you claim were Alan Gray's facile claims.

So she was probably reassured by the fact that Mike hadn't said anything on that day about forging the diary. You need to do a lot better Ike, you really do.

Yes, that's my very point - she was reassured that Mike had not said anything that morning about the affidavit he had (as we understand it) posted through her door. Looks like I don't even need to do better than that - you've just done it for me!

[Herlock Sholmes]

I love the way you take Caz's and my posts literally but you cunningly rewrite the above. Read it back, old friend, and don't misrepresent me to pretend you're making a point.



Nope, you're doing a really bad job of this, old friend. If you don't know the relevance of this, you don't want to know it, and no-one will be able to explain it to you. Please don't ask me to - I honestly think you're taking the piss.



Never, never, never happened. I answered every one of his claims and I'm happy to do it again if he wants to start it up again. I may not have any serious lecturing creds in statistics but I do have undergraduate and postgraduate experience and I had sufficient experience that the Metropolitan Police were happy to employ me as a statistician in their management services directorate at the old New Scotland Yard so I feel I can hold my head above water on a simple matter such as this.



I'm a bit confused now, old friend. I've noticed that you Barrett-believers will just grab hold of whatever you think will suit your argument in the moment. I'm not sure which story you're backing here: was Anne involved in a forgery in this version or did she have nothing to do with it? I only ask because if it was the former, then Mike confessing it was a hoax would clearly not have suited his co-writer now, would it? Hardly grounds for a reconciliation, even in 'the mind of Mike'.



Stop it, old friend - you're showing yourself up! The only 'evidence' we have is Anne and Mike claiming it. Taking a lead from you, maybe Anne didn't help Mike? If you can chuck in mysterious auctions and mysterious auction-attenders, I don't think you should be questioning my strict adherence here to the actual evidence of co-authorship which is non-existent other than Mike and Anne's claims. They are claims, not evidence. They aren't even circumstantial evidence. Now you may scurry off and look for occasions where you feel I may have done the same, but that will be because you want to run from the fact that you are patently seeking to have your cake and eat it. Isn't that unusual from the anything-is-possible-whenever-it-suits brigade?



Well, she was either lying or telling the truth (Caroline Barrett was, that is) - that's true of most undocumented events. My challenge to you was how you knew which was the case that you could slander her if she was actually telling the truth? How did you know she was lying?

I'm satisfied that I summarised your arguments correctly, Ike.

Regarding Mike's writing career, either he wrote the articles himself or Anne helped him. It doesn't matter which. Your attempts to try and whitewash the fact of his journalistic career, because it points towards a conclusion you don't like, are in the finest traditions of denialism.

As for young Caroline, I did not say I knew she was lying. I was careful with my words which you have chosen to misrepresent for your own purposes. I said there was good reason to think that she and her parents were liars. The good reason in her case is that she claimed something that appears to be untrue, namely that her father was given the diary by Tony Devereux. You don't think her father was given the diary by Tony Devereux. I don't think her father was given the diary by Tony Devereux. Q.E.D. we both agree it must have been a lie.

[Scott Nelson]

Yes, of course. It must have been a lie.

[caz]

Thank goodness - for the pursuit and defence of the truth - the breweries have run dry and I have finally sobered-up ...

And not a day too soon, it appears, as someone has to point out that you cannot say categorically that 'they checked the wrong dates' unless you are seeking to mislead people.

The bit that you rely on is where Barrett claimed in his January 5, 1995 affidavit:


We know the red diary was ordered in March 1992 (and paid for in May 1992) so you want everyone to believe that the only possibility based upon Barrett's January 5, 1995 affidavit is that he misremembered the events of 1992 for two years earlier.

