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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through June 13, 2000
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
The Maybrick Diary-2000 Archives:
Archive through June 13, 2000
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Sunday, 11 June 2000 - 12:31 pm |        | I think we can now see we have a joint responsibility to prove with all speed who wrote the Diary post-1987. Otherwise, by the time Keith gets back to discussing Martin’s socks on the internet, they may have found a way to give us a ‘scratch and sniff’ facility. The implications don’t bear thinking about....
(Sorry Martin, if you're there!)
Love,
Caz |
Author: Simon Owen
Sunday, 11 June 2000 - 04:35 pm | | Hi Caz !
I have e-mailed you my address to pass onto Keith.
Just to clarify what information I want , I want a guest list for those at Lord Wimborne's ball - which included M.J. Druitt and his mother - in December 1888 , laid on for old Eddy. Imagine if those two had ever met , which one would have been the more suprised at how much the other resembled him ? I wonder.
Simon |
Author: stephen stanley
Sunday, 11 June 2000 - 05:21 pm | | To: Keith Skinner,
You raise one point which I've thought of ,but havn't seen anyone else mention...that the Diary could have been written by someone close to the investigation. Please don't misunderstand me , no I'm not sure the Diary is a fake, but we seemed to be getting bogged down in the Graham enigma rather than looking at the Diary proper. (just to nail my colours to the mast, I'm more of a Kosminski-ist than anything else..but I agree, we certainly can't ignore the Diary)
Steve s. |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 12 June 2000 - 04:05 am | | Stephen:- At risk of stating the obvious, determining when the 'diary' was composed - that is when the ink was actually placed on the paper - has to take priority over all other questions. There is no point in discussing whether or not the 'diary' could have been written by someone close to the investigation, if the ink was in fact put on the paper in, say, 1990.
Ann Graham claims that the 'diary' has been in her family since at least 1950 and that she first saw it (meaning both the physical book and its current content) in the 1960s. If her story is true then we are looking at an old document which would appear to pre-date the surge of modern interest in the Ripper which began in 1959 with Daniel Farson's discovery of the Macnaghten Memoranda. This alone would make the 'diary' interesting for several reasons and is why attention must be focused on Ann Graham's story.
The idea that the 'diary' is a modern forgery executed by Mike and Ann Barrett for financial gain is obvious and prima facie probable and it has been accepted (often unquestioningly) by the majority of people. But does it really stand up to analysis? Some points have already been made, such as Keith's pertinent question: if Mike and Ann are the forgers, which of them actually penned the 'diary'? Or my own question: if Mike was one of the forgers why has he been unable to provide a coherent account of how the forgery was conceived and executed?
By looking at these questions and answering them we will either come a stage closer to at least an understanding how the forgery could have come into existence post-1987, or we will be forced, pending contrary evidence, to seriously consider that it was composed prior to 1987 and that Ann's story is true.
Getting bogged down in the Graham enigma may thus be deathly dull, but the questions being asked are important, none more so thn the one posed by Keith - whose hand worked the pen? If it wasn't either Mike or Ann's... ? |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 12 June 2000 - 09:34 am | | Hi Peter,
In your post of June 10th @ 01.36pm, you wrote:
‘But by this time the Barrett marriage was coming unstuck and Anne (who at this point wasn't getting any of the royalties) made a decision prompted by the conversations and letters from Feldman and his associates came up with another story. And what I still fail to see is why, if that story had any basis in reality, why could it not be used right from the beginning?’
As I have said before, IMHO the last part of your statement also holds true if Anne and Mike forged the Diary (and allowing that the Formby/Yapp tradition, rumour or otherwise, played its part in giving them the idea). Why on earth concoct the unconvincing ‘bloke in the pub’ provenance, if they really had this little gem tucked away?
