Archive through April 1, 2000

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Archive through April 1, 2000

Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion: The Maybrick Diary-2000 Archives: Archive through April 1, 2000

Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood Wednesday, 05 January 2000 - 09:38 am
Over the past few days I've been thinking (again!) about the Maybrick diary problem. My skills are not in the forensic details of paper and ink investigation: I leave those to others. I am interested however in the research conducted in the main by Shirley Harrison, Paul H. Feldman and those who worked for them. One important point is the provenance of the diary. Anne Graham has said that it has been in her family for years. She says that she first saw it in 1968/9 and that she knows that her father got it in 1950 from his stepmother. According to Paul Feldman Anne Graham is descended from Florrie Maybrick and its by this connection that her family received the diary. In the first story Anne tells she seems to accept what Feldman believed at the time which was that she was descended from one of the so-called "Whittlesey Maybricks," people who Feldman believed to be illegitimate descendents of James. From unpublished papers it seems clear that at the time of the Trial it was believed that James Maybrick had a mistress. Sarah Ann Robertson who he met about 1858 and who may have had five children. A marriage has never been traced for them and it's probable that they never did marry. Although it was not legally necesary to record births at the time and didn't become so for several more years, if they existed, they would have been much more likely to have been registered as "Robertson" rather than Maybrick: illegitimates normally took their mother's name. Keith Skinner is recorded as reccomending that every Maybrick be tracked and every certificate be ordered. It would certainly be easier to do that rather than check Robertson births: a much commoner name although Feldman has told me that that was done also. Given that we don't know where Sarah was in 1861 and that Maybrick may have been in London, Liverpool, Manchester or the US this would be an extensive search with no guarantee of success.. For some reason they started in 1837 when logic would have shown that checking from 1855 to 1890 would have been sufficient. We can assume that nothing interesting was found in this period under the Maybrick name but for want of anything better, Feldman seems to have jumped on to a series of certificates concerning a family in the Cambridge/Huntingdon region, many miles away from Liverpool. Feldman tries to link them by discovering a town in the area called Godmanchester which he suggests is the "Manchester" mentioned in the diary as the place where JM killed his first victim. This is silly: Maybrick would have no reason business or otherwise, to visit Cambridgeshire but might well have visited the large town of Manchester close to Liverpool where he had a brother. The "Whittlesey Maybricks" are all descended from one woman who seems to have used several names during her life but may have been born as "Edges" between 1871 and 1881. The reason for her picking up the Maybrick name is unclear. All of her children seem to have been illegitimate as there is apparently no marriage recorded between her and the father of the children. What does seem completely clear is that there was no link between her and James Maybrick. Her descendents got excited because of the diary "discovery" and immediately assumed because of the relative uncommoness of the name that they must have been connected to the family, something which most professional genealogists will understand. One example of the way that Feldman used statements from the family to try to prove a Ripper connection is when one of the grandchildren is quoted as having visited Whitechapel with his Grandmother who told him that it was a significant place. Considering that the lady although born in Chiswick West London had uncles who were living in the East End close to Whitechapel, this is something that would otherwise not be worthy of interest. Sarah Robertson is interesting and there are documents suggesting that she was Maybrick's mistress. She may well have had five children by him but the same document that states that also says that by 1889 they were all dead. Although Mrs. Harrison says in her latest edition that Sarah "disapeared from the records between 1876 and 1891. There is no evidence of her whereabouts at this time..." that is simply not true. At the time of the 1881 census she was living with her aunt Christiana in Deptford, Kent and that information was filed on these boards before Mrs. Harrison's book was published. Both books make a certain amount of play with the existance of Gertrude Blackiston/Conconi who is brought forward as another candidate for a Maybrick child. As I have said before. she is actually born as Emily Gertrude Blakiston in Portsea near Portsmouth the daughter of George Blakiston an Admiralty Clerk. She was probably brought up by the Conconi's after her parents died. She has nothing to do with James Maybrick After all the other provenances for the diary failed the new story came out and has been accepted by most people who are convinced of the truth of the diary. This is of course that Florence Chandler Maybrick gave birth to an illegitimate child who was named William Graham. William became the father of Billy Graham and the grandfather of Anne. This is of course possible. The question is: is it likely? William's birth certificate shows that he is the son of Adam Graham and his wife Alice and that he is born in Hartlepool, a town many miles north of Liverpool. Adam was a blacksmith and at the time of the 1881 census he and Alice had 4 living children: Mary. born C1873, John born C1874, Isabella born C 1876 and William, born