But you intentionally (because you have an angle to spin here) disregard the bit that buggers up your argument:


Tony Devereux sadly died on August 8, 1991, as well you know. So Barrett could not have been remembering 1992 at all when he went to O&L so the red diary could not have been required for the 1992 'hoax' you cling so desperately to. Barrett's affidavit is very clear that the O&L scrapbook came after the failed red diary and both came before Tony's sad demise which totally buggers up your argument that the purchase of the red diary is evidence that he was seeking a vehicle for a hoaxed diary of Jack the Ripper in the run-up to the only O&L auction that month (the 31st). He already had the scrapbook, didn't he (according to Barrett)? It had already been completed and there was a delay in operations due to the unexpected passing of co-conspirator Tony on August 8, 1991. The dates can all be ignored. All we need to understand is that the affidavit you place such faith in clearly states the following timeline: the red diary is ordered, it is too small, so Barrett gets the scrapbook from an O&L auction, the scrapbook is completed, Tony D sadly dies, and you and your lot are jolly rogered up the arse by man's inability so far to travel back and forth through time.

The red diary theory doesn't work, does it? Unless you argue that Tony D was still alive in March 1992 which can obviously be firmly contradicted by the sad evidence. And you can't believe some bits of the affidavit which you like and which work for the angle you're aiming for here and simultaneously skip over the awkward bits which make the 'key' bit of your theory simply incorrect, can you? I'm sure you can't. After all, as I understand it, your sort are almost bunged-up with all that integrity inside you.

Nope, 'they' didn't check the wrong dates. They checked the right dates - the ones the affidavit tell us must be the true ones. Ha ha.

It's all in black and white, Roger - Howe your team's strategy falls apart before it ever got started. Puts me in mind of a game of football I saw recently ...

Nice one, Cyril - sorry - Ike.

I have never been able to get this fact through to the opposing team, that the late Tony Devereux was very much out of the diary loop, if he was ever in it while breathing, when Mike inexplicably ordered a diary for the year 1891, having already interested Doreen in one signed by Jack the Ripper, with only the one date at the end: May 1889. First and foremost, Mike needed to explain how he had come by such a remarkable document, because they don't grow on trees, as Doreen observed. It was Tony Devereux who provided that explanation by having died in August 1991. This was a fact, and a convenient one for Mike to repeat in March 1992, because dead men can't tell tales or deny any lies told about them.

The 'Great Barrett Hoax' conspiracy theory [or GBH for short] relies on Mike having forgotten by the start of 1995 that the only thing Tony was capable of doing, by the time Doreen got to hear about the diary and its provenance, and Martin Earl was asked to find one from the 1880s, was silently pushing up the daisies.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I notice you haven't commented on Shirley Harrison's statement, Ike.

"I hope you all have better luck like than I did with... Oathwaite...."

Doesn't really inspire confidence, does it?

No, the correct spelling is Outhwaite, so Palmer managed to misquote Shirley in this regard - more than once.

Shirley could have been quietly confident that she and her contacts at O & L had done enough to cast considerable doubt on Mike's auction claims, while challenging others - with the merest hint of sarcasm - to see if they would have 'better luck' in getting from the auction house the evidential equivalent of blood from a stone.

If there was any confirmation on record to be had, of an actual event resembling Mike's description, it wasn't found on Shirley's watch - simple as. The likes of Peter Birchwood, Alan Gray and Melvin Harris could each have used all their powers of persuasion - and asked for the records to be checked right up to 13th April 1992, if they didn't think it mattered if Tony Devereux was dead or alive for Mike's lucky auction find - but it would have taken more than persuasion, and more than 'better luck', if the auction house simply had no record of it. It should have been easier to confirm Mike's story if there had been any truth in it, than to prove it never happened if the entire story was false, and only made slightly credible with the red diary hook, which smells like a red herring to those of us who knew or met the man who relied on 'alternative facts' long before the catchphrase became popular among today's practised deceivers.

If Peter Birchwood did contact O & L himself, I don't recall reading about it, and I doubt he'd have been reticent if the auction house had been in any way unhelpful or obstructive. If he asked about the records from 1992, for instance, and they had not already been pulped, he must have had no more luck than Shirley or we'd all have heard about it.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Nice one, Cyril - sorry - Ike.

