The Maybrick Thread (For All Things Maybrick)

[Iconoclast]

Thank you for confirming that your only source for your calculation of Barrett's income is the very man of whom we are told we cannot believe a single word he says without independent verification who was attempting to recall, off the top of his head, in front of an audience, sums he'd earned in a period covering three years more than ten years earlier. Suddenly he is a highly credible source whose numbers can be entirely relied upon! It's a miracle. Even if he was right, how do you know how many articles he wrote if he wasn't credited for all of them? How do you know how much he earned from Look-In? But even if you're right and he earned £2,000 in total, what possible difference would it make to what I was saying if he'd earned £200, £2,000, £20,000 or £200,000 from journalism in the 80s? He was being paid for writing articles, wasn't he? That's journalism. That's what he didn't mention to anyone during 1992 and 1993 and the first six months of 1994. That's what was about to be exposed in June 1994.

What do you mean when you say that Barrett "evidently" didn't think of himself as a journalist? What evidence are you referring to? What he told the police in October 1993? Well, from the statement you've posted, what he told them wasn't accurate and truthful, was it? Why is there no mention of Celebrity or Chat? He hadn't forgotten writing for them surely, had he? Why did he say he wrote articles for a children's magazine when, as far as he know, he wrote puzzles for them and articles for Celebrity and Chat? Are you sure he wasn't trying to hide from the police that he'd been a journalist writing for Celebrity and Chat? Just admitting to a small amount of creative writing which, for all we know, they may have revealed to him in interview that they already knew about, so he couldn't deny it?

It's funny though because Caz told me back on 4th March: (#124 of New Ideas and New Research thread):

"The claim here for a long time was that Mike had deliberately concealed this aspect of his life in the 1980s, and this was considered suspicious to the point of damning. But he didn't conceal - or try to conceal - this from the boys in blue, and this was way back in October 1993, many months before he went to Brough with his first forgery claims. "

I replied to her on 4 March (#129)

"If you're saying that he freely told Scotland Yard of his work for Celebrity and Chat, it does raise the question of why he volunteered that information to them yet had never mentioned it to Shirley or any of the researchers. I mean, if it wasn't important enough to tell Shirley, why did he tell Scotland Yard? Doesn't that strike you as strange?"

When she replied to me on 5th March (#134), she didn't deny that she was saying that Barrett had freely told Scotland Yard of his work for Celebrity and Chat. She allowed me to think that this is what he had done. But, if she was relying on the same statement you've just posted, which I'd never seen before (because Caz didn't post it, even though I asked her to), does that mean she was deliberately concealing the truth from me? Because Barrett did not freely tell Scotland Yard of his work for Celebrity and Chat, did he? He made out that he only wrote articles for a children's magazine.

Funny how she tells me one thing for one purpose, implying Mike didn't try to conceal his journalism from Scotland Yard in 1993, but you now show me evidence that he did conceal it.

Tell me something, Ike. If Barrett didn't think of himself as a journalist, why did Shirley Harrison write in the 1998 edition of her book:

"Michael....had always had dreams of being a writer.....He liked to call himself a journalist".

Is that what they call being caught out bang to rights? Egg on face time!

And it's also funny, isn't it, that when Barrett explained the origins of the diary to Alan Gray in November 1994 he repeatedly mentioned the name of his former editor, David Burness, and said that he (Barrett) had been the chief writer for Celebrity magazine. As I've already posted in another thread, this is what he said:

"David Burness, David Burness…magazine… in 1987 I was the chief writer, ,..he will confirm that, he will confirm I was the chief writer, 1987… Stan Boardman …..Bonnie Langford… Dorothy Wright…she was a girl in Liverpool…I’m going back to 1987…"

What we have here is actual evidence of what Barrett thought of himself and it proves that he thought of himself as the chief writer for Celebrity magazine. If that isn't the definition of a journalist I don't know what is.

And, of course, he repeated his mention of Burness is 1999 when, as I've also already posted, he said:

"I’ve been writing, god knows, I’ve been writing for an awful long time. So I phoned David Burness. And he produces a magazine. And the magazine is called Celebrity magazine. This is very, very, important. This is where the Diary starts. Now, David Burness produces Celebrity magazine. Meanwhile, I go along and, you can go and check these facts, look at the people I interviewed. I interviewed Kenneth Williams, Bonnie Langford, various people… and I do all the interviews, so I come back and I write it on a word processor."

Oh look, there's mention of that word processor that you seem to deny was connected with his journalism.

As to that word processor, you only need to consider the timing of its purchase to see that it was bought to assist his journalism. I find from an online source that it was purchased on 3 April 1986, a mere month before his first known article appeared in Chat magazine. The connection between the purchase of the word processor and his intended new career in journalism IS therefore very obvious and undeniable. Yet Doreen Montgomery wrote to Nick Warren in May 1994 to inform him, "Right from the word go, everyone knew that Mike had bought a WP precisely to transcribe the Diary". This false information, this lie, can only have come from Mike Barrett. Why was he hiding the fact that he'd owned a world processor since 1986? Why was he lying about when he bought the machine? These questions answer themselves. He was covering up the fact of his journalism.

