Lord Orsam's Blog

[Caroline Brown]

hi Caz
Annes deliberately (not so good) disguised handwriting?

I appreciate the question mark, Abby.

If it had been in Anne's handwriting, it would have needed to be expertly disguised, because - put simply - we'd not be here discussing this today if it had not been, and she would have done time as the forger. Surely that much is beyond obvious.

Love,

Caz
X

[Caroline Brown]

Whilst you're here Caroline, I've been meaning to run this one past you for ages.

On page three of the diary text we get "If Smith should find this then I am done before my campaign begins." A strange little walk on part for George Smith, the book keeper at Maybrick and Co. Why worry about Smith in particular finding out what he had written, particularly as no murder has as yet taken place?

On page two, a mere nine lines earlier in the text he writes, "Two in a night, indeed pleasure", when referring to his fantasy of "taking" both Mrs. Maybricks in one night, one after the other.

As far as I am aware, no-one besides the diary author had made the connection between "wife" number one, Sarah Anne Robertson and George Smith until very recently. Him and Sarah being first cousins, and who lived at the same house in the East end when James was there.

No wonder he was concerned at what might happen if "Smith should find this" dirty little fantasy he's just written about his cousin

Shabby hoax? My arse.

Do you know, Paul, I don't believe I was aware that Sarah and George Smith were first cousins. It's certainly an intriguing observation you make, and the real James would have had good reason to keep his continuing relationship with Sarah a secret from George, regardless of the diary's origins.

It's only a 'shabby' hoax because it has to be pinned on a Barrett. If it had been established from the start that the respectable and educated Paul Dodd had it in his house before Mike got his first sniff, we know who'd have been suspected instead, and it would have been considerably less 'shabby' in that event.

Horses for courses and all that.

Love,

Caz
X

[R. J. Palmer]

Good to see you appreciating the difficulty of pinning the diary handwriting on the right Anne Graham [with an e and of the correct age], who emigrated to Australia in 1969 and lived there for five years before returning to Liverpool.

Hi Caz,

1969? Hmmm. Your date appears to be, if not downright fluid, at least a wee bit slushy. On page 270 of Ripper Diary it states that Anne Graham first arrived in Sydney in ‘November 1970,’ with the (important?) caveat that this date was ‘according to Anne.’ So, was it 1969? Or was it late 1970? Why not mid-1971 or even 1972? From the context, it appears that Anne was trying to distance herself from the account given by Steve Powell.

That said, and not being of the same mind as the late Paul Feldman, I don’t really believe there were two watches, two Mike Barretts, two Ann(e) Grahams, half-a-dozen Albert Johnsons, and a whole nest of illegitimate Maybricks, so I do accept that Ms. Graham spent time ‘Down Under’ (and may have even rubbed elbows with the extraordinary Steve Powell) but I wouldn’t care to accept every detail of her curriculum vitae as utter gospel unless I had independent verification, particularly since Graham appears to be the primary source of most of the info. I’m sure it won’t come as a shock if I point out that some of the other accounts given by Graham and Barrett were not always in lock-step with reality.

I am merely mildly curious as to why Barrett referred to his ex-wife as a ‘thief.’ It seems such an odd thing to say. A liar, yes, but a thief? Did Mike have a specific incident in mind? But I know, I know, ‘we worked for the I.R.A.,’ etc etc. Mike made it all-too-easy for the optimistically minded to brush away everything he ever stated as confabulation, which I think is a major theme in Lord O’s argument: now utterly convinced that everything Mike ever said was absolute rubbish, did the diary researchers fail to listen carefully and make the appropriate checks when Mike finally DID give a reasonably coherent account of how and where he purchased the scrapbook? Or were they too dead set on debunking him at this point?


I remain yours, &tc, RJP

[R. J. Palmer]

P.S. The date '1970' for AG's departure to Australia is also given on page 208-- not that that is necessarily absolute; it may be from the same statement.

[R. J. Palmer]

That man had balls of brass

There is a certain type of person that does indeed have brass balls...unless there is a cop in plain sight.

The other day I was driving down the freeway, and some jackwagon was roaring along at 90 mph hour, making frequent lane changes, etc.