I have never been able to get this fact through to the opposing team, that the late Tony Devereux was very much out of the diary loop, if he was ever in it while breathing, when Mike inexplicably ordered a diary for the year 1891, having already interested Doreen in one signed by Jack the Ripper, with only the one date at the end: May 1889. First and foremost, Mike needed to explain how he had come by such a remarkable document, because they don't grow on trees, as Doreen observed. It was Tony Devereux who provided that explanation by having died in August 1991. This was a fact, and a convenient one for Mike to repeat in March 1992, because dead men can't tell tales or deny any lies told about them.

The 'Great Barrett Hoax' conspiracy theory [or GBH for short] relies on Mike having forgotten by the start of 1995 that the only thing Tony was capable of doing, by the time Doreen got to hear about the diary and its provenance, and Martin Earl was asked to find one from the 1880s, was silently pushing up the daisies.

Love,

Caz
X

What I've never been able to get through to "the opposing team" (whoever they may be) is that Michael Barrett repeatedly said that the idea to write a fake diary first occurred to him at the very end of 1987/early 1988 when Tony Devereux was very much alive. For that reason, Devereux could have assisted in the drafting of the diary at any time before his death in 1991. I'm not sure why this is such a difficult concept for the team to handle nor why they keep insisting that Mike "ordered" an 1891 diary when it was the only diary, outside of his desired period to boot, that was offered to him.

[caz]

All you've done in that long post, Ike, is essentially repeat in a convoluted way what I said in much shorter form when I talked about why it's not very clear what Mike was saying through the middle-man medium of Alan Gray. You're using the context of the affidavit to try to explain one sentence which, if Gray didn't fully understand the context himself, would be a significant mistake.

What you are, of course, totally ignoring, as usual, is what Michael Barrett said, out of his own mouth, in May 1999, from which it WAS very clear that that the idea to create a fake diary occurred to him as early as 1988, while Tony Devereux was alive, but the purchase of the photograph album, and the physical writing of the diary, only took place after he spoke to Doreen on March 9th 1992. That chronology is as clear as crystal. Any fair-minded person trying to get to the truth of the matter would surely want to take that very important fact into account if they want to understand Barrett's account, rather than ignore it.

I'm chuckling at the suggestion, Herlock, that anything this compulsive liar ever said on the record about the diary, out of his own mouth no less, would not have been considered a 'very important fact' to take into account by any fair-minded person trying to get to the truth of the matter.

A very important fact here is that before any fair-minded person can begin to understand Mike's account they first need to acknowledge the equally important fact that his relationship with the truth was abnormal in the extreme, not helped by the personal demons that plagued him long after the loss of his wife and only child in January 1994. Any allegation he made against Anne after that time requires supporting evidence at the extreme end of robust. Without it, no fair-minded person in the world should be giving this man the benefit of the doubt.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

You're doing a bit of wriggling there Ike. Your original claim was that "the red diary theory does not work" because of what was said in Mike's affidavit. That's fallen apart. Of course it works (assuming that by "the red diary theory" you mean the idea that Mike was intending to forge the diary of Jack the Ripper in a diary from the 1880s with blank pages sourced from Martin Earl).

It doesn't work with Mike's statement that Tony Devereux was alive, but severely ill, after the red diary had been rejected and the diary created from the photo album over eleven days. Tony wasn't known to be severely ill in any case. His fatal heart attack was sudden and unexpected, happening while the Barretts were away on holiday. Why would they have been waiting for Tony to recover, as Mike claimed, with the diary completed and ready to go? What difference did Tony's state of health make to their plans for unleashing it on the world? Quite a lot, apparently, if he had to die so that the diary would have a provenance that couldn't easily be disproved. One can almost hear the cogs turning in Mike's brain as he was dictating the guff about Tony to Alan Gray.