But while we are on the subject of Formby/Yapp, not only does Mike appear to have been unaware of the tradition while they were supposed to be discussing and creating their forgery, but he also appears to have strongly disputed Anne’s 1994 revelations ever since. He says he resents his daughter’s name being associated with the Ripper. When asked why he does not produce the necessary proof of the forgery, his fall-back position appears to be connected with a fear of prosecution (although he has also claimed to be prepared to go to prison to protect Anne) and the consequences for his daughter’s security. Yet he has also claimed that Anne suffers from schizophrenia AND multiple personality disorder, presumably to explain how the Diary handwriting over 63 pages appears to bear little resemblance to Anne’s normal hand. So where is his concern for his daughter’s security, if Anne suffers from neither affliction? And where does that leave his excuses for not producing that pesky auction ticket and be done with it? Instead, he seems destined to spend year after year hotly disputing what he sees as nefarious links being made between his daughter and JtR.
The first part of your statement sounds vaguely familiar. Checking back to your post of Sunday March 26th @ 11.24am, to make sure I remembered rightly, 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.’
I took issue with you then over who you could specifically be referring to here, since, as you now confirm, Anne ‘wasn’t getting any of the royalties’ and any idiot (yes, even me!) could see your words could not apply to Mike, in light of his confession to the entire world. Yet, in your post of Tuesday April 11th @ 10.26am, 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." Now I said that in my original post not dreaming that anyone would believe that I meant anyone other than Anne or Mike.’
I hope you can now see what made me confused over who precisely was supposed to be fretting over the loss of an already established income from the Diary hoax.
Can you now confirm, to save me from getting hopelessly confused again, that you actually mean Anne was confidently expecting to receive her share of the royalties once her separation from Mike had become formal (even though up until that point she hadn’t received a penny), and this gave her a motive for keeping the Diary going?
If so, and we accept that Anne was and is primarily concerned with sustaining the fraud, it gives us a better idea of her character and – far from being sincere about the apologies or guilt expressed back in 1994 for the damage caused to various people by not having revealed all she knew before then - she has cynically spent the next six years continuing to cheat and deceive family, friends, colleagues and researchers out of their time and their money, not to mention their misplaced trust.
Peter, going back to the handwriting issue, I would like to echo Paul Begg’s question: Who else, if Anne and Mike created the Diary together, in your opinion could have physically written it, as you have expressed the opinion that ‘neither Barretts handwriting looks like the diarists’?
BTW, if I have misrepresented any of the known facts in my meanderings above, I trust Keith will look over my shoulder and correct me at the drop of a trilby hat. :-)
Love,
Caz |
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood
Monday, 12 June 2000 - 02:04 pm | | Paul:
What I said and what you don't seem to understand is that given Feldy's comments about both of our subjects; comments which have to tempt us to ask questions about their backgrounds how do we know that neither of them had any contact with potential forgers, or other helpful persons? Not until we know whether Feldy's comments are true concerning possible dark secrets in both of their pasts can we judge their capacity to construct the diary. I really would have thought that this point would have been obvious to anyone and I can't believe that you are really serious when you say: "As interesting as you may find theclaims made by Feldy, I'm not clear what bearing they have on these questions."
I also believe the financial motive to be obvious and your comment about Cliff Irving is wrong: his forged Hughes letters were successfull a/ because there were very few authentic Hughes holographic letters available and b/ because he was telling a story that a publisher wanted to hear. Sound familiar?
You also have no authentic evidence as to whether or not the Barretts had experience in forgery, knowledge of Maybrick or knowledge of JtR. It seems pretty obvious that to forge an 1889 diary you need a roughly-contemporary book and you need to mix up a roughly-contemporary ink. Are there any other techniques of forgery involved in the diary that you would like to draw my attention to? The knowledge of Maybrick and JtR have been covered ad nauseum in these columns but I'm sure that the blurbs on such books as the "JtR A to Z" pub. 1991"...3 of the world's leading experts on the subject...the definitive book on Jack the Ripper" might have let anyone assume that the information therein was accurate. And of course they fairly soon had some supporters. ("We simply can't shake it.")
Really, Paul, what has happened to your common sense?
And please read my previous comments about questions coming from your colleague.
Joseph: Thanks but you're too late: I already got the engine block.
Caroline Anne:
At the moment I'm working under a lot of pressure so forgive me if I don't have time to go through my old messages especially as my own file copies were wiped out by a virus some weeks ago.