C1878 all in Hartlepool. All four are recorded as being the children of Adam. Now Florence was a woman who moved in "society." She, her brother and mother spent time in England, Germany, France and the US. There is no indication that she ever went to Hartlepool or that she became pregnant when she was about 17. If she had, there is no known reason why she would have asked a labouring family to bring up the child especially if (as Feldman implies) she intended to keep in touch with it. There is, in short, no proof of any kind that William Graham was the son of Florence Chandler other than the assumptions made in Feldman's book which have been adopted by other persons who have an interest in the diary. The provenance of the diary is of crucial importance to whether it was written by Maybrick, is an "old forgery" or a modern forgery. All the indications are that if Billy Graham (Anne's father) was telling the truth when he mentioned seeing the book in a tin box from 1943 onwards and saying later: "...and I just seen very small print..." then he could not have been talking about the diary as anyone who has seen the original or a full-size copy will know. Similarly, the story Anne Graham tells about seeing it and recognising it around 1968/9 when it was in the box with a crucifix must be treated with great care Peter
Author: Caz Monday, 10 January 2000 - 07:09 am
Hello Peter, I would imagine that, for the majority of the regular contributors to these boards who are remotely interested in the Maybricks, you are preaching to the converted. It is understandable that Feldman wanted desperately to find a family link between Anne Graham and the Maybricks to support the diary story. But, as you have said, his results fell lamentably short of proving anything and, by using them, I think he simply gave everyone an even bigger stick to beat him with. If we assume that Anne lied about seeing the diary in the 1960s and knows it is a modern forgery, we also have to assume, don�t we, that she knows full well that she is no more related to Florie than Sooty. If she had ever known or suspected a possible family link existed between her and the Maybricks, it would surely have been exploited for all it was worth way before Feldman began his own wishful thinking. So, we have to assume that Anne (again, if she is lying), knowing it was fruitless, let Feldman think he might find this non-existent family link if he searched long and hard enough and wanted it badly enough. She also had to keep up the charade indefinitely of being genuinely surprised and excited about the prospect of being related to Florie, knowing it was all so much nonsense. What surprises me is why more has not been made of the possible link between the illiterate Elizabeth ('Ganny') Formby, Anne's step great grandmother, and Alice Yappity Yap, the rather malicious and catty-sounding servant at Battlecrease House, the Maybrick family home. The idea that these two characters were friendly and went together to watch Florie's trial has much more of a ring of truth about it than the silly idea of William Graham being Florie's love child. Whether there was any truth in this family 'tradition' or not, it would be almost impossible to disprove, but would IMHO have provided modern forgers with a more likely provenance for the diary, which should surely have been far higher on their list of priorities than appears to be the case here. If they intended to feed this link subtly to Feldman, they must have been quite amazed and bemused when he changed tack and got his teeth firmly stuck into the blood tie thing with Florie. The Formby/Yapp link on it's own is one thing. The blood tie on it's own another. But combined they make things harder to swallow, not easier. So Peter, in your investigations, have you looked into the Formby/Yapp link and, if so, have you come to any of your own conclusions as to why the link was brought into play, only to be displaced by Feldman's meanderings into suspect genealogy? Do you think that the Formby/Yapp link was pure invention? Or do you think it could have been a genuine family tradition, whether based in truth or not, which was cynically used to bolster the forgers' story? If the tradition really existed, it must surely go part way to explain the reasoning behind choosing James Maybrick as the subject of the diary. For any other interested parties, below is a passage quoted from Feldman's book, which gives another link between Formby and Battlecrease House which could possibly be checked: "Anne had got the impression that Elizabeth Formby was the 'local fence'. Billy [Anne's late father] had explained to Keith [Skinner] and me [Feldman] that Elizabeth Formby had run a laundry at 10 Peel Street. Battlecrease House used this establishment and when the servants wanted to steal items from the premises in which they worked they would wrap them up in the laundry. Billy recalled tales of legs of lamb being removed. A man by the name of Jack Tyrer had some involvement, although it was not clear what. At the very least I understood why Anne believed the diary had been stolen from the house." I would appreciate any comments. Love, Caz
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood Monday, 10 January 2000 - 01:43 pm