The other little problem with the little red diary is that Martin Earl's standard practice was to give his customers a full description of any item located, to save the time and expense involved in taking and fulfilling an order which didn't meet their requirements. Martin told us in no uncertain terms that he would not have taken Mike's order without telling him the diary located was for the year 1891. This seems all the more obvious, considering the date was outside the parameters set by his customer. It has been argued, somewhat desperately, that Martin may not have had a more detailed description from the supplier, and Mike may have placed his order without asking for more details - such as whether the diary on offer was the size of a cigarette case, or had 1891 printed on every damned page. A quick call by Martin to the supplier would have secured all the details a budding hoaxer could have needed to know in advance, and all three had a tongue in their head, so only a serious lack of communication between the parties involved could have resulted in Major Misunderstanding ordering something so completely useless, if its purpose had been to provide a home for Maybrick's Memoirs and the bestseller its new owner was already counting on.

Even if people want to argue that Mike was really that dim, or that Martin Earl was yet another irrational businessman who failed to give a straight account of how he ran his own business, or that I'm 'imagining' things that come from the same record that Keith Skinner and others have access to, nobody seems to want to explore what Anne thought she was doing, if she was trusting Mike "Liability" Barrett with the task of discreetly sourcing any of the raw materials for a fake diary. Is it because they are reluctant to come out and say that the woman could not have been right in the head?

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

First and foremost, Mike needed to explain how he had come by such a remarkable document, because they don't grow on trees, as Doreen observed. It was Tony Devereux who provided that explanation by having died in August 1991.

Let's see. Devereux decided to make the ultimate sacrifice and die in August 1991 so when Ed Lyons gave the priceless Diary of Jack the Ripper to Barrett seven months later Barrett would have one of those provenances that don't grow on trees?

Can't you grasp that this 'coincidence' of timing is more of a problem for Doreen's theory than for anyone else's? According to your own theory, Tony's timely death can't be anything other than dumb luck.

The way I see it, the idea of the 'Diary of Jack the Ripper' had been kicking around in Mike and Anne' head for years (if not decades, if Steve Powell's shifting memory contained a core of truth) but they never got the damned thing whipped up into professional shape. Further, Barrett had no idea how he could manufacturer a suitable provenance if he decided to go full-blown hoax.

Thus, it sat, in nebulas form, on Barrett's word processor with no way forward.

Then, when his casual acquaintance/friend Tony D. died in August 1991, it soon dawned on Mike that a suitable provenance had presented itself. No one who doesn't own a crystal ball could know if Barrett would have mustered the confidence to make that initial that phone call if Tony had lived another 10 or 15 years.

But Devereux did die, so Mike dusted off the typescript and forged ahead, confident that he finally had a provenance that would satisfy an overeager literary agent and an equally overeager publisher.

This isn't an objection at all.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm chuckling at the suggestion, Herlock, that anything this compulsive liar ever said on the record about the diary, out of his own mouth no less, would not have been considered a 'very important fact' to take into account by any fair-minded person trying to get to the truth of the matter.

A very important fact here is that before any fair-minded person can begin to understand Mike's account they first need to acknowledge the equally important fact that his relationship with the truth was abnormal in the extreme, not helped by the personal demons that plagued him long after the loss of his wife and only child in January 1994. Any allegation he made against Anne after that time requires supporting evidence at the extreme end of robust. Without it, no fair-minded person in the world should be giving this man the benefit of the doubt.

Love,

Caz
X

But Caz you're ignoring the fact that it was Ike who was using Barrett's own words (or at least what he understood to be Barrett's own words) to undermine the idea that Barrett was involved in the forgery.

My response was to say that if you want to use Barrett's own words, you need to look at the entirety of what Barrett was saying to understand the account he was giving.

If what you're saying is we shouldn't be discussing anything Barrett said, then fine, but, in which case, why do you and Ike keep going on about what is said in Barrett's affidavit, considering that we all agree he was a compulsive liar?

Either you want to examine Barrett's version of events or you don't. If you don't then let's all completely stop talking about what Barrett said about anything, knowing that he was a compulsive liar.

The problem is that even compulsive liars, and perhaps especially compulsive liars, can forge historical documents. So how do we get to the truth?

My approach is not to focus on anything Barrett said and look at the independent evidence.