You claim he didn't think journalism was relevant yet, as we've seen, it was a highly relevant part of the story of how he forged the diary which he told in both 1994 and 1999. How funny that he always just happens to remember it when explaining the origins of the diary but completely forgot about it when telling Shirley Harrison his occupational history in 1992/3.

And just to be clear, Ike, someone who wrote around "20 articles and puzzles in cheap rags in the mid-1980s" (even though that's factually inaccurate) and was paid for writing them, IS correctly and properly described as a journalist. The quantity and the quality are irrelevant, especially when we are considering the quality of the diary, so that the poorer the quality of the articles, the more likely the author of those articles also wrote the diary. It also doesn't matter that his articles needed to be tidied up because the person who tidied them up was his wife, who would logically have helped him tidy up the diary.

Try harder, Ike.

No thank you.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I am confident that words to the effect of "Mike Barrett had a former career as a journalist" have been used on Casebook before. There's a half decent chance you won't known that.



In your beloved April 1999 interview, Mike is very explicit about how little he earned for his articles. Check it out, then multiply that by about 20 and bear in mind over what period of time he had been trying, and you'll get an annual 'salary' which none of us would be crowing about or fearful of being exposed. For the record, I admire what he achieved but let's not kid ourselves it was anything remotely like journalism as we commonly use the term when we don't have an angle to push.



So these are actual jobs, Herlock. Evidently, Barrett didn't think of himself as a journalist. If he'd known, he'd perhaps have been happy for people with a very niche and specific agenda to come along and claim it on his behalf but your saying it does not make it so.



The one he wanted to help with his nascent writing efforts as part of a writing circle?



You let yourself down when you say it was 'obviously' so. It was not 'obviously' so: to be 'obviously' so requires a very niche and specific prism with which to view all of his statements and actions through. It is just as obvious that the word processor was purchased to help with his ambitions to write creatively which does not appear to have been in any great debate.



Someone once pointed-out that Mike may have claimed he bought the word processor to help with his research for the book on the scrapbook because he wanted to offset the cost against expenses in order to maximise his share of the profitability he would split 50-50 with Shirley Harrison. I have no idea if this is true, and nor did (or does) the person who suggested it, but it's a cracking notion which I doubt any of us would doubt Mike Barrett of attempting. For the record, revealing that he had an Amstrad word processor in 1992 would hardly have marked him out for suspicion given how many people had the same (including me). We weren't all ex-aspiring journalists and I don't imagine for a moment he feared his stellar 'career as a journalist' being revealed by mentioning when he had actually purchased his machine.



He placed around 20 articles and puzzles in cheap rags in the mid-1980s as part of a writing circle which was encouraging him to do so. You can keep calling him a 'journalist' but please know that every time you do you are revealing your hand.



You wouldn't sue someone for defamation because you had been (or were to be) called a journalist, would you? I would need to check to see if I have a copy of this, but I'm guessing in advance that Warren had made genuinely defamatory comments about Mike. Indeed, I have a memory that this very thing happened but it was probably just false memory syndrome at work yet again.



Something pissed him off, Herlock - saying something 'unnerved' him is a trick very commonly played by Lord Orsam and RJ Palmer for years before you arrived in Maybrickland. And - yes - I mention Lord Orsam's name again but this is because he was a real researcher with real creds over a long period of time who just happened to be as wrong about Mike and Anne Barrett as you have been over an incredibly short period of time.

Honestly, there is no evidence that Mike Barrett ever thought of himself as a journalist and therefore felt he had something to hide. Further, far from hiding anything, he was freely sharing his amateurish past in - for example - his New Scotland Yard witness statement (which, yes, he didn't sign because he didn't have his solicitor present):

October 22, 1993
For the past 13 years I have been in receipt of invalidity benefit, and have not worked, due to this I spend a lot of time at home as a house husband. I have in the past been very interested in creative writing, and I have been encouraged by writing circles I've attended to submit articles, a number of which having been published in 'Look in' a children's magazine.

I don't think this could be any more explicit, could it? He wasn't hiding anything - indeed, he was freely admitting to not being anything employment-wise for thirteen long years. He was also freely admitting that he had aspirations to be a writer (not a journalist, note, but a 'creative writer'). He freely admits to being part of writing circles and being encouraged to submit articles to the low-end rags (not sure why he only mentioned 'Look-In' as his celebrity interviews for Celebrity and Chat hardly took him out of the low-end market and into the Pulitzer arena). He subsequently admitted that his celebrity interviews had to be tidied-up by his better-educated wife before being submitted. All of this was freely given at one point or another and clearly was not a reason for him to come out and confess that he had created the Maybrick scrapbook in June 1994. Now, let me get ahead of you here: you are about to reply that Mike was admitting to being an aspiring writer whilst hiding his Celebrity and Chat articles which proved that he was actually a professional journalist during his 13 years of claiming invalidity benefit. I can't stop you doing so, of course, but I so hope you come to your senses first and don't.