Hi Caz: Interesting points and yes, most of the people who have been reading these boards for some time appear, with some obvious exceptions, to be Antimaybrickians. There are however some new posters who haven't read a lot of the earlier stuf and indeed Mr. Kemp is even bringing forward the Great Masonic Conspiracy again so I thought it might be time for a recap.I'll take your points in order. Firstly, the chances of Anne being related to Florie Maybrick are vanishingly small and in the absence of dna tests, completely unprovable. Before checking whether she is related to Sooty I would have to have further information concerning his background and unfortunately his current "minder" has refused to fill me in on his antecedents and indeed has mentioned something about Sweep "sending the boys round." What prompted the link from Florie to Anne? Well, by the early part of 1994 the accepted diary provenances: Mike's initial story, the electricians etc. had collapsed. Unless something could be found to validate in some way the diary as having a history of more than 5 years, the whole project looked as though it would fall apart. Now comes a rather strange event. Although Feldman had read, he says, all of the Maybrick books at an early stage, it's not till 17th May 1994 that Keith Skinner tells him to re-read a page of Nigel Morland's book which mentions that Florie called herself "Mrs. Graham" for a very short time just after being released from prison. Feldman does not however mention in his book that on the 11th May 1994 Keith wrote directly to Anne where he says: "The widely felt belief, however, is that the provenance of the journal is unsatisfactory and this has spawned the notion that, perhaps, it has been inherited or passed down through a family that has an ancestral link to either James or Florence Maybrick. I, personally, do not believe this is the case, and have offered to test the theory as regards your own family." Given that quite a lot rests on a successfull provenance I would suggest that, coupled with the famous 4-hour telephone call between Anne and Feldman on the 20th July 1994 where he tells her that he believes the diary has come from her family (and may well have mentioned the Graham connection: after all they must have discussed something other than what's been published during this 4-hour period,) is the source of the Graham family provenance. Now what you say about the Formby/Yapp connection is a good point. It would have made a better provenance but would have been much harder to validate in that you would have to trace the passing of the diary from JM to Yapp to Formby and then down to Anne. Is it likely that Yapp knew Formby? In 1881 Donald and Elizabeth Formby lived at Lundie Street Everton with their daughters Edith (4), Alice and son Donald. Donald Sr. was a cook and Elizabeth had no occupation and was born in Kidderminster. Alice Yapp was a nurse in service with Caleb Smith, a shipbuilder of Toxteth Park. She was 20 and came from Shropshire. The source for their going to the trial together is Billy Graham who didn't know it from his own knowledge but reports what "they" told him. But the story that Battlecrease house sent its laundry to Hillside Laundry where Elizabeth Formby worked might or might not be true. Certainly, Peel street is not, as Shirley Harrison says, "just around the corner from Battlecrease house," it must be a good 4 miles away. So the Yapp/Formby story is possible but no information is given as to the passage of the diary from one to the other and the impression given that it could have been wrapped in sheets and conveyed to the laundry is ridiculous. But what actually seems to have happened is that Feldman and Skinner determined that the provenance was rooted in Anne Graham's family prior to the first taped interviews with Billy Graham. The Formby/Yapp story came up at this time but couldn't easily be worked into the Graham hypothesis. The "meanderings" came first, the Formby/Yapp link later. I do accept your point that family knowledge of this link could indeed have put JM in the frame for JtR. Peter.
Author: Caz Monday, 10 January 2000 - 02:19 pm
Thanks for your time Peter. I appreciate your comments. I wonder if the Yapp/Formby link could ever be validated. It would be an interesting part of Anne's story even though it may not help to settle anything. I don't believe Maybrick wrote the diary, or that it was written in the 1880s, so I too cannot see that the diary ever came into Anne's possession from Battlecrease via Yapp or the laundry. Oh well. Love, Caz
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Friday, 17 March 2000 - 10:07 am
Hi Peter, I hope you are reading this, otherwise I�m talking to myself :-) Now you are back from sunnier climes, tan fading rapidly (were you looking for relatives of the Roswell alien? Whoops, that was New Mexico, wasn�t it? Funny how I feel quite safe from alien abduction here in Surrey, they always seem to favour the USA for some unknown reason :-)), can I pick your brains again? You left me high and dry with some questions still unanswered. I noticed that you invoked the name of Anne Barrett on the Walter Sickert board of all places, so while she is still fresh in your mind.... You wrote in your last post here on 10th January that the diary project �looked as though it would fall apart� by early 1994, due to the collapse of the accepted provenances. Were you actually aware of this, or are you saying we can assume so because of what happened next? You point out that Keith Skinner then wrote to Anne in May 1994 about the unsatisfactory diary provenance. (You quote from Keith�s letter which Feldman fails to mention in his book, so do you know if it has been published elsewhere, and if so how I can get to read it?) You suggested that this letter, coupled with the long phone call between Anne and Feldman in the July, �is the source of the Graham family provenance�, and that �Feldman and Skinner determined that the provenance was rooted in Anne Graham�s family� before the first taped interviews with her father. You concluded that this sought-after family link between Anne and Florie came first, the Formby/Yapp link later, agreeing with me that the latter link could have been a reason why JM was chosen for the diary�s �author�. But I must have the sequence of events wrong somewhere because it still makes no sense to me if Anne and Mike forged the diary. Anne left Mike in January 1994 so they were separated when Mike claimed in the June to have forged the