As to that, we can see from Roger's detective work that the diary must have been written after 1988. We know that Barrett was a professional journalist during the 1980s, either with or without the assistance of his wife. We know that in March 1992, at the same time that Doreen said she was interested in seeing the diary of Jack the Ripper, he contacted Martin Earl to obtain a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages. We know that certain of the expressions used in the diary match those used by Mike himself. We know that the diarist makes similar grammatical errors to the Barretts such a "I seen". We know that the way Anne formed certain characters is similar to the way the diarist formed certain characters. We know that the Barretts were poor spellers with poor grammar, like the diarist, and we know that Mike was likely to make factual errors regarding the Ripper and Maybrick of the type found in the diary. We know that the diary has no history prior to emerging from 12 Goldie Street. We know that Mike was the only person who was able to find the source of the line "Oh costly intercourse of death." We know that Mike, astonishingly, owned the series of literature books in which this very rare quote is to be found. We know that Mike was aware of Bernard Ryan's book on Maybrick but covered up his knowledge of it in his research notes for Shirley Harrison. We know that Mike owned a book containing two chapters relating to the Maybrick case. To me, it all builds up a picture. I'm not saying that he was definitely the forger but I'm just not seeing any reason why he and his wife couldn't have been. I keep asking for a reason but I'm not given one.

[caz]

What I've never been able to get through to "the opposing team" (whoever they may be) is that Michael Barrett repeatedly said that the idea to write a fake diary first occurred to him at the very end of 1987/early 1988 when Tony Devereux was very much alive. For that reason, Devereux could have assisted in the drafting of the diary at any time before his death in 1991. I'm not sure why this is such a difficult concept for the team to handle nor why they keep insisting that Mike "ordered" an 1891 diary when it was the only diary, outside of his desired period to boot, that was offered to him.

Mike didn't move to Goldie Street until 1988, so he wouldn't have had occasion to meet Tony in 1987, let alone get to know him well enough to discuss a forgery scheme with him and get him to agree to total secrecy. This alone makes it a difficult 'concept' to accept with no supporting evidence. When Mike "ordered" [Martin Earl's word, not mine] the 1891 diary, it had been located very shortly after the advert had appeared. It was the only item on offer by that point, so Mike could have waited to see if anything might turn up that could actually have been used, if the purpose was to create Maybrick's diary, but he didn't. It's like ordering a kettle when you need a toaster, because the kettle is in stock and there is no indication of when the toaster you need will become available. Fine if Doreen is happy with tea, but not when she has been promised toast and jam.

The time pressure argument doesn't work, because Mike would have had to make excuses to put Doreen off in any case until he had found something suitable, and there were no guarantees that he would strike it lucky on 31st March 1992, or at any subsequent date, before Doreen concluded that he wasn't going to deliver. All that work, researching and creating the story, and selling the concept to Doreen, giving away the fact that he was claiming to have Jack the Ripper's diary - and all for what, if he had still failed to find what he needed by the same time next year?

I sometimes feel like I've walked into an episode of Michael Bentine's Potty Time, when I read some of the arguments in support of Mike Barrett's potty claims.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

No, the correct spelling is Outhwaite, so Palmer managed to misquote Shirley in this regard

Thanks, C.A.B.

It doesn't particularly worry me that I occasionally misspell a proper name while casually typing on an internet forum, but if my brain ever deteriorates to the point that I can convince myself that the well-known modern phrase "bumbling buffoon" is a reference to Mr. Bumble from Oliver Twist, I do hope you will alert me so I can schedule a much-needed checkup.

Shirley could have been quietly confident that she and her contacts at O & L had done enough to cast considerable doubt on Mike's auction claims, while challenging others - with the merest hint of sarcasm - to see if they would have 'better luck' in getting from the auction house the evidential equivalent of blood from a stone.

Challenging?? Your imagination is really something to behold.

Go back and re-read the quote. The 'Paul and John' in Shirley's 2001 post were Paul Begg and John Omlor who, at the time, were diary agnostics who were challenging the truth of Melvin Harris's claims as well as the truth Barrett's affidavit.