My answer to your first bit is that no one thought of the "Lloyd George is my father" provenance at first. The idea was simply to make the provenance someone who could not be checked on as he was dead. When Anne needed to suggest a new provenance she had already been prompted by two sources to consider her own family as a source for the diary. Whether or not there was a genuine Formby-Yapp legend in the family (I'm ambivalent about it but it is possible) it was those prompts I believe that eventually gave us the Graham family provenance.
Given that Anne was happily engaged in typing out transcripts of her own fathers taped conversations for Feldman, she must have been considered as part of his "team." I think it likely that she knew that she could get her 25% of the royalties after the split. Regarding your question about the handwriting, I have no experience in forensic document examination so am not qualified to have a definite opinion. All I can say is that the normal handwriting of the pair doesn't look like the diary writers. |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 12 June 2000 - 03:42 pm | | Peter:- I appreciate that you are very busy, but with respect I suggest that you re-read my post and address what I actually said. I reiterated Keith's question about who you think put the ink on the paper and I asked you why if Mike Barrett was one of the forgers he hasn't been able to give a coherent account of how the forgery was conceived and executed. Nothing Paul Feldman has written has any bearing whatsoever on those questions.
I know and understand that you find the financial motive obvious and I agreed that it is obvious, but I also questioned whether anyone inexperienced in forgery would have thought it was their route to financial security, especially when there were less dangerous options available.
My comment about Irving is not wrong. I said he was already an accomplished forger before embarking on the Hughes book and he was.
Insofar as we know, neither Mike nor Ann so much as forged their parents signature on a sick note when at school. Okay, as you say, we don't know this for a fact, but what evidence do you have to the contrary?
It strikes me as rather naïve to suggest that forgery is a simple matter of getting contemporary paper and ink. What about the hundred and one things you don't know about which to the expert eye would so easily trip you up? The glue binding? ESDA tests? Analysis of the ink for fluoride in the water used to mix the ink powder? Handwriting reflecting a modern schooling? I mean, if you don't know what the experts would look for, how can you combat against it? To put it simply, if you are ignorant of forgery then forging a document would be like driving blindfold at high speed down a country lane - you simply don't know what obstacles are in your way.
Don't use the "We simply can't shake it" until you know the facts behind that statement!
Nothing has happened to my common sense, Peter, but I seriously question your capacity to face criticisms of your conclusions and opinions. You have very loudly and consistently proclaimed your belief that the 'diary' was written by Mike and Ann. You have also acknowledged that to your untrained eye their handwriting does not look like the 'diarist's'. But when asked to say who therefore wrote the 'diary', you back away at high speed saying that you are not a forensic document examiner. If Feldy, when confronted with Maybrick's handwriting not matching that of the diarist, had said, "yeah, well, I know, but I am not a forensic document examiner so I can't comment, but I still believe it was written by Maybrick" you would have been fighting your way to the head of the queue to get at Feldy's jugular. So what's fair for the goose has also to be fair for the gander and while I can't say I have a whole lot of faith in handwriting examiners, if it be shown that neither Mike nor Ann actually penned the 'diary' then your absolute certainty that they were the forgers is left floating in the lavatory pan getting soggy and, unless you can show evidence for expanding the net to accommodate accomplices, is about to be flushed away.
I think it is only fair that you face and answer the problems others find with your hypothesis, just as you expect others to face and answer the problems you find in theirs. Questions have been asked. They await your answer. |
Author: Simon Owen
Monday, 12 June 2000 - 04:33 pm | | Perhaps we could have a straw poll a la Tabram to see who people believe might have forged the Diary.
Without wishing to speak ill of the dead , my theory is it was cooked up by Billy Graham and Anne. My other theory is that it was forged by a Mr Big on behalf of the Barretts , who then made up the ' man in the pub ' idea with Tony Devereaux to explain the work's origins.IMHO.