diary. At that point Anne is still denying any knowledge of the bloody thing apart from Mike telling her he got it from Devereux (p177 of Feldman�s book). Are you suggesting that during that long phone call on 20th July, Feldman managed to persuade Anne (by cajoling, bribing, threatening, whatever), not only to come up with her own provenance, including the Graham connection, but to agree to Feldman interviewing her octogenarian father (who was dying of cancer) just ten days later? (Almost as long as the eleven days it took Anne and Mike to write the diary back in 1992? :-) ) In that short time she had to drag her poor old dad in on the act and crank up the Formby/Yapp tradition for the first time (even though to my mind this link is incompatible with the one between Florie and William Graham). And if this tradition had, as you agree, been a possible inspiration for the forgery, it was oddly not exploited as a provenance back in 1992. I also wonder how the �conspirators� were expecting Mike to react to this hastily created new provenance, which excluded him from all the fun and games? Do you think he knew about the Formby/Yapp link, now being used as part of Anne�s story? Another thought is of course that Anne�s father was already in on the scam when Anne asked him to support her story. On p174 of Feldman�s book, he writes that one expert claimed that the diary had been written �by someone most likely to have been schooled in the 1930s�. Billy would have been 17 in 1930, but Anne and Mike were not even twinkles in their dads� eyes then. Talking of handwriting, I�m sure it was said somewhere on the message boards (by Chris George I think) that you had seen Anne�s, but that a comparison with the diary was inconclusive. But I don�t think I ever read about what exactly you had seen and how you knew it was Anne�s writing. And how about Mike�s? I presume either would have tried to disguise their normal writing. Do you really think this is what they did? I�ve heard it said many a time by posters to these boards (can�t think who) that a lie does not become any more true the more someone repeats it. Well, Mike kept repeating his confessions and convinced a lot of �experts� in the process that he did create the diary himself, giving them all a convenient end of story, despite the problems and inconsistencies with his various testimonies. Now that�s what I call being too easily satisfied, or should it be too easily fooled? :-) I don�t apologise for remaining curious about the kind of person who physically sits down and writes a diary linking the Maybrick and JtR cases. Have a good weekend. Love, Caz
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Friday, 24 March 2000 - 04:58 am
Knock knock Peter, (Can someone give him a nudge for me please?) I was hoping you might be able to spare a moment to talk to me again here. If you are busy, I apologise for trying to entice you away from those crusty old ancestors. But since you brought the subject back up again by starting this particular thread, I thought I might be able to coax some more snippets of information from you. I know you are around somewhere, I caught another of your posts on the Sickert board :-) Hope to hear from you soon. Love, Caz
Author: Simon Owen Friday, 24 March 2000 - 05:29 am
Wasn't it handy how that watch turned up , just when the provenance of the diary was in question , eh ?
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Friday, 24 March 2000 - 11:57 am
Hi Simon, But the watch doesn't help with the provenance! The person who owned it (Albert Johnson) was not known to the Grahams or Barretts when it first came to light. When Anne's father was asked about the watch (Feldman, p200) he said he thought it was a load of b*****s. And it certainly hasn't helped confirm anything about the diary, even if that was someone's original intention. The two items do appear to be linked somehow, but each is still a mystery in its own right. (BTW, I'm glad someone's noticed my posts. Wonder what's keeping Peter, he's usually pretty on the ball with diary answers :-) ) Love, Caz
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood Friday, 24 March 2000 - 01:43 pm
Caroline Ann: Nag, nag, nag! Sorry about the delay but as I explained in the message I sent you today just before I checked this, I've been catching up. I've got 19 active files plus reports to make on the Edwards Heirs, Drake Estate plus the descendents of Hannah Lightfoot. I've also got the Fortean Times Convention coming up at the end of April which I shall visit due to the absence of enough cash to get me to Newark. Peter
Author: Karoline L Friday, 24 March 2000 - 02:49 pm
I agree with Caz that the story of the diary-provenance is complete crap from start to finish. But doesn't that make it more likely to be a forgery, not less? It's interesting, some time ago I happened upon a heated discussion about whether or not the famous 'alien autopsy' film was genuine or a forgery. The arguments used by the 'believers' were almost identical to the ones produced here by a few people - up to and including my two favourites: 'but no one has actually proved it's a forgery' and 'but if it was a fake they would have made sure they didn't make stupid mistakes (like the 'Poste House'); so the fact that they DID make a stupid mistake (about the Poste House) PROVES it isn't a fake' Such is Human Perversity
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood Friday, 24 March 2000 - 05:33 pm
Karoline: I hope that you're feeling better virus-wise and I'm sure that you're going to be missed in Newark. But speaking about alien autopsies, very few people have noticed that in the film, just before the surgeon takes out the yucky bits you can see on his right hand something that looks like a light gray glove with a bulbous top which has a pair of black ear-like protuberances. Dare I ask if this is significant? Peter.