We went over a small hill, and, lo and behold, here was Johnny Law on the side of the road, having pulled over another motorist.

Suddenly Mario Andretti--who had been driving like a complete lunatic only one minute earlier---was crawling along at fifteen-miles-an-hour below the speed limit. My grandmother would have been ashamed of his timidity!

It's funny what the color blue does to some chaps.

[Caroline Brown]

Hi Caz,

1969? Hmmm. Your date appears to be, if not downright fluid, at least a wee bit slushy. On page 270 of Ripper Diary it states that Anne Graham first arrived in Sydney in ‘November 1970,’ with the (important?) caveat that this date was ‘according to Anne.’ So, was it 1969? Or was it late 1970? Why not mid-1971 or even 1972? From the context, it appears that Anne was trying to distance herself from the account given by Steve Powell.

Apologies, RJ. I was being lazy and got the 1969 date from the first book I reached for - Shirley's paperback. Checking my own notes, and you are quite correct, the source is Anne herself, talking to Keith Skinner in June 2000, she left for Australia in November 1970; began nursing at Canberra Hospital in May 1971 and left in May 1972; her Canberra registration was verified in February 1973 so she could work in Sydney; and she finally returned to Liverpool in July 1975. By the December she had met and married Mike.

In short, unless Anne was playing fast and loose with all those dates, for some unfathomable reason [presumably the info could have been checked], it would appear she spent pretty much the entire early 1970s about as far away as is physically and geographically possible from your Ann Graham with the personality disorder.

I am merely mildly curious as to why Barrett referred to his ex-wife as a ‘thief.’ It seems such an odd thing to say. A liar, yes, but a thief? Did Mike have a specific incident in mind? But I know, I know, ‘we worked for the I.R.A.,’ etc etc. Mike made it all-too-easy for the optimistically minded to brush away everything he ever stated as confabulation, which I think is a major theme in Lord O’s argument: now utterly convinced that everything Mike ever said was absolute rubbish, did the diary researchers fail to listen carefully and make the appropriate checks when Mike finally DID give a reasonably coherent account of how and where he purchased the scrapbook? Or were they too dead set on debunking him at this point?

Not sure which accusation of theft is being referred to here. Mike did accuse Anne of taking his own copy of RWE's book when she left the marital home in January 1994, because he had searched for it in vain. That could only be true if there were two copies of the book after all - the one handed over by Tony Devereux's daughter, and the one Mike bought in Smiths after taking possession of the diary, when he was trying to identify its author. It supposedly gave him the crucial Battlecrease/Maybrick connection. If you believe there was only ever the one copy of RWE's book - used by Mike and Tony while creating the diary text and left in Tony's house - then clearly Anne didn't steal it.

But perhaps Mike was referring to Anne stealing his daughter from him? Or effectively the diary itself, after she claimed it had been in her family, which Mike must have known was rubbish, whether it came from Battlecrease or a lively Barrett imagination. He also accused her of taking royalties which he had earned from helping with Shirley's book. So take your pick.

In January 1995 Mike claimed in Keith's presence that he had made up the story of where he purchased the scrapbook while he was drunk, but was still prepared to kick up the shit and swear the diary was a forgery until he could see Anne. Make of that what you will, but the fact remains he never did produce any evidence that it came from an auction at Outhwaite & Litherland.

I'm sorry, RJ, but if anyone actually believed the old book was only obtained there on the last day of March 1992, after which Anne spent the next eleven evenings writing out the diary text, confident that nobody would ever be able to identify it as her own disguised hand, or that her husband - who never could keep his mouth shut, was a compulsive liar and the loosest cannon in Liverpool - would make his appointment in London on 13th April without screwing it up, they'd have to be away with the fairies. So I can only assume Lord Orsam is just stringing people along for his own amusement. As with Mike, there is nothing of any real substance here, but I doubt either of them would appreciate the comparison.

Love,

Caz
X

[Caroline Brown]

There is a certain type of person that does indeed have brass balls...unless there is a cop in plain sight.

The other day I was driving down the freeway, and some jackwagon was roaring along at 90 mph hour, making frequent lane changes, etc.

We went over a small hill, and, lo and behold, here was Johnny Law on the side of the road, having pulled over another motorist.