I think - no, I know - you are building castles in the sand, Herlock. You can do much better than this, mate.

Thank you for confirming that your only source for your calculation of Barrett's income is the very man of whom we are told we cannot believe a single word he says without independent verification who was attempting to recall, off the top of his head, in front of an audience, sums he'd earned in a period covering three years more than ten years earlier. Suddenly he is a highly credible source whose numbers can be entirely relied upon! It's a miracle. Even if he was right, how do you know how many articles he wrote if he wasn't credited for all of them? How do you know how much he earned from Look-In? But even if you're right and he earned £2,000 in total, what possible difference would it make to what I was saying if he'd earned £200, £2,000, £20,000 or £200,000 from journalism in the 80s? He was being paid for writing articles, wasn't he? That's journalism. That's what he didn't mention to anyone during 1992 and 1993 and the first six months of 1994. That's what was about to be exposed in June 1994.

What do you mean when you say that Barrett "evidently" didn't think of himself as a journalist? What evidence are you referring to? What he told the police in October 1993? Well, from the statement you've posted, what he told them wasn't accurate and truthful, was it? Why is there no mention of Celebrity or Chat? He hadn't forgotten writing for them surely, had he? Why did he say he wrote articles for a children's magazine when, as far as he know, he wrote puzzles for them and articles for Celebrity and Chat? Are you sure he wasn't trying to hide from the police that he'd been a journalist writing for Celebrity and Chat? Just admitting to a small amount of creative writing which, for all we know, they may have revealed to him in interview that they already knew about, so he couldn't deny it?

It's funny though because Caz told me back on 4th March: (#124 of New Ideas and New Research thread):

"The claim here for a long time was that Mike had deliberately concealed this aspect of his life in the 1980s, and this was considered suspicious to the point of damning. But he didn't conceal - or try to conceal - this from the boys in blue, and this was way back in October 1993, many months before he went to Brough with his first forgery claims. "

I replied to her on 4 March (#129)

"If you're saying that he freely told Scotland Yard of his work for Celebrity and Chat, it does raise the question of why he volunteered that information to them yet had never mentioned it to Shirley or any of the researchers. I mean, if it wasn't important enough to tell Shirley, why did he tell Scotland Yard? Doesn't that strike you as strange?"

When she replied to me on 5th March (#134), she didn't deny that she was saying that Barrett had freely told Scotland Yard of his work for Celebrity and Chat. She allowed me to think that this is what he had done. But, if she was relying on the same statement you've just posted, which I'd never seen before (because Caz didn't post it, even though I asked her to), does that mean she was deliberately concealing the truth from me? Because Barrett did not freely tell Scotland Yard of his work for Celebrity and Chat, did he? He made out that he only wrote articles for a children's magazine.

Funny how she tells me one thing for one purpose, implying Mike didn't try to conceal his journalism from Scotland Yard in 1993, but you now show me evidence that he did conceal it.

Tell me something, Ike. If Barrett didn't think of himself as a journalist, why did Shirley Harrison write in the 1998 edition of her book:

"Michael....had always had dreams of being a writer.....He liked to call himself a journalist".

Is that what they call being caught out bang to rights? Egg on face time!

And it's also funny, isn't it, that when Barrett explained the origins of the diary to Alan Gray in November 1994 he repeatedly mentioned the name of his former editor, David Burness, and said that he (Barrett) had been the chief writer for Celebrity magazine. As I've already posted in another thread, this is what he said:

"David Burness, David Burness…magazine… in 1987 I was the chief writer, ,..he will confirm that, he will confirm I was the chief writer, 1987… Stan Boardman …..Bonnie Langford… Dorothy Wright…she was a girl in Liverpool…I’m going back to 1987…"

What we have here is actual evidence of what Barrett thought of himself and it proves that he thought of himself as the chief writer for Celebrity magazine. If that isn't the definition of a journalist I don't know what is.

And, of course, he repeated his mention of Burness is 1999 when, as I've also already posted, he said:

"I’ve been writing, god knows, I’ve been writing for an awful long time. So I phoned David Burness. And he produces a magazine. And the magazine is called Celebrity magazine. This is very, very, important. This is where the Diary starts. Now, David Burness produces Celebrity magazine. Meanwhile, I go along and, you can go and check these facts, look at the people I interviewed. I interviewed Kenneth Williams, Bonnie Langford, various people… and I do all the interviews, so I come back and I write it on a word processor."

Oh look, there's mention of that word processor that you seem to deny was connected with his journalism.