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Saturday, 25 March 2000 - 06:00 am
Excuses excuses Peter :-) No, I realise how busy you must be after your recent trip, so I'm sorry to have nagged you like that. Looking forward to your response as and when you get time. But really, Peter my dear, if a distinguished genealogist like yourself, with a meticulous eye for detail and the truth, can't even spell my name correctly, I begin to lose my faith in everything, even the so-called proof that Karoline is descended from the one with the black ears. (Ordering bamboo shoots with every Chinese take-away, and having a rabid researcher bang on about Soo's uncanny resemblance to a black and white photo of Karoline does not satisfy me any more.) Love, Caz
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Saturday, 25 March 2000 - 06:22 am
Sorry Karoline, I didn't mean to ignore your post, and I hope you are feeling better. The discussion here has been concerned with who physically did or did not sit down and write the diary. I don't believe anyone is disputing the fact that Maybrick didn't do it. I for one have no argument with what you are saying, but I'm not quite sure of its relevance to the topic in question. Love, Caz
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood Sunday, 26 March 2000 - 11:24 am
CarolineAnne:(sorry about the missing "e.") Ir just goes to show that some things never die: the Masonic Conspiracy lives again, it's Joe Sickert versus the Space Aliens and here you are resurrecting (grams upswell with Beethovens Fifth) THE DIARY! Well firstly, I don't have much of a tan: due to the pills I have to take, I have to be carefull in the sun. Certainly, the last few weeks were better in Central America than in Wales. Don't be too sure about the Surrey Safety Factor: you may not be abducted but you have to watch out for the Pumas. Let me try to take your comments in order. By early 1994 the Barretts had separated and Mike had made the first of his confessions. Feldy was looking for some sort of provenance that would make sense. He tells us that Mike was calling him offering a number of different solutions. Each one failed. To quote Feldy: "I was devastated. High hopes and much hard work had led only to a brick wall, a wall that was so high I was beginning to feel that I would never reach the top. I had to believe I would - I had to continue." (2nd Edn. p. 154.) This shows what I would call "the Agent Mulder Syndrome." "You point out that Keith Skinner then wrote to Anne in May 1994 about the unsatisfactory diary provenance. (You quote from Keith�s letter which Feldman fails to mention in his book, so do you know if it has been published elsewhere, and if so how I can get to read it?) " Sorry, I can't help you about that one. However let me see if I can sort out the details as I see them. We have a number of confessions from Mike which may or may not have elements of accuracy. The first provenance of course depended on Tony Devereux, conveniently deceased at the time the diary was taken to an agent, which of course is the first independently corroborated evidence of its existance. None of Tony's children seem to know anything about his involvement with the diary either as a conspirator in the forgery or as part of the provenance. I suspect that if Tony had indeed had any part in the diary story, his heirs would have been interested in recovering a share of the proceeds. There had to be a provenance but the story about Tony was so obviously flawed on the order of "I got the car stereo from someone in a pub," that Feldy needed something firmer. Also, as far back as Feldy's first meeting with the Barretts in February 1993, Martin Howells who along with Paul Begg accompanied Feldy to Liverpool had told Mike: "We believe that you got the diary from Tony but there must be more." (2nd edn. p144.) Mike and Ann therefore knew that the original provenance was considered shaky. Thus, the endeavor, instituted by Feldy, to find a way that it could have passed from Battlecrease House to Tony, (the "electricians" story). and then after the Barretts' separation, Mike's numerous stories to Feldy which seem designed to confuse matters. Assuming that the diary was forged by Mike and Anne, which is more or less what Mike says in his first "confession," we have a point at the time of their separation where there is a substantial amount of ill-feeling between the couple. According to Feldy and Mrs. Harrison, Mike is still picking up his 50% royalty cheque, none of which is apparently percolating through to Anne. And then Mike makes his confession via an "affidavit" and the Liverpool Post interview and this is where he says that the diary was forged by Anne and himself. Now Feldy has a major problem: he is convinced of the truth of the diary but the main character denies its legitimacy. The provenance as originally understood is all but ruined unless something else can be found. As I stated in one of my previous posts, by May 1994 the "widely felt belief" in the Feldman camp was that the provenance was unsatisfactory and by this time both Mike and Tony's family trees had been traced for perhaps four generations in order to find a link to the Maybricks. Keith Skinner now proposed to do the same thing with Anne Barrett's family, the Grahams and this is what he told her in his letter to her of the 11th May 1994 which confirmed his telephone conversation with her of the previous day. By the way, here is another little puzzle: Keith speaks to her on the telephone on the 10th May but a month later Feldy had no idea of her phone number and hadn't spoken to her for about 6 months. So we have this letter plus the phone call which might be the first indications to Anne that the provenance problems had not been