Suddenly Mario Andretti--who had been driving like a complete lunatic only one minute earlier---was crawling along at fifteen-miles-an-hour below the speed limit. My grandmother would have been ashamed of his timidity!

It's funny what the color blue does to some chaps.

I'm not sure the word timidity would have featured in Mike's vocabulary, RJ, and not just because his spelling wasn't up to it. If you recall, the cops knocked at his door back in October 1993 and dropped their investigation into the diary soon after questioning him. He didn't exactly crumble on that occasion, did he?

Nor did the experience put him off making a false confession to forgery the following June, which could so easily have brought the cops straight back to his door if his solicitor hadn't quickly retracted it on his behalf. I use the word 'false' advisedly here, because he initially claimed he had written the diary himself, and nobody would fall for that today if they knew anything at all about the subject.

If you believe Mike knew who held the pen, how do you explain the fact that he didn't say so and identify them when he made that very first statement, claiming the diary was a forgery? What was he afraid of, knowing the handwriting wasn't his own? He clearly had it in for someone when pissing in his own beer, so why didn't he name the person or persons involved in the diary's creation when he stood the best chance of being believed? Why wait several months before naming Anne, her deceased father and the deceased Tony Devereux as co-conspirators - unless it was all made up and built on over time, partly for revenge on Anne and Feldy, and partly because his claim to have done it alone was simply not credible and he knew it?

Love,

Caz
X

[R. J. Palmer]

If you believe Mike knew who held the pen, how do you explain the fact that he didn't say so and identify them when he made that very first statement, claiming the diary was a forgery? What was he afraid of, knowing the handwriting wasn't his own? He clearly had it in for someone when pissing in his own beer, so why didn't he name the person or persons involved in the diary's creation when he stood the best chance of being believed? Why wait several months before naming Anne, her deceased father and the deceased Tony Devereux as co-conspirators - unless it was all made up and built on over time, partly for revenge on Anne and Feldy, and partly because his claim to have done it alone was simply not credible and he knew it?

Good Morning, Caz.

In a word: loyalty?

But, in truth, your questions are more suitably addressed in the direction of Lord O, because I personally do not know or even think I know the identity of the penperson (gender unspecified). Perhaps Lord O's suspicions are valid; they certainly make a good deal of sense. There is something to be said for the AG theory.

Now for something completely different...(with apologies to the late, great Terry Jones)…

I'm repeating myself, undoubtedly, but some years ago, Peter Birchwood, who had gained access to Barrett's financial records, noticed that Mike had made a series of unexplained and mysterious withdrawals shortly after the royalty cheques from the Diary first started dribbling in. These were too large to be explained by mere binge drinking--I think they were 1,000 pounds a whack at 1990s value, but I am working from memory. Three withdrawals? I don't remember.

Of course, there could be a quasi-innocent explanation for such a lavish need of ready cash; perhaps Barrett was fond of the racetrack or he enjoyed whisking off to London for a wild weekend in Soho, but the working theory was that there was an unidentified 'X' somewhere behind the scenes, and 'X' was being paid for 'services rendered.' Those services involved a nib.

No proof of it, I admit, but independently a reporter for the Express had been looking in the same direction, but his editor crushed the story underneath a giant stomping foot, because editors are afraid of lawsuits. Many 'Ripperologists' are unreasonably impressed by what they know; I am always worried about what I DO NOT KNOW...which is a hell of a lot. And I simply do not KNOW how much faith to put in these conjectures, but I do know what a crooked 'K' looks like and there is a crooked 'K' in many parts of the diary, as crooked as the back leg of a dog. I don't insist that this is the answer, but it's difficult for me to forget about it.

So, to repeat, I do not know the identity of the penperson, or even whether the same penperson was used throughout the text (gender neutrality intentional).

As for your suggestion that Mike may have believed that Anne had nicked his copy of Whitting-Egan's Tales of Liverpool...I think that is an outstanding suggestion. No need for two copies, either. It was hardly a seminal source (of either composition or research, take your pick) and Barrett had probably forgotten he had ever lent it to Devereux.