Why on earth would she have been 'sarcastic' to them? And then tell them to 'keep up the good work' in the next sentence?

That she was 'challenging' them with the 'merest hint of sarcasm' is entirely a product of your imagination.

[Herlock Sholmes]

It doesn't work with Mike's statement that Tony Devereux was alive, but severely ill, after the red diary had been rejected and the diary created from the photo album over eleven days. Tony wasn't known to be severely ill in any case. His fatal heart attack was sudden and unexpected, happening while the Barretts were away on holiday. Why would they have been waiting for Tony to recover, as Mike claimed, with the diary completed and ready to go? What difference did Tony's state of health make to their plans for unleashing it on the world? Quite a lot, apparently, if he had to die so that the diary would have a provenance that couldn't easily be disproved. One can almost hear the cogs turning in Mike's brain as he was dictating the guff about Tony to Alan Gray.

The other little problem with the little red diary is that Martin Earl's standard practice was to give his customers a full description of any item located, to save the time and expense involved in taking and fulfilling an order which didn't meet their requirements. Martin told us in no uncertain terms that he would not have taken Mike's order without telling him the diary located was for the year 1891. This seems all the more obvious, considering the date was outside the parameters set by his customer. It has been argued, somewhat desperately, that Martin may not have had a more detailed description from the supplier, and Mike may have placed his order without asking for more details - such as whether the diary on offer was the size of a cigarette case, or had 1891 printed on every damned page. A quick call by Martin to the supplier would have secured all the details a budding hoaxer could have needed to know in advance, and all three had a tongue in their head, so only a serious lack of communication between the parties involved could have resulted in Major Misunderstanding ordering something so completely useless, if its purpose had been to provide a home for Maybrick's Memoirs and the bestseller its new owner was already counting on.

Even if people want to argue that Mike was really that dim, or that Martin Earl was yet another irrational businessman who failed to give a straight account of how he ran his own business, or that I'm 'imagining' things that come from the same record that Keith Skinner and others have access to, nobody seems to want to explore what Anne thought she was doing, if she was trusting Mike "Liability" Barrett with the task of discreetly sourcing any of the raw materials for a fake diary. Is it because they are reluctant to come out and say that the woman could not have been right in the head?

Love,

Caz
X

The problem is that you read Mike's affidavit as if it's the Holy Bible. The affidavit doesn't say that Tony fell ill after the red diary had been rejected. There is a sentence which says "During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severly (sic) ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990.". So what period is being referred to? Sure, from the context one could read it that the period is after the photograph album had been obtained but it doesn't expressly say that. Everything is in a single word, "this". If what Mike had actually told Alan Gray was that "During the period when we were writing the diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound etc." it's by no means impossible that Gray decided in his own mind that this must be the period after the photograph album had been obtained but what Barrett actually meant was the period when the diary was being drafted while Tony was alive.

You also love to look at the affidavit to the exclusion of what Mike said out of his own mouth in 1999. But, if I refer to what Mike said in 1999, you'll tell me that this is impermissible because Mike was a compulsive liar. So I can't ever win.

The point about Earl's description of the red diary has been done over and over but still you don't seem to understand it. Earl would certainly have told Mike that most of the pages in the red diary were blank because this is what Mike had asked for. He would undoubtedly have told him that it was a diary from 1891. He would most likely have told him the size specifications. But the year and the size would likely have meant nothing to Mike in the abstract without physically seeing it. The key piece of information was that he was being offered a diary from roughly the correct historical period in which most of the pages were blank. That is what he was looking for. Anything else he might have been told is speculation. There's no reason to think that Earl must have mentioned the dates being printed on each page because (a) not having seen the diary himself he possibly wouldn't have known it and (b) he wouldn't have known this was important to Mike. Sure Mike could, in theory, have asked Earl to go back to the supplier with a million questions but, if he didn't do so, and wanted the diary as soon as possible, that hypothetical possibility is of no assistance. Yes, with hindsight, having seen the diary, we all now know that it wasn't suitable for forging a Jack the Ripper diary. But where does that get us? The short point is that the red diary was the only Victorian diary with blank pages available to Mike at that time. It was that or nothing, wasn't it? What did he have to lose by saying "yes, please do send me that diary" other than £25 which, we know, he didn't even pay out of his own money.