resolved. About ten weeks later comes the phone call from Anne to Feldy and in his report of the conversation (2nd. edn. p162,) he writes that he told her: "I believe that you are connected to this diary...I believe this has come from your family and I want to know the truth." It is perhaps also interesting that now she tells him to back off from the Barretts: "Because it has nothing to do with them." By the time of this conversation, Keith has of course already pointed out to Feldy the passage in Morland's book stating that Florrie had called herself "Mrs. Graham" just after her release and before she went back to the US. Do we know whether, during the course of this mammoth 4-hour phone conversation, Feldy mentioned this to Anne? Unless there's a tape of the call, only she and he know that. The chances are of course fairly high that he would have explained just why he believed that the diary had come from her family. And you do assume that I'm suggesting that Feldy in some way forced the Graham story upon Anne. I'm not. Insofar as this research went, I suspect that Feldy was very much an innocent and prepared, like others in his team, to believe almost anything, as long as it developed his theory. But the introduction of the Graham family link story might have been an almost-impossible to resist suggestion to someone who saw the diary situation ending up rather like the Hitler Diaries and leading to the stop of what had become a very welcome income. Before I go on, you ask about the Formby-Yapp link. Bear in mind that we have no independent corroboration of the truth of this story: it comes from Anne and Billy Graham. It might be a genuine family story and may have served as a reason to make the chief character in the Diary James Maybrick. Even if it was part of the Graham family history, there is no reason to assume that there was any truth in it. The fact that it wasn't used as part of the original story leads me to suspect that it saw the light of day as support for a story developed around July 1994 which would have been that Alice Yapp passed the diary which her lover James Maybrick had given her on to her best friend Elizabeth Formby and thus down to Billy Graham. This story would not have needed any link between the Grahams and Florrie Maybrick: this only came after Feldy convinced himself that Billy was Florrie's illegitimate grandson. As you can see, I believe that the Florrie Maybrick/Graham story didn't spring into life solely and immediately after the phone call; a story was decided on which was altered according to how Feldy and Keith reacted after their interviews with Billy Graham. Incidentally, a sign perhaps of Feldy's urge to believe and Ann Barretts' character is on p. 170 where she explains about the mysterious "confidential report" that Feldy had commissioned about her. This time Feldy sees through her story and accuses her of lying which she acknowledges. Again though, when she tells Feldy what she knows he wants to hear, he believes her. As to experts offering opinion about dating the handwriting, that falls into the sort of research that I leave to others. Certainly, concerning the normal handwriting of both Anne and Mike, neither looks identical to the diary. To conclude this lengthy piece, I must give my opinion that after the original provenance failed, which it quite clearly had by 1994 it was essential, if the diary was to remain a money-making proposition, for those involved in its forgery to find another provenance. That new provenance was not immediately etched in stone. It developed: bits were added, bits taken away until we finally have a story that depends almost completely upon the bona fides of one particular person. And lastly, before anyone gets frantic, I am referring neither to Shirley Harrison or Paul Feldman. Mrs. Harrison is a professional author who was brought into the project, wrote a readable book and quite rightly profitted from her skills. As for Paul Feldman, he passionately believed that Maybrick was JtR and that the diary was his story. The worst that I can say about Feldy is that without him, the diary would by 1994 have sunk into the morass reserved for unsuccessful hoaxes. His fault was to believe the story and direct all his resources to proving that story rather than preserving an openmindedness about the whole thing. His energy, had it been better directed could conceivably led us nearer to the truth of who really was Jack the Ripper. Peter
Author: Simon Owen Monday, 27 March 2000 - 09:58 am
Caroline , you have to remember that Shirley Harrison's ' the watch was really unwelcome , we didn't want to hear about it 'attitude was written in her book quite a while after the bleepin' thing had been examined and found to have the names of Maybrick and the Ripper victims engraved on it. As it stands the watch seems to provide independent proof that Maybrick was the Ripper , this is why it was featured in Harrison's book. It must have seemed like Mana from Heaven when the provenance of the diary was deeply in question ! This is indeed if it wasn't made to order ( i.e. engraved ) by someone connected with the case... As to the Diary itself , the one thing that gives it away is the fact that the preliminary pages of the book are removed , when surely if anyone was going to cut anything out it would have been the Ripper pages ( either to destroy them or put them in a folder or scrapbook ). Obviously the forgers didn't know enough about Maybrick to forge the rest , or were lazy and couldn't be bothered to invent the beginning bit. Or the earlier pages were full of writing or had photos on them , so they had to be removed or the Diary would be revealed as a sham. In a real diary someone would have bookmarked any page with something interesting on it.