Imagine a man committing a crime and then destroying all the evidence. Two years later he wants to prove he 'dunnit.' How is he going to prove it? He's already destroyed the paper trail. The best he can do is demonstrate 'inside knowledge' of the text. So, with nothing better going for him except for the Sphere Guide, Mike digs around hopelessly, remembers RWE, and tears the house apart looking for it. Already convinced that Feldman had sent Anne over to get hold of the red diary, he also suspects she had taken Tales of Liverpool. According to Keith, Feldman had once told Barrett to lie to the police, so most probably Barrett was not as convinced as everyone else was that Feldman truly believed in the Diary's authenticity. He was willing to believe that Graham was destroying evidence at Feldman's bidding. (She did turn over the red diary, but I think I can explain her reasoning).

That's my attempt to read Barrett's thought process. With little or no "paper trail" evidence available (Orsam is undoubtedly correct in assuming that Barrett and Graham were unaware of Martin Earl's methods), Mike is reduced to pointing out that this phrase came from the Sphere Guide, that this came from Rumbelow, that that came from Ryan, etc...

And so here we be.

[R. J. Palmer]

Caz - If you believe Barrett had balls of brass, what brass parts do you visualize Anne G. possessing?

She actually began working for Feldman's team, helping to research a text that many believe she created!

If true, that's not copper and zinc--it's pure titanium.

Or ice water.

Even I find it difficult to believe.

(P.S.)

On second thought, I should point out that the above is a joke, or at least a half-joke. I don't believe Anne had ice water in her veins; I think she was probably terrified. With her ex confessing, she had to make a decision, and may have felt that Feldman was the only one that could offer some measure of legal protection. The questions Caz asks about Barrett's delay in giving details about the hoax, equally apply to Graham. If she had known the Diary had been 'in the family for years,' why didn't she say so back when Barrett first confessed to Brough months earlier? It seems that both sides retreated to their corners and plotted the next move. It can be no coincidence that the story Anne eventually came up with, supported by Paul Feldman, entirely undermined Barrett's confession, took him completely out-of-the-picture, really, by painting him as a dupe with no knowledge whatsoever of the diary's true origins. It's difficult to see how it could have been designed any better.

That's all from these parts. Have a good afternoon.

[Caroline Brown]

Good Morning, Caz.

In a word: loyalty?

Really, RJ? In June 1994? Loyalty to whom? His wife, who had left him and taken their daughter with her in the January, and had just accused him of sleeping with a new girlfriend, making him all the more angry and resentful? That loyalty was pretty short-lived wasn't it? By the autumn Mike was busying himself trying to put the boot into her good and proper, by involving her in his forgery claims. Loyalty to his daughter, when he was doing his best to attack the girl's mother?

But, in truth, your questions are more suitably addressed in the direction of Lord O, because I personally do not know or even think I know the identity of the penperson (gender unspecified). Perhaps Lord O's suspicions are valid; they certainly make a good deal of sense. There is something to be said for the AG theory.

As I suggested, I doubt Lord O has a clue whose writing is in the diary, and is merely enjoying the attention from all the puppies wagging their tails and running after his balls. If he thinks he knows he is quite seriously deluded, and I'm not sure even I can believe that. What do you mean by the 'AG theory'? I seem to recall you posted something along the lines that Alan Gray suspected at one time that Anne had a 'thing' with Tony Devereux, and between them they set Mike up with the diary to make him the fall guy, so they could run off into the sunset and play doctors and nurses? That would turn 'a good deal of sense' into complete nonsense, not least when you consider Anne and Tony's respective ages and physical condition at the time. There is no evidence she had ever been inside his house, nor Tony inside hers.

I'm repeating myself, undoubtedly, but some years ago, Peter Birchwood, who had gained access to Barrett's financial records, noticed that Mike had made a series of unexplained and mysterious withdrawals shortly after the royalty cheques from the Diary first started dribbling in. These were too large to be explained by mere binge drinking--I think they were 1,000 pounds a whack at 1990s value, but I am working from memory. Three withdrawals? I don't remember.

I think it was even more than three if memory serves. Every other day, Mike would withdraw £1,000 in readies, until the last one left him back in the red. We can only ever speculate what he did with all that money. He claimed that he bought his new lady friend a second-hand car around that time, which he may well have done to impress her, although I doubt it would have taken too long for any amount of cash to slip through his fingers. He had nothing much to show for it as far as I am aware. Another possibility is that he was paying off someone who knew the truth about the diary's origins and was threatening to tell all unless they got a decent share of the spoils.