I cannot agree more with Paul that we MUST examine Anne Graham's story : using Boolean logic either the Diary DID exist in the 1960s and Anne is telling a truthful story as best she knows it ; or the Diary DID NOT exist in the 1960s and Anne is lying. Quod est demonstrandum baby ! ( "oo you speak French !" ) |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Monday, 12 June 2000 - 05:04 pm | | | Isn't that "oo you speak Latin!" ? ;-) |
Author: stephen stanley
Monday, 12 June 2000 - 07:11 pm | | To;Paul Begg,
Can't fault you reasoning, but there seems to be a school of thought (to which I do not belong),that refuses to accept any other possibilty than that one or other Graham forged the Diary post-1987, and to be honest it is this narrow-minded attitude which has caused me a certain exasperation with the continuing debate.
I don't know who wrote the Diary, or when ,and neither does anyone else!! (apart from the forger,if there was one). TO me ,all logic says the Diary is a fake,but from every thing I've read,I don't see either Graham as being capable of carrying it off..or of having sufficient motive for doing so....or of thinking they could get away with it....
confused of Leicester (Steve s.) |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 12 June 2000 - 11:25 pm | | Simon:- The theory that Billy and Ann Graham forged the 'diary' is a good one, but how did they get the 'diary' to Mike? I take it that we still allow that they used Tony D, because we would otherwise have to explain how they did get the 'diary' to Mike and why he has consistently said he got it from Tony D. (about the only consistent part of his story over the years).
Unfortunately, with Tony D. we encounter the first problem. What did they think Tony D. would do and say when a publisher, author, researcher and the media descended on him with questions about where the 'diary' had come from? Did they plan that at that stage they would 'come clean' with their 'in the family for years' story? If so, why didn't they come out with that story in the first place?
An alternative theory would be that Tony D. and Ann were the forgers and that Tony D. had prepared a cover story to give inquirers. His unexpected death in August 1991 left Ann with patsy Mike lumbered with his lame 'bloke down the pub'story.
This hypothesis may also account for the rows Mike and Ann claim to have had over the 'diary' when Mike wanted to get it published. These rows make no real sense if Ann's motive for the forgery was financial - why would she be angry with Mike for wanting to do the very thing she wanted him to do? But it makes a lot of sense if she wanted to abort the whole enterprise following Tony D.'s death.
So the straw poll clocks up the candidates!
Jill:- lapsus calami?
'Confused of Leicester':- As I have said, mysteries are like magic tricks, the solution being simple and obvious when explained. It may well be that Mike and Ann did forge it and that their motive was financial gain, but you very neatly express the doubts most of us have had since becoming involved in the mystery back in 1992: were they capable of forging the 'diary'? Why did they think they had the skills to succeed with it? Why choose forgery instead of a legal alternative? Yes indeed, good questions and one's which should be asked and answered, and I am certain that many of us can fully understand and sympathise with your frustrations. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 13 June 2000 - 05:03 am | | Hi Peter,
You wrote:
‘The idea was simply to make the provenance someone who could not be checked on as he was dead. When Anne needed to suggest a new provenance she had already been prompted by two sources to consider her own family as a source for the diary.’
My dear Peter, you make it all sound like fact. Shouldn’t there be an ‘in my humble opinion’ in there somewhere? Or is this another question you will not be addressing?
If your words are not implying, even in a very subtle way, that there was a sort of underhand collusion going on between Anne and the ‘two sources’, then I’ll eat my hat, though I’ll draw the line at yellow socks.
As far as I can gather, Feldy was absolutely convinced that Anne would turn out to be descended from James Maybrick at this time, and was hoping to prove it and get Anne to cough up the goods. From Keith’s letter to Anne (which you kindly let us all see) it appears that Keith was sceptical about finding any family link to the Maybricks, but acknowledged the need to test Feldy’s theories. From the ‘c/o’ address at the top of the letter, it would appear that Keith was as unaware of Anne’s whereabouts at that time as Feldy, another ‘little puzzle’ of yours solved by your own hand. Thanks. (Your post of March 31st @ 10.29am refers, in case you wish to check the archives.)