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Friday, 31 March 2000 - 10:29 am
Hello again Peter, ��here you are resurrecting (grams upswell with Beethovens Fifth) THE DIARY!� Well I know it sounds picky, but it was actually you who resurrected the diary, shortly after the new millennium celebrations when it was all but forgotten, by opening up this new thread. You can hardly blame me for continuing a discussion you yourself initiated. :-) Thanks so much for your response last Sunday. I do appreciate the time given to it. You made some good points, which help with my understanding of what was going on in 1994. But I hope you don�t mind if I ask you to clarify a few more things for me (as time allows, naturally). �By early 1994 the Barretts had separated and Mike had made the first of his confessions.� �Assuming that the diary was forged by Mike and Anne, which is more or less what Mike says in his first "confession," ...� Anne left Mike in the January of 1994 and I believe Mike�s first formal confession of forging the diary came towards the end of June that year. Do you know when it was that Mike first implicated Anne? As far as I can make out from Feldman�s book (p 173-175), Mike was taking total responsibility at first when he talked to the newspapers. Do you know if Anne was asked by the Daily Post about her role in the forgery at that time? �...Mike's numerous stories to Feldy which seem designed to confuse matters.� Do you mean these stories came between January and June 1994? Presumably they all still involved Devereux giving Mike the diary, otherwise surely the first thing Feldman would have asked is where he really got it from? So why the numerous stories? What do you think Mike was playing at apart from silly buggers? Do you believe the separation between Anne and Mike was just a sham so they could buy some time? As you rightly observed, �Mike and Ann therefore knew that the original provenance [ie Tony Devereux] was considered shaky.� But that begs the obvious question, why the hell did Anne also rely on this already flawed Devereux connection when coming up with her own version of events? �None of Tony's children seem to know anything about his involvement with the diary either as a conspirator in the forgery or as part of the provenance. I suspect that if Tony had indeed had any part in the diary story, his heirs would have been interested in recovering a share of the proceeds.� But there is something to connect Tony and his family with Mike�s own researches into the diary. On p155 of Feldman, Tony�s daughter, Nancy Steele, recalled that he had been lent one of Mike�s own books, Murder, Mayhem and Mystery by Richard Whittington-Egan. Mike claimed this was the very book which helped him work out that Maybrick was the supposed author of the diary. I agree that there was a risk that Tony�s family could have claimed something, arguing that the diary had originally been in Tony�s possession. Presumably this risk never occurred to the forgers when they were pushing this provenance, and were fortunate that no such claim was made. I�ve also been rethinking the Formby/Yapp link. Would you agree with me that Mike appeared to know nothing about it? If so, I guess we were both wrong to think it formed the basis for making James Maybrick the diary author, otherwise it was bound to crop up in conversation while they were all forging the diary together. In which case, sadly, it must have been pure invention after all. I�m busy looking into ways Feldy could have tested the link further (watch this space!). Regarding the handwriting again: �Certainly, concerning the normal handwriting of both Anne and Mike, neither looks identical to the diary.� You naughty boy, you�ve avoided my question concerning what handwriting you have seen of Anne and Mike�s, and how you know it is theirs. (Not thinking of going into politics are you? :-)) And furthermore, how do you know it is their �normal� hand, and not disguised to avoid it looking �identical to the diary�? Last point for now, Peter (don�t everyone sigh with relief quite so loudly :-)), I�m impressed with your detective work, getting to grips with what was going on behind the scenes which, as you pointed out before, Feldy fails to mention in his book: ��here is another little puzzle: Keith speaks to her [Anne] on the telephone on the 10th May but a month later Feldy had no idea of her phone number and hadn't spoken to her for about 6 months. So we have this letter plus the phone call which might be the first indications to Anne that the provenance problems had not been resolved.� (Dare I ask how you discovered about the phone call? :-)) On the face of it I can�t see why Feldy would feel the need to keep quiet about Keith�s efforts to check on Anne�s family background. It seems like a logical step to take, since you say that Mike and Tony�s family trees had been scoured for Maybrick links. I do hope I�m not reading anything too sinister into all this, but as you say, it was Keith who alerted Feldy to Morland�s Mrs Graham, Keith who went to the trouble of getting Anne�s phone number without reference to Feldy, and Keith who made it his business to write to Anne about her family! So what was going on? Have you reason to believe there was collusion between Anne and Keith to find a better provenance? I got the impression from some of your previous posts that you were suspicious about Keith�s involvement with Anne. Is this what you meant when you wrote: �But the introduction of the Graham family link story might have been an almost-impossible to resist suggestion to someone who saw the diary situation ending up rather like the Hitler Diaries and leading to the stop of what had become a very welcome income.� You had earlier pointed out that none of Mike�s 50% royalty cheque was �apparently percolating through to Anne�, so she could not be your �someone�, whose �welcome income� was in danger of stopping. Neither could Mike, because he went and told the world he forged it! So surely that only leaves Keith as your �someone�. You actually quoted from Keith�s letter to Anne on 11th May 1994. Can you really not help me with what else that letter said? I was half-joking about Feldy �cajoling, bribing, threatening� Anne over the telephone, not seriously thinking this was what was going on. But was there something similar in Keith�s letter, explaining why Feldy was anxious not to mention it, and which you are also reluctant to divulge? Come on Peter, you can tell me. I don�t suppose there are too many others still earwigging our conversation (apart from Simon. I've got a post for him in a minute :-)). And what if they are? Surely we all have a right to know if Anne was seduced by the promise of the �fatted calf� and flowing �wine� which Melvin Harris waxes biblical about in his �Guide Through The Labyrinth� that is the Maybrick hoax. Melvin calls the new provenance a miracle, producing �great rejoicing in Diaryland�. Wouldn�t this type of openness be right up Melvin�s alley, being the right and proper way to go, and totally justified if it exposes any underhand dealings? Could you not do us all a favour and throw some more much needed light on the situation? Have a good weekend. Love, Caz