Of course, there could be a quasi-innocent explanation for such a lavish need of ready cash; perhaps Barrett was fond of the racetrack or he enjoyed whisking off to London for a wild weekend in Soho, but the working theory was that there was an unidentified 'X' somewhere behind the scenes, and 'X' was being paid for 'services rendered.' Those services involved a nib.

But those services wouldn't have been rendered by Anne or Tony D in that case, and if it wasn't her father who held the pen, it follows that Mike was lying by omission in his January 1995 affidavit [fancy that!], by not revealing the identity of the actual forger. How then, could we be expected to accept the rest of his sworn statement as the Gospel truth?

No proof of it, I admit, but independently a reporter for the Express had been looking in the same direction, but his editor crushed the story underneath a giant stomping foot, because editors are afraid of lawsuits. Many 'Ripperologists' are unreasonably impressed by what they know; I am always worried about what I DO NOT KNOW...which is a hell of a lot.

Quite so, RJ. Nice to see you admit it. Much of what you write was, of course, covered in Ripper Diary, so we go round and round in ever decreasing circles, attempting to put our own interpretations on the known facts and various claims made.

And I simply do not KNOW how much faith to put in these conjectures, but I do know what a crooked 'K' looks like and there is a crooked 'K' in many parts of the diary, as crooked as the back leg of a dog. I don't insist that this is the answer, but it's difficult for me to forget about it.

Yawn - have we really gone full circle back to poor old citizen Kane, who had nothing to do with anything, but whose attitude to being doorstepped and harrassed for handwriting samples was considered somehow significant? We covered this too, back in 2003.

As for your suggestion that Mike may have believed that Anne had nicked his copy of Whitting-Egan's Tales of Liverpool...I think that is an outstanding suggestion. No need for two copies, either. It was hardly a seminal source (of either composition or research, take your pick) and Barrett had probably forgotten he had ever lent it to Devereux.

Nice try, RJ, but it wasn't my suggestion. It was Mike's, and he made it in January 1995, at the same time as he claimed that the copy handed to the police by Tony's daughter had belonged to Tony. So we are back with the two copies, and I strongly suspect "Bongo" did lend Tony a copy in 1991, which made its way to his daughter, which is how Mike later recognised the same book in Smiths when he had the diary and was trying to work out who its author - and therefore Jack the Ripper - was supposed to be. As you say, it was hardly a seminal source and was widely available in Liverpool, but just as Mike described it, it allows the reader to discover who was living in Battlecrease at the time of the famous murder mystery of 1889.

Imagine a man committing a crime and then destroying all the evidence. Two years later he wants to prove he 'dunnit.' How is he going to prove it? He's already destroyed the paper trail.

Ah, so you accept that the retained auction ticket business was a load of bollox then. Good choice.

The best he can do is demonstrate 'inside knowledge' of the text. So, with nothing better going for him except for the Sphere Guide...

Nothing better? Are you serious? Had Mike produced it in June 1994 it would almost certainly have been game over and he could have claimed star prize as the criminal 'mastermind' behind the diary. But of course he didn't have it in June 1994, and had no clue about the quotation or its source at that point. It took him another six months to locate a copy of the library book containing the information he had spent days specifically looking for.

Mike digs around hopelessly, remembers RWE, and tears the house apart looking for it.

Yes, because it was this copy which had given him JtR's identity, when Tony was already dead, and auditioning for the part of the good pal who had given Mike the diary.

That's my attempt to read Barrett's thought process. With little or no "paper trail" evidence available (Orsam is undoubtedly correct in assuming that Barrett and Graham were unaware of Martin Earl's methods), Mike is reduced to pointing out that this phrase came from the Sphere Guide, that this came from Rumbelow, that that came from Ryan, etc...