As to that word processor, you only need to consider the timing of its purchase to see that it was bought to assist his journalism. I find from an online source that it was purchased on 3 April 1986, a mere month before his first known article appeared in Chat magazine. The connection between the purchase of the word processor and his intended new career in journalism IS therefore very obvious and undeniable. Yet Doreen Montgomery wrote to Nick Warren in May 1994 to inform him, "Right from the word go, everyone knew that Mike had bought a WP precisely to transcribe the Diary". This false information, this lie, can only have come from Mike Barrett. Why was he hiding the fact that he'd owned a world processor since 1986? Why was he lying about when he bought the machine? These questions answer themselves. He was covering up the fact of his journalism.

You claim he didn't think journalism was relevant yet, as we've seen, it was a highly relevant part of the story of how he forged the diary which he told in both 1994 and 1999. How funny that he always just happens to remember it when explaining the origins of the diary but completely forgot about it when telling Shirley Harrison his occupational history in 1992/3.

And just to be clear, Ike, someone who wrote around "20 articles and puzzles in cheap rags in the mid-1980s" (even though that's factually inaccurate) and was paid for writing them, IS correctly and properly described as a journalist. The quantity and the quality are irrelevant, especially when we are considering the quality of the diary, so that the poorer the quality of the articles, the more likely the author of those articles also wrote the diary. It also doesn't matter that his articles needed to be tidied up because the person who tidied them up was his wife, who would logically have helped him tidy up the diary.

Try harder, Ike.

[Iconoclast]

My words in the post you are responding to were, "Barrett had been a journalist", which have been magically transformed by you into a statement that, "Mike Barrett had a former career as a journalist", all so that you can quibble pointlessly about the word "career".

I am confident that words to the effect of "Mike Barrett had a former career as a journalist" have been used on Casebook before. There's a half decent chance you won't known that.

What I said was a historical fact. His income, about which you are obviously guessing, is wholly and utterly irrelevant to the point I was making about the shock that would have been caused by the revelation of his previously undisclosed journalism.

In your beloved April 1999 interview, Mike is very explicit about how little he earned for his articles. Check it out, then multiply that by about 20 and bear in mind over what period of time he had been trying, and you'll get an annual 'salary' which none of us would be crowing about or fearful of being exposed. For the record, I admire what he achieved but let's not kid ourselves it was anything remotely like journalism as we commonly use the term when we don't have an angle to push.

Your claim that he wouldn't have thought it relevant to mention to Doreen, Shirley et al that he had previously been a journalist is beyond ridiculous. His other occupations: merchant seaman, working on an oil rig, chef and scrap metal dealer were all included in the 1993 book, and the journalism was most recent.

So these are actual jobs, Herlock. Evidently, Barrett didn't think of himself as a journalist. If he'd known, he'd perhaps have been happy for people with a very niche and specific agenda to come along and claim it on his behalf but your saying it does not make it so.

And what about the Amstrad Word Processor?

The one he wanted to help with his nascent writing efforts as part of a writing circle?

The reason for its purchase was obviously to assist his journalism ...

You let yourself down when you say it was 'obviously' so. It was not 'obviously' so: to be 'obviously' so requires a very niche and specific prism with which to view all of his statements and actions through. It is just as obvious that the word processor was purchased to help with his ambitions to write creatively which does not appear to have been in any great debate.

... but a lie was evidently told to explain it. The 1983 book said it was purchased by Mike while researching the diary. A blatant untruth. It had been purchased many years earlier, in 1986, just as Mike was starting to get articles published.

Someone once pointed-out that Mike may have claimed he bought the word processor to help with his research for the book on the scrapbook because he wanted to offset the cost against expenses in order to maximise his share of the profitability he would split 50-50 with Shirley Harrison. I have no idea if this is true, and nor did (or does) the person who suggested it, but it's a cracking notion which I doubt any of us would doubt Mike Barrett of attempting. For the record, revealing that he had an Amstrad word processor in 1992 would hardly have marked him out for suspicion given how many people had the same (including me). We weren't all ex-aspiring journalists and I don't imagine for a moment he feared his stellar 'career as a journalist' being revealed by mentioning when he had actually purchased his machine.

When he saw Nick Warren's draft article, which included the reveal of his journalism ...

He placed around 20 articles and puzzles in cheap rags in the mid-1980s as part of a writing circle which was encouraging him to do so. You can keep calling him a 'journalist' but please know that every time you do you are revealing your hand.

Barrett threatened to instruct a barrister to sue Warren for defamation.

You wouldn't sue someone for defamation because you had been (or were to be) called a journalist, would you? I would need to check to see if I have a copy of this, but I'm guessing in advance that Warren had made genuinely defamatory comments about Mike. Indeed, I have a memory that this very thing happened but it was probably just false memory syndrome at work yet again.

Something in that draft article seriously unnerved him.

Something pissed him off, Herlock - saying something 'unnerved' him is a trick very commonly played by Lord Orsam and RJ Palmer for years before you arrived in Maybrickland. And - yes - I mention Lord Orsam's name again but this is because he was a real researcher with real creds over a long period of time who just happened to be as wrong about Mike and Anne Barrett as you have been over an incredibly short period of time.