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Friday, 31 March 2000 - 10:34 am
Hi Simon, Can you tear yourself away from Druitt's untimely death and Stride's height for a few moments? :-) To answer your post of Monday 27th March, again, my belief is that the diary and watch are forgeries, so we agree on something at last. :-) Your opinions are valid and I�d be interested in your thoughts on the identities of the forgers. For instance, have you thought of testing your theories against what is known about Anne and Mike�s individual characters? You must have enough information from these boards not to have to talk of �the forgers� in general terms. Or are you proposing other names, in which case where do you think Anne and Mike fit in? And who exactly do you think may have �commissioned� the scratches on the watch, and when? How does that tie in with its owner, Albert Johnson, who I believe was not prepared to sell it, and as far as I am aware has made no money? That�s quite an allegation there, so I assume you have something more than a gut feeling to back it up. Why did the watch not miraculously appear among Billy Graham�s effects if your reasoning is correct? Don�t forget Billy�s reaction when he first heard about it. Have you reason to believe the Johnsons knew the Barretts before the watch emerged, and that they were all �in it� together? If you have any evidence to that effect it would be damning indeed. As for the watch appearing �when the provenance of the diary was deeply in question�, Feldman tells us on p27 that the watch turned up shortly after April 1993. If you read my discussion with Peter, you will see that, while the provenance has always been in question (�complete crap from start to finish� were Karoline�s words, not mine :-)), it was never more so than in the first part of 1994, yet the watch seems to have been completely ignored then. Have a good weekend. Love, Caz
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood Saturday, 01 April 2000 - 11:22 am
Caroline Anne: I don't have the time right now to go over your comments and it might take a week or so as I'm off to Ireland on Monday but there is one point that I must address. "Have you reason to believe there was collusion between Anne and Keith to find a better provenance? " No. You seem to be suggesting that I believe that Keith Skinner had a part in the diary forgery and was financially involved. That is not true. As far as I know he only came into the picture once the books started to be written. Apart from being paid for his research skills which is perfectly reasonable I am convinced that he has no other financial interest in the whole mess. More in about a week. Peter
Author: Mark Goeder Saturday, 01 April 2000 - 11:35 am
Hi everyone. i ve been reading ripperature now for 15 years. This is the very first chance I ll have to make one or two coments to anyone who is as obsessed with this diary as me. i ve read it about a squillion times and would like to say the following This diary is probably the nearest anyone will get to finding out the truth. why are there so many people bent on trying to prove it a fake? I mean, lets be honest with another. Maybrick isnt nothing special.How many of you knew of his existance before the diary surfaced? i bet no one did. I think the diary is real. no one yet has provided any evidence to prove its a fake yet. but i must admit , you are all giving it your best. Someone even suggested the "FM" on the wall in kellys room was splattered blood!!! come on now folks WAKE UP!!! FM with blood splatters?? Im afraid old Maybrick knew just too much to be a fake. What he wrote was what he was going through. I think if these murders happened 10 years ago and Maybrick would confess and produce his diary and the watch and the knife and a film of himself killing these woman, you still wouldnt believe him. The fact is, the diary can only be true. I mean, we are all looking at evidence which is too old to be proved right or wrong. Maybrick,kelly,Eddowes,Nicholls,Stride,Chapman , Abberline etc etc are all gone. everyone connected to the murders have gone. it doesnt matter how hard you dig, you will never find anything as convincing as the diary. Ill be honest, I think that most of you dont really want it to be known that the rippers was Maybrick. It could destroy a great industry and part of History. do you all know how dissapointed Titanic fans were when it was found in its grave in the Atlantic? They wanted the mystery to stay a mystery. Even if you cant prove the diary a fake,keep trying because i think its fun. Even though I think maybrick was the killer,I think he left a lot out. I ll go a step further and say that I dont think he was alone when he killed. I ll go another step.I think he killed and someone else "ripped". I think that the someone else was a Woman. There is a lot of truth in John Brooks Barry story.(Collin Wilson + Robin Odells summing up and verdict) I also think that Maybricks problem was his jealousy and not too much from the drugs he was taking. the JEALOUSY is what you should be looking at. I could go much deeper into that but I ll leave it for now. I think the diary was written to take the heat of someone else. who would write a diary like that(with risk of it maybe being found) just for the fun of it? the only reason we ll never know who the ripper was for certain,is because he died and couldnt confess himself. As far as Barret is concerned,there is NO WAY he could write a story like that AND get away with it for so long. I think he needs some cash stuff. I hope you all dont mind me making these comments bye bye and have fun Mark
Author: Michael B. Bruneio Saturday, 01 April 2000 - 12:39 pm
I have neither the time nor the inclination to list all of the evidence pointing to the diary being a fake. I strongly suggest you research this issue before writing posts such as above. The biggest contention I have with you is your assumption that Maybrick in fact wrote the Diary and your twisting the facts to fit the theories. When the man who exposed the diary to the world later confesses in a legal affadavit that he manufactured the diary and intended FRAUD, one should logically distance himself from such dubious "evidence." Any further inquiry can and - as evidenced by some of the participants of these boards - does amount to a colossal waste of time.