Again, what happened to the auction ticket in all this? Mike claimed it was 'stamped' and he was supposed to return it after he paid for the scrapbook, but took it with him. He said it had the item number and the price on it, so presumably those details plus the stamp would have allowed the auctioneers to confirm at the very least that the ticket was one of theirs, and possibly what the item was and when it was auctioned. The perfect paper trail to put the whole thing beyond doubt. Even if the stamp gave no idea of date, they may have been able to match the details with the registration form Mike would have needed to complete as a prospective bidder. Better still if the ticket bore a date, although it would then have begged the question why Mike made such a hash of it in his January 1995 affidavit. When talking to Alan Gray outside Outhwaite & Litherland, two months previously, Mike had said he bought the scrapbook in the name of Williams in 1987. Gray had to remind him that: "We had 1990 the other day". Mike then changed the story again and had Anne buying the job lot on her own!

Am I right in thinking you contacted O&L yourself? Did you ask about their procedure and manage to get anything like a fair comparison with how Mike described his own [or was it Anne's??] experience, with the stamped ticket and everything?

And so here we be.

Are you surprised?

Love,

Caz
X

[R. J. Palmer]

Really, RJ? In June 1994? Loyalty to whom? His wife, who had left him and taken their daughter with her in the January, and had just accused him of sleeping with a new girlfriend, making him all the more angry and resentful? That loyalty was pretty short-lived wasn't it?

Hi Caz. I was online studying what I believe to be another modern hoax--the 'Kosminski letter' from eBay--and can give you an immediate response.

Steady on. I wasn't referring to Mike's loyalty to Anne, I was referring to his loyalty to the penperson 'X.' I am not insisting that this person was Anne, remember? If Mike was giving cash to A.N. Other for services rendered, why assume he would rat him or her out? I believe the Irish in Liverpool had a long and famous history of having utter contempt for the informer. ('Would you split on a mate?'--Michael Barrett)

Either way, it doesn't make much difference what Mike said to Brough in the Summer of 1994; Mike was whisked away to re-hab and his solicitor dismissed his ramblings before we even heard any real details. That he didn't give a complete and accurate account of the forgery under such circumstances is not much of a peg to hang your hat on...

Not to be rude, but just because Keith Skinner didn't find any connection between Mike and Kane doesn't mean one didn't exist. Newspaper reporters tend to be a lot more sneaky and rude and persistent than historical researchers. They pound up the neighbors, they have contacts down at the local nick, they slip the bartender a fiver and ask what he knows or has seen. And many people LIKE to talk to journalists. Something led the Express man to Kane, and I seriously doubt it was merely a signature on Tony Devereux's wedding certificate. Maybe, but I seriously doubt it. Didn't anyone ever try to chase this reporter down? Again, what we don't know might be the very thing that we NEED to know.

I'm merely being honest. Kane was a friend of Devereux, and Devereux had Mike's copy of Tales of Liverpool. I can't dismiss the possibility that Mike had an independent connection to Kane, that still held together after Tony's death ; it looks like Mike and Kane may have attended the same RC Church on occasions. And despite the quick-and-easy dismissal of Kane's handwriting in Ripper Diary, it looks very much to me that both Kane and the pen person had the same strange, idiosyncratic lowercase 'k.' It's very distinctive. The writing looks similar to me.

Feel free to dismiss it as garbage, of course. Your choice. And maybe Lord O's suspicions are correct. It's hard to believe that one half of a couple could engage in a hoax of this type without the other's knowledge. Maybe it's just misguided male chivalry on my part that a woman with a young daughter wouldn't get involved with this enterprise of her own free will. It's true that Mike left private notes to Anne, that seem to implicate both of them in the Diary's creation, but that may have referred to the text, and not the handwriting.

To be clear, or murky-clear, Gray's theory might have been that Anne was so desperate to free herself that she cooked up this crazy Diary scheme to implicate Barrett. I don't know his thought process; I was guessing.

Have a lovely evening.

[Caroline Brown]

Caz - If you believe Barrett had balls of brass, what brass parts do you visualize Anne G. possessing?

I don't believe he had balls of brass, because I don't believe he had anything to do with creating the diary. It was all hot air and the police could prove nothing because there was nothing to prove - and Mike knew it better than anyone. Had he forged that diary, or helped forge it, he would have had balls of brass to keep banging on about how it was done, if there was a real risk of being carted away by the boys in blue. He was more likely to be carted off by sympathetic men in white coats.