Honestly, there is no evidence that Mike Barrett ever thought of himself as a journalist and therefore felt he had something to hide. Further, far from hiding anything, he was freely sharing his amateurish past in - for example - his New Scotland Yard witness statement (which, yes, he didn't sign because he didn't have his solicitor present):

October 22, 1993
For the past 13 years I have been in receipt of invalidity benefit, and have not worked, due to this I spend a lot of time at home as a house husband. I have in the past been very interested in creative writing, and I have been encouraged by writing circles I've attended to submit articles, a number of which having been published in 'Look in' a children's magazine.

I don't think this could be any more explicit, could it? He wasn't hiding anything - indeed, he was freely admitting to not being anything employment-wise for thirteen long years. He was also freely admitting that he had aspirations to be a writer (not a journalist, note, but a 'creative writer'). He freely admits to being part of writing circles and being encouraged to submit articles to the low-end rags (not sure why he only mentioned 'Look-In' as his celebrity interviews for Celebrity and Chat hardly took him out of the low-end market and into the Pulitzer arena). He subsequently admitted that his celebrity interviews had to be tidied-up by his better-educated wife before being submitted. All of this was freely given at one point or another and clearly was not a reason for him to come out and confess that he had created the Maybrick scrapbook in June 1994. Now, let me get ahead of you here: you are about to reply that Mike was admitting to being an aspiring writer whilst hiding his Celebrity and Chat articles which proved that he was actually a professional journalist during his 13 years of claiming invalidity benefit. I can't stop you doing so, of course, but I so hope you come to your senses first and don't.

I think - no, I know - you are building castles in the sand, Herlock. You can do much better than this, mate.

[Herlock Sholmes]

My words in the post you are responding to were, "Barrett had been a journalist", which have been magically transformed by you into a statement that, "Mike Barrett had a former career as a journalist", all so that you can quibble pointlessly about the word "career".

What I said was a historical fact. His income, about which you are obviously guessing, is wholly and utterly irrelevant to the point I was making about the shock that would have been caused by the revelation of his previously undisclosed journalism.

Your claim that he wouldn't have thought it relevant to mention to Doreen, Shirley et al that he had previously been a journalist is beyond ridiculous. His other occupations: merchant seaman, working on an oil rig, chef and scrap metal dealer were all included in the 1993 book, and the journalism was most recent.

And what about the Amstrad Word Processor? The reason for its purchase was obviously to assist his journalism but a lie was evidently told to explain it. The 1983 book said it was purchased by Mike while researching the diary. A blatant untruth. It had been purchased many years earlier, in 1986, just as Mike was starting to get articles published.

When he saw Nick Warren's draft article, which included the reveal of his journalism, Barrett threatened to instruct a barrister to sue Warren for defamation. Something in that draft article seriously unnerved him.

Typo: This should read 1993 of course.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I find the 'journalist' thing one of the clearest signs that someone is seeking to make an advantage of some seriously intangible 'fact'. It is not a fact that Mike Barrett had a former career as a 'journalist'. It is an inference drawn from the fact that a man with writing ambitions, whilst part of a writing circle, successfully placed some very low-key articles in some very low-key periodicals for which he earned very little money indeed - maybe around £2,000 over four years or so. To make of this the notion of a 'career' is very obviously exaggeration for a particular effect. Yes, he had some articles published - this is what a writing circle encourages people to do to gain experience. Yes, he therefore earned a small amount of money doing so (maybe £500 a year if he was on a roll). But is that really the grounds to argue that he had a 'career' as a 'journalist'? Was he employed by anyone (as in an employee)? Was he registered as a self-employed journalist? These are the marks of someone who had grounds to say that were something and - over time - could justifiably say they had a career at something. There is no evidence that Mike Barrett was anything more than a very casual, aspiring writer who proved very quickly to be a dilettante and gave up, as so many people do when they realise their ambition far exceeds their competence or their potential.

So, in 1992, Mike Barrett was many years passed aspiring to be a writer. He had not got any articles published for years and he did not mention his previous attempts at writing because they would not have seemed particularly relevant to a man who knew he had what he had and that he had not hoaxed the thing he had. So - come 1994 - there would have been no thought whatsoever in his mind that he ought to fear being exposed as a career journalist because it simply wasn't true. I don't think he himself ever said so, did he? As I recall, that was left to the Nick Warrens of this world who were desperate to make an advantage of some seriously intangible 'fact'.

Much as you are doing today, in fact.

My words in the post you are responding to were, "Barrett had been a journalist", which have been magically transformed by you into a statement that, "Mike Barrett had a former career as a journalist", all so that you can quibble pointlessly about the word "career".

What I said was a historical fact. His income, about which you are obviously guessing, is wholly and utterly irrelevant to the point I was making about the shock that would have been caused by the revelation of his previously undisclosed journalism.

Your claim that he wouldn't have thought it relevant to mention to Doreen, Shirley et al that he had previously been a journalist is beyond ridiculous. His other occupations: merchant seaman, working on an oil rig, chef and scrap metal dealer were all included in the 1993 book, and the journalism was most recent.