It really is all far more simple than you choose to make it.

At the end of your post you ask another question about Anne that's impossible to answer. We don't know what her exact role was, do we? If we take Mike's account, which I know I'm not allowed to do, Anne was little more than his assistant, mainly doing the writing at his dictation. It was his project, and, if that's so, why are her views about the red diary relevant? Honestly, I'm surprised you never seem to ask why she married Mike in the first place if she thought he was such a useless loser. It always seems to me you're trying to over-complicate, demanding answers to every little detail that can't be known. It's the big picture which is important and the big picture leaves us with the strong possibility that the Barretts were involved in forging the diary. At least, I don't know of any reason why they couldn't have been. Unless you can give me such a reason, isn't it time to put an end to this sterile argument?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Mike didn't move to Goldie Street until 1988, so he wouldn't have had occasion to meet Tony in 1987, let alone get to know him well enough to discuss a forgery scheme with him and get him to agree to total secrecy. This alone makes it a difficult 'concept' to accept with no supporting evidence. When Mike "ordered" [Martin Earl's word, not mine] the 1891 diary, it had been located very shortly after the advert had appeared. It was the only item on offer by that point, so Mike could have waited to see if anything might turn up that could actually have been used, if the purpose was to create Maybrick's diary, but he didn't. It's like ordering a kettle when you need a toaster, because the kettle is in stock and there is no indication of when the toaster you need will become available. Fine if Doreen is happy with tea, but not when she has been promised toast and jam.

The time pressure argument doesn't work, because Mike would have had to make excuses to put Doreen off in any case until he had found something suitable, and there were no guarantees that he would strike it lucky on 31st March 1992, or at any subsequent date, before Doreen concluded that he wasn't going to deliver. All that work, researching and creating the story, and selling the concept to Doreen, giving away the fact that he was claiming to have Jack the Ripper's diary - and all for what, if he had still failed to find what he needed by the same time next year?

I sometimes feel like I've walked into an episode of Michael Bentine's Potty Time, when I read some of the arguments in support of Mike Barrett's potty claims.

Love,

Caz
X

You should read my posts more carefully, Caz. I didn't say that Mike knew Tony in 1987. I simply said that the very end of 1987 or early 1988 is when Mike said that the idea to write a diary of Jack the Ripper first occurred to him. In fact, he seems to link it to moving to Goldie Street and taking on the mortgage. I didn't realize I needed to explain it to you but what he actually seems to be have been saying is that the origins of the diary can be traced back to New Year's Eve of 1987 when Maggie Graham died causing him and Anne to move to Goldie Street which required a relatively large mortgage causing him to start having financial difficulties causing him to want to write his way out of his problems. It's not exactly clear when he actually started preparatory work on the diary but the point I was making was that Tony was alive between 1988 and 1991 so could have participated in the forgery at any time before his death. Thus, the story set out in the affidavit could be true.

I also forgot to ask you to provide some evidence that Tony wasn't severely ill before his death in 1991. You tell me a lot of things but rarely if ever provide any supporting evidence.

As for the red diary, I thought that Mike agreed to purchase it some weeks after the advertisement had been placed, on about 26th March. Surely he wanted to take the diary to London to show Doreen as soon as possible. He didn't have plenty of time to wait around and hope. I have to repeat that the red diary was the only diary that was offered to him. It was that or nothing at that stage. It seems to me that your objections are now getting silly. They don't seem to be based on what Mike would have been thinking at the time. As at 26th March, Mike, if he was the forger, could have had no idea that he would find a suitable photograph album in a few days time. Sure he could have put Doreen off but he would equally have wanted to get the diary to Doreen A.S.A.P. Why turn down the red diary if there was a possibility he might be able to use it? You're honestly not making much sense to me, Caz. It's all much more simple than you seem to want to make it.