She actually began working for Feldman's team, helping to research a text that many believe she created!

If true, that's not copper and zinc--it's pure titanium.

Or ice water.

Even I find it difficult to believe.

Well there you are then. Don't believe it. If Anne didn't create the diary text, she knew nobody who believed otherwise could ever pin it on her, and I do think 'many' is taking things a bit far. How many people seriously believed she created it - and then trusted Mike with it - when she began working for Feldy's team? Didn't she once say herself that people will believe whatever they want to believe and there was nothing to be done about it? She had a point, even though I don't personally believe she "seen" the diary until Mike brought it home one day in March 1992.

(P.S.)

On second thought, I should point out that the above is a joke, or at least a half-joke. I don't believe Anne had ice water in her veins; I think she was probably terrified.

You mean it didn't dawn on her, when she handed over control of the diary to Mike in April 1992, that this was a man who would find it hard to keep his trap shut indefinitely, and they could both end up in a prison cell, with God knows who looking after Caroline? If she was only 'terrified' by the prospect two years down the line, when he finally broke and spilled the beans about the diary being a forgery, after she had left him and taken their daughter with her, she couldn't have known her husband at all, could she, when first involving herself in this criminal activity?

With her ex confessing, she had to make a decision, and may have felt that Feldman was the only one that could offer some measure of legal protection. The questions Caz asks about Barrett's delay in giving details about the hoax, equally apply to Graham. If she had known the Diary had been 'in the family for years,' why didn't she say so back when Barrett first confessed to Brough months earlier?

One month earlier, to be exact, RJ. Mike confessed to Brough towards the end of June, and Anne then told Feldy her 'in the family' story towards the end of July. I don't buy either tale.

It seems that both sides retreated to their corners and plotted the next move.

If the diary was stolen from Battlecrease, both of them must have suspected as much by 1994, which might help explain why they went their separate ways over the diary, after going their separate ways with the marriage.

Love,

Caz
X

[R. J. Palmer]

not least when you consider Anne and Tony's respective ages and physical condition at the time.

Love is blind. Very blind. Just ask Melania.

Anyway, it was Alan's theory, not mine. Can you blame me for kicking the tires?

Bottom line: someone in Goldie Street went shopping for blank Victorian paper. Of that we are certain. Only a very limited number of scenarios can explain why. If Anne had paid the bill on-time I'd be more confident about her complicity; that there was a long delay suggests she didn't want to be involved.

[Trevor Marriott]

I don't believe he had balls of brass, because I don't believe he had anything to do with creating the diary. It was all hot air and the police could prove nothing because there was nothing to prove - and Mike knew it better than anyone. Had he forged that diary, or helped forge it, he would have had balls of brass to keep banging on about how it was done, if there was a real risk of being carted away by the boys in blue. He was more likely to be carted off by sympathetic men in white coats.

If you dont believe Barrett was involved in the creating of the diary, how can you explain away the first affidavit in which he in great details states he was ?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Caroline Brown]

Steady on. I wasn't referring to Mike's loyalty to Anne, I was referring to his loyalty to the penperson 'X.' I am not insisting that this person was Anne, remember? If Mike was giving cash to A.N. Other for services rendered, why assume he would rat him or her out? I believe the Irish in Liverpool had a long and famous history of having utter contempt for the informer. ('Would you split on a mate?'--Michael Barrett)

I see, RJ. So your argument is now that all the individuals Mike did name as criminal co-forgers [Anne, Anne's father and Tony Devereux] did not in fact have any involvement whatsoever, and were all used as a smoke screen, because he was bound by his utter contempt for informers, not to inform on the person or persons who had committed forgery? Interesting. In some ways I can relate to this, because my belief is that Mike was willing to drop his disloyal wife, her elderly father and his deceased mate in the doggy-do, while claiming the diary was a fake, because he believed the truth would have left him with nothing at all. He would lose his centre stage role in the diary story and revert to a shady little character who had handled stolen property. He couldn't inform on the person who had sold him the diary without informing on himself.