And what about the Amstrad Word Processor? The reason for its purchase was obviously to assist his journalism but a lie was evidently told to explain it. The 1983 book said it was purchased by Mike while researching the diary. A blatant untruth. It had been purchased many years earlier, in 1986, just as Mike was starting to get articles published.

When he saw Nick Warren's draft article, which included the reveal of his journalism, Barrett threatened to instruct a barrister to sue Warren for defamation. Something in that draft article seriously unnerved him.

[Iconoclast]

Furthermore, this would surely have been a far stronger suspicion from the start had it been known, at the time the diary's existence was revealed to the world in 1993, that Barrett had been a journalist.

I find the 'journalist' thing one of the clearest signs that someone is seeking to make an advantage of some seriously intangible 'fact'. It is not a fact that Mike Barrett had a former career as a 'journalist'. It is an inference drawn from the fact that a man with writing ambitions, whilst part of a writing circle, successfully placed some very low-key articles in some very low-key periodicals for which he earned very little money indeed - maybe around £2,000 over four years or so. To make of this the notion of a 'career' is very obviously exaggeration for a particular effect. Yes, he had some articles published - this is what a writing circle encourages people to do to gain experience. Yes, he therefore earned a small amount of money doing so (maybe £500 a year if he was on a roll). But is that really the grounds to argue that he had a 'career' as a 'journalist'? Was he employed by anyone (as in an employee)? Was he registered as a self-employed journalist? These are the marks of someone who had grounds to say that were something and - over time - could justifiably say they had a career at something. There is no evidence that Mike Barrett was anything more than a very casual, aspiring writer who proved very quickly to be a dilettante and gave up, as so many people do when they realise their ambition far exceeds their competence or their potential.

So, in 1992, Mike Barrett was many years passed aspiring to be a writer. He had not got any articles published for years and he did not mention his previous attempts at writing because they would not have seemed particularly relevant to a man who knew he had what he had and that he had not hoaxed the thing he had. So - come 1994 - there would have been no thought whatsoever in his mind that he ought to fear being exposed as a career journalist because it simply wasn't true. I don't think he himself ever said so, did he? As I recall, that was left to the Nick Warrens of this world who were desperate to make an advantage of some seriously intangible 'fact'.

Much as you are doing today, in fact.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So it's not a lot for you and your ilk to hang their collective hats on, is it? An alcoholic in a pub had a drink, couldn't stop, slurred a lot, told some tall tales, fell over utterly peshed to the gills. The End. I'm speaking metaphorically, of course - though I find the metaphor tells the tale as well as the evidence does.

To be clear for the benefit of my many dear and often easily-misled readers, there is almost nothing concrete whatsoever in the suggestion that Mike and Anne Barrett had any part in the creation of what we now know of as the Maybrick scrapbook. Indeed, if it wasn't for the creative minds of a very small number of people, absolutely no-one would think it possible on any level whatsoever.

Let that sink in: if it wasn't for the creative minds of a very small number of people, absolutely no-one would think it possible on any level whatsoever.

Ike

We've now got to the stage where I don"t even understand what you're even talking about. Surely most people suspected the diary to be a forgery from the start and the Barretts, or at least one of them, would always have been obvious candidates for being the forger(s) due to the lack of any known provenance prior to the diary's emergence from 12 Goldie Street.

Furthermore, this would surely have been a far stronger suspicion from the start had it been known, at the time the diary's existence was revealed to the world in 1993, that Barrett had been a journalist.

Isn't the actual truth the direct opposite of what you say? Namely that if it wasn't for the creative minds of a small number of people, absolutely no-one would doubt that the diary was forged by the Barretts.

[Iconoclast]

Whilst we are on the subject of what little we know for certain, I think it is worth my while reminding everyone that Anne Graham's sole claim regarding the provenance of the Maybrick scrapbook was that she had seen it amongst her father's possessions in 1968 or 1969 and that - when asked about it - her father said he had first received it in 1943. Prior to her making this claim in the summer of 1994, she had not ventured a word of what she believed regarding the scrapbook's origins.

I hope that we can agree upon that. She never once 'changed her story', as is so often claimed by those whose motivations or reasons for doing so do not always seem honourable.

I hope that we can also agree that the one thing which supports her story is that Florence Maybrick left prison in 1904 and briefly adopted the name 'Mrs. Graham' before leaving for America (once her probation ended) at which point she adopted the name 'Rose Ingraham' for the journey.

I hope that we can agree further that Florence Maybrick calling herself 'Mrs. Graham' - even briefly - lends an amount of credibility to Anne's father's suggestion that the Maybrick scrapbook came down the Graham line.

I hope that we can all agree, finally, that that is all we can say with any certainty on the issue of the Anne Graham provenance for the Maybrick scrapbook.