As it turned out, Anne was not ‘prompted’ to concoct, with her dying father, a family link back to James at all, was she? So she did not tell Feldy, or any other ‘source’, what they wanted to hear.
Back to the handwriting issue. Now how did I guess that your answer would include a ‘not qualified’ element? Paul Begg’s words made me think back to my post of April 13th @ 06.17am, in which I addressed the same points, including the Maybrick double standard.
So, if the writing is not Mike’s (everyone agreed?), nor Anne’s (with or without MPD), and you have already expressed an opinion that it does not match Devereux’s (and that the Devereux account was pure invention anyway, using a dead man to help with the plot), then do you think Billy wrote it? And will you be testing your theory, asking the relevant sources for examples, or evidence of his handwriting skills when he was at least in his mid-seventies?
Or will you be ‘relying on your own private feelings’ as per your post of June 5th @ 01.12pm?
I won’t be holding my breath for the answers.
Caz |
Author: Karoline L
Tuesday, 13 June 2000 - 06:42 am | | Paul, Stephen, absent Janice, Peter, Caz,
It's funny isn't it, how when two sets of believers confront each other - doing the immoveable object and irresistible force thing - that the first accusation levelled by either side against the other is - narrow-mindedness.
Personally, I don't think this present issue is a question of narrow-mindedness or of denying possibilities.I think any reasonable person has to allow that, in the absence of proof, all explanations remain possible.
But not _equally_ possible.
Surely, we must accept that?
If we put aside all the fascinating but ultimately non-productive speculation about what was in Anne's mind, or Mike's bloodstream while they did or said various things, we are left with some stark choices, which are these:
1. The diary was written by James Maybrick who was (or believed he was) the ripper.
If we accept this, we have also to accept that:
a. For some reason, JM used a handwriting that is nothing like any other known example of his script.
b. that he did not know things about his own family that he probably ought to have known, and
c. that he included in his diary, a list of possessions from one of the victims, which - by sheer chance - followed exactly the same sequence as a private police inventory that JM could never have seen. The odds against this coincidence being 120 - 1.
Possible?
Well, yes.
Probable?
No.
2.The second option is that it is an old forgery.
If you accept this, you have also to accept that:
a. whoever created the forgery made no attempt to publicise it - but simply hid it away somewhere until it surfaced in the posession of a Liverpudlian family some twenty - fifty years later.
b. that the forger had access to an unpublished police report, which gave them the correct sequence of the property-inventory, years before it became public.
Possible? Well, yes.
Probable?
More so than the first perhaps.
But not very probable.
How many people would have had access to that police inventory before it was published?
How likely is it that any of them would use the info to frame a long-dead Maybrick, for no reason of gain, or fame or anything we can presently determine?
3. The third option is, of course, that the diary was written post 1987, by a slightly boozy scrap metal dealer and his brighter but not very highly educated wife. That they got their info, including the inventory, from easily accessed published sources, and did the thing for money. If you accept this then you have also to accept
a. that they were smart enough to get some books from the library and tell a few elementary lies, but
b. not smart enough to do a completely convincing job with the info they acquired.
Possible?
Yes.
Probable?
Well, is it more likely that Maybrick disguised his handwriting and GUESSED the sequence of an unpublished inventory - or that Anne Graham has enough natural cunning to deceive a few people, if not enough foresight to make long term plans without getting into a mess?
is it more likely that some unknown person accessed the police files and then forged a diary implicating Maybrick, only to hide said diary away in a cupboard - or that a scrap metal dealer and his wife might have the imagination to conceive of a quick scam, but not the discipline or application to carry it off without inconsistencies emerging in their stories?
I think we have ro admit that probability favours the Barretts, and their venial but flawed human scam.
Boozy Mike and smart, but not too smart Anne just decided to try and make a buck.
Probably.
Paul has doubts about this, principally (I gather), because of what he sees as the inexplicable inconsistencies and mysteries of it all.
I agree that IF Mike and Anne did forge the diary they made a bloody awful job of it.
But since when has incompetence been an improbable or mysterious or inexplicable human failing?
Look at the Hitler Diary, with its plastic letters and its modern paper.