It was all about status for Mike - beginning with the lucky Scouser who, in 1992, thinks he has solved the most famous mystery of all by identifying Jack the Ripper, and progressing rapidly downhill, via the newspaper headlines screaming 'HOAX', the Scotland Yard investigation and his own heavy drinking, to the luckless man we see in 1994, who has lost his wife and daughter. How can he regain a shred of dignity, with Feldy doing his best to rip the diary from his control by trying to prove Anne is descended from Maybrick? So he claims he wrote it himself, to restore his place at the centre of operations and for the kudos he imagines he will receive as the diary's creator. Mike never did split on the mate, but for reasons of self-esteem and self-preservation rather than loyalty. Look what happened when he thought the mate was about to split on him, in the Spring of 1993? He went straight round to where he was living in Fountains Road and threatened the man with solicitors if he blabbed.

Not to be rude, but just because Keith Skinner didn't find any connection between Mike and Kane doesn't mean one didn't exist. Newspaper reporters tend to be a lot more sneaky and rude and persistent than historical researchers. They pound up the neighbors, they have contacts down at the local nick, they slip the bartender a fiver and ask what he knows or has seen. And many people LIKE to talk to journalists. Something led the Express man to Kane, and I seriously doubt it was merely a signature on Tony Devereux's wedding certificate. Maybe, but I seriously doubt it. Didn't anyone ever try to chase this reporter down? Again, what we don't know might be the very thing that we NEED to know.

You don't think that by now someone would have come forward with a connection between Mike and Kane had there been one to find? How would your persistent reporter be risking legal action to reveal how the two men knew each other? I do believe it was Melvin Harris's hunch that he had found the diary penman when he saw that certificate, and his own persistence in the matter, which led the reporter to Kane's door to request a sample of his handwriting. Because Kane didn't instantly respond with a cheery: "Why yes of course, my dear man. Nothing I'd like more than to show a complete stranger how I form my letters", and maybe because he was wary instead, for good reason, this was considered by Harris as confirmation that the man had something to hide. Confirmation bias more like.

And despite the quick-and-easy dismissal of Kane's handwriting in Ripper Diary, it looks very much to me that both Kane and the pen person had the same strange, idiosyncratic lowercase 'k.' It's very distinctive. The writing looks similar to me.

I don't know, RJ, but imagine you had 'rendered your services' to Mike, to commit forgery by writing out the diary by hand, in return for several cash payments of £1,000, and some nosey git of a newspaper man knocked at your front door demanding a sample of your handwriting, or at least your signature. Would you, however reluctantly or indignantly, have given him the time of day? Seriously? I can't see it myself, but then I can't see the similarity either, between the diary and the sample Alan Gray obtained from Gerard Kane in 1999, reproduced in Ripper Diary. 'I am sick to death of you people. You come to my house to sign a form which I did you said I would hear no more. Signed G Kane. PS Sorry about the writing' tells you he complied with at least two such requests, when there was absolutely no obligation to do so.

Feel free to dismiss it as garbage, of course. Your choice.

Thank you, I do.

And maybe Lord O's suspicions are correct. It's hard to believe that one half of a couple could engage in a hoax of this type without the other's knowledge.

I agree. I find it impossible to believe that someone of Anne's undoubted intelligence, who knew her husband better than anyone else on earth, would ever have countenanced the idea of enabling someone like Mike to take the diary to market as a genuinely old artefact, if she knew it had been created very recently and by whom.

To be clear, or murky-clear, Gray's theory might have been that Anne was so desperate to free herself that she cooked up this crazy Diary scheme to implicate Barrett. I don't know his thought process; I was guessing.

Then I'd say that Gray had as vivid an imagination as Mike. When Anne was desperate to free herself, she did it in the time-honoured fashion. She walked out of the marital home and got a divorce. I've done it twice myself. Left notes so I wouldn't be prevented from leaving. Cooking up a crazy Jack the Ripper diary scheme to implicate a husband I no longer wanted to live with, and then staying with him for another two years to see it through, I'd have needed to be a masochist with sadistic tendences. It would make the ambidextrous/multiple personality disorder solutions look slightly less desperate by comparison, I'll give you that.

Have a lovely evening.

Thank you, I did. We played scrabble over cocktails - I won both games, unusually, with scores of 350 and 380 - and then we had spare ribs with red wine, while watching the final episode of Dennis Potter's masterpiece, The Singing Detective.

Love,

Caz
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