We may not choose to believe that it is true. Indeed, we may feel that it came at a particularly convenient time in the story of the Maybrick scrapbook, though - equally - one might argue that it came when it did precisely because it was a convenient time to be honest about what she knew.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

For the record Ike, I accept that MB is the only person who has ever confessed to forging the diary. I accept that at the time he confessed, his wife and daughter had left him and he was drinking. I do not accept that he was incapable of telling the same story for more than about twenty minutes at a time. I do not accept that the only evidence that MB may have been involved in creating the diary is that he sought out a Victorian diary in March 1992. I agree that some people have pointed out some similarities between Anne's handwriting and the handwriting of the diarist and, further, that it's undeniable that such similarities exist. I agree that MB owned the scrapbook and likely knew it well but would say that if he was capable of building a fantasy story to imply he had created it then he would surely also have been capable of building a fantasy story around James Maybrick being Jack the Ripper.

So it's not a lot for you and your ilk to hang their collective hats on, is it? An alcoholic in a pub had a drink, couldn't stop, slurred a lot, told some tall tales, fell over utterly peshed to the gills. The End. I'm speaking metaphorically, of course - though I find the metaphor tells the tale as well as the evidence does.

To be clear for the benefit of my many dear and often easily-misled readers, there is almost nothing concrete whatsoever in the suggestion that Mike and Anne Barrett had any part in the creation of what we now know of as the Maybrick scrapbook. Indeed, if it wasn't for the creative minds of a very small number of people, absolutely no-one would think it possible on any level whatsoever.

Let that sink in: if it wasn't for the creative minds of a very small number of people, absolutely no-one would think it possible on any level whatsoever.

Ike

[Herlock Sholmes]

I think it may be worth my while re-iterating what I have already iterated but this time in language which cannot be misunderstood (or plain ignored) prior to being asked to do so yet again: I cannot think of any agreed-upon evidence which would preclude the possibility of Mike and (or, indeed, or) Anne Barrett from having sourced the Maybrick scrapbook, written a text of a hoax, and then written that text into the Maybrick scrapbook before Mike presented it to the world as the musings of the world's most talked-about murderer.

That said, I am aware that there is evidence which strongly argues against this but which itself - like pretty much everything connected to this case - is open to argument and debate.

Perhaps the one thing we can all agree upon is that only one person has ever made a case for having hoaxed the Maybrick scrapbook, and that person is, of course, Mike Barrett.

Another thing we can all agree upon is that he made his claim in the middle of 1994 when his life was in a truly sorry state, his wife and daughter having left him six months earlier.

Another thing we can all agree upon is that by then Mike Barrett was heavily into his cups with the water of life and that he had become a man incapable of telling the same story for more than about twenty minutes at a time without erring into some other.

Another thing we can all agree upon is that the only evidence in existence that Mike Barrett may actually have hoaxed the Maybrick scrapbook (we cannot include his claims because they are unevidenced and therefore unproven) is that he sought out a Victorian diary in March 1992 - an event which has more explanations than simply the one and therefore remains itself unproven.

Another thing that we can all agree upon is that some people have attempted to argue that Anne's handwriting is redolent of the scrapbook's and therefore she wrote the text into it just as her ex-husband claimed.

Another thing we can all agree upon is that Mike Barrett owned the scrapbook and knew it well and therefore was very well-placed to build a fantasy story around it to imply that he had hoaxed the document.

That is the case in favour of Mike Barrett as a hoaxer of the Maybrick scrapbook.

Those are the facts.

If that's enough for you, dear readers, fair enough - go fill your boots.

Personally, anyone arguing that that is sufficient to convince anyone of Mike Barrett's hoax claims would not find me personally drinking at that same bar. Indeed, I'd have to say to them, as my old Teuchter friends in and around Aberdeen still say, 'Gie yersel a shak'.

For the record Ike, I accept that MB is the only person who has ever confessed to forging the diary. I accept that at the time he confessed, his wife and daughter had left him and he was drinking. I do not accept that he was incapable of telling the same story for more than about twenty minutes at a time. I do not accept that the only evidence that MB may have been involved in creating the diary is that he sought out a Victorian diary in March 1992. I agree that some people have pointed out some similarities between Anne's handwriting and the handwriting of the diarist and, further, that it's undeniable that such similarities exist. I agree that MB owned the scrapbook and likely knew it well but would say that if he was capable of building a fantasy story to imply he had created it then he would surely also have been capable of building a fantasy story around James Maybrick being Jack the Ripper.

[Iconoclast]

I think it may be worth my while re-iterating what I have already iterated but this time in language which cannot be misunderstood (or plain ignored) prior to being asked to do so yet again: I cannot think of any agreed-upon evidence which would preclude the possibility of Mike and (or, indeed, or) Anne Barrett from having sourced the Maybrick scrapbook, written a text of a hoax, and then written that text into the Maybrick scrapbook before Mike presented it to the world as the musings of the world's most talked-about murderer.