A complete arse-up from beginning to end.
But no one used the sheer incompetence of the forger to argue that Hitler might really have written it after all.
Murderers are often incompetent. Forgers are often incompetent. People are often incompetent.
And if Mike was as drunk and hopeless as everyone says - then isn't incompetence exactly what you would expect of him?
Where is the mystery here?
IF M & A forged the diary (and of course they may not have done), then their subsequent behaviour seems easily explicable through knowledge of guilt, panic, expediency, and greed.
They forge it, to the best of their limited ability - in the hopes of making a few bob.
They get some things right, and some things badly wrong.
Why?
Because they are human beings, and this is the way human beings operate.
Mike admits the forgery.
Why?
Because he is a foolish drunken man, who wants to get back at his wife, and who has never been any good at thinking ahead.
He retracts his confession.
Why?
Because he is a foolish drunken man, who has never been any good at thinking ahead.
Anne changes her story, dumps the 'man-in-pub' angle (which was always crap), and says the diary has been in her family for years
Why?
To undercut Mike's confession and safeguard her possession of the artefact that might prove very lucrative.
Why didn't she tell this much better story from the beginning?
Because she hadn't THOUGHT of it from the beginning...
And so on and so on...
If there is mystery, i don't see it.
Maybe someone could tell me where it is.
Caz, i know you think Weedon Grossmith was JTR, and that he forged the diary to implcate Maybrick. I respect your right to believe this.
But for the benefit of us non-believers who are just interested in finding the truth, could you tell us please WHY you think Weedon Grossmith as Jack is really more probable than Mike and Anne just buying an old photo album and making a half-arsed job of doing 'Jack- the Diary'?
Karoline
By the way - RJP, re. Wallace's book and Lewis Carroll as JTR - I did a paper on this subject for the recent ripper conference, which you are welcome to read if you'd like.
And don't read Hudson's biography, it's terrible.
Read mine.
(joke) |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 13 June 2000 - 06:45 am | | From Keith Skinner To Peter Birchwood
In your post of Saturday June 10th 2000, to Paul Begg, you raise the following question:-
“Whose word (other than Annes) do we have to say that the marriage was falling apart before the projected construction of the diary?”
The answer to that is nobody’s.
You then assert:-
“They weren’t starving but a little extra cash would help.”
Well, they got the cash, (even though Anne had to wait for her share), and their eighteen year old marriage swiftly fell apart.
Mike loses his wife, his daughter, his home (eventually), his status, and spends both their money freely.
Anne is homeless, unemployed, with their 12 year old daughter and a terminally ill father to look after, and (so she says), guilt ridden because of the pressure Feldman was putting on her friends and family to flush her out of hiding, in order to prove his theory that she was descended from James Maybrick, and that she, her family, Mike’s family and all of their preceding generations, had been given new identities by the Government, because Queen Victoria and the Establishment knew that Florence Maybrick had been married to Jack The Ripper.
Mike cracks and publicly confesses to forging the Diary.
Anne publicly responded with the following statement:-
“He told me he got the diary from Tony Devereux and that is all I know. He is now trying to get back at me because I have left him. The whole thing is an absolute nightmare.
But I will fight like a tiger to protect myself and my family against anything he says.”
Feldman and myself then get to her and a new provenance emerges.
These are the facts – chronologically arranged as they occurred. All a consequence of your suspicion that Mike Barrett and Anne Graham jointly collaborated to forge a Diary for a little extra cash.
I note that you characterize Anne Graham’s explanation of giving the Diary to Devereux to give to Mike, in the following way:-
“The whole explanation about giving her husband something to do so that her marriage could be saved does not ring true…”
Are you satisfied that is an accurate representation of what she has actually said?
You then assert:-
“…her explanation post-Mike is logically impossible…”
What about emotionally impossible? |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 13 June 2000 - 07:26 am | | Hi Karoline,
Your post just crossed with the one I typed for Keith.
I'll address it briefly if I may for now.
You wrote:
'...when two sets of believers confront each other...'
Maybe, reading through the posts to this