That said, I am aware that there is evidence which strongly argues against this but which itself - like pretty much everything connected to this case - is open to argument and debate.

Perhaps the one thing we can all agree upon is that only one person has ever made a case for having hoaxed the Maybrick scrapbook, and that person is, of course, Mike Barrett.

Another thing we can all agree upon is that he made his claim in the middle of 1994 when his life was in a truly sorry state, his wife and daughter having left him six months earlier.

Another thing we can all agree upon is that by then Mike Barrett was heavily into his cups with the water of life and that he had become a man incapable of telling the same story for more than about twenty minutes at a time without erring into some other.

Another thing we can all agree upon is that the only evidence in existence that Mike Barrett may actually have hoaxed the Maybrick scrapbook (we cannot include his claims because they are unevidenced and therefore unproven) is that he sought out a Victorian diary in March 1992 - an event which has more explanations than simply the one and therefore remains itself unproven.

Another thing that we can all agree upon is that some people have attempted to argue that Anne's handwriting is redolent of the scrapbook's and therefore she wrote the text into it just as her ex-husband claimed.

Another thing we can all agree upon is that Mike Barrett owned the scrapbook and knew it well and therefore was very well-placed to build a fantasy story around it to imply that he had hoaxed the document.

That is the case in favour of Mike Barrett as a hoaxer of the Maybrick scrapbook.

Those are the facts.

If that's enough for you, dear readers, fair enough - go fill your boots.

Personally, anyone arguing that that is sufficient to convince anyone of Mike Barrett's hoax claims would not find me personally drinking at that same bar. Indeed, I'd have to say to them, as my old Teuchter friends in and around Aberdeen still say, 'Gie yersel a shak'.

[Herlock Sholmes]

That's the most sensible thing you've written in a long time, Ike.

When I said that's the most sensible thing you've written in a long time, I was, of course, referring to the part where you said "I'm probably a fool for coming back in", not the part where you condescendingly refer to me as "Johnny Come Lately".

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm probably a fool for coming back in but someone has to save my dear readers from your Johnny Come Lately posturing.

Ike

That's the most sensible thing you've written in a long time, Ike.

[Iconoclast]

Considering the appalling provenance of the Diary it is up to those who believe the Diary to have been written by Maybrick to prove it not the other way round.

So your proof claim here seems to be the 'appalling provenance' which confuses me because we only have potential provenances, don't we? We lack a true provenance and always have lacked a true provenance (a 'true provenance' is, of course, a tautology as a provenance - by definition - is a proven route from A to B).

Obviously, on here we use the term 'provenance' to mean 'what we believe was the source of the scrapbook', but that's not actually what a provenance is. We use the word all the time but we do so incorrectly.

Now, I don't know where the scrapbook came from before it fell into Mike Barrett's hands. None of us do. We just do the best with what we've got to try to best understand how it could have got into Mike Barrett's hands. We have someone - Anne Graham - who says she can trace the scrapbook back to 1968 or 1969, and we had her father Billy who said he could trace it back to 1943, but neither claim has been proven. We also have the incredible 'double event' of March 9, 1992, when - on the same day - workmen were working on James Maybrick's old house and Mike Barrett first intimated he might have the diary of Jack the Ripper (I'm keeping the miracle of March 9, 1992, as simple as possible here for speed). And then we have a myriad, shifting tales of how Mike Barrett on his own or with others plotted to create a text and sourced a scrapbook and wrote the text into the scrapbook and sold it as a potential diary of Jack the Ripper. So we clearly have lots of different ways the scrapbook could have appeared in the hands of Mike Barrett but we do not yet know with any certainty whatsoever if any of them are even vaguely correct or if some completely unknown provenance lies out there in history waiting to be uncovered.

So my point is this, any claim you make you either back up or you run the risk of my dear readers thinking of sentences which include the word 'knob'. This is as true of me as it is of you and everyone else. We all do it from time to time. You just happen to do it as part of your autonomic nervous system.

Now, I don't imagine for a moment that you are a complete knob. I suspect that you are just not as up to speed with logical proofs as other people are. I'm not that hot on logic myself - I am untutored in it, picking it up over the years in large or small chunks, but I think I understand it sufficiently now to say with categorical self-assurance that if you reply to this post with the two words (in this order) 'ridiculous' and 'post' then the logical conclusion people could draw about your thought processes could theoretically include the word 'knob'. I'm just looking out for you, mate.

[Iconoclast]

If the onus is on those not making the claim to prove it didn't happen.

You don't understand the burden of proof. It's an astonishingly simple concept at heart:



It applies to anyone, anywhere, ever who makes an assertion. Yes, that includes me (obviously), but your belief that I have not been meeting my burden of proof is not grounds for you to make assertions about what is true and false without the need to provide what you believe to be the proof of your claims.

You can do it (of course) but at least be aware that readers of your unproven claims in your typically brief posts are possibly thinking "What a knob" every time you do it.

Maybe you don't care? (If so then you may actually be more like I than I care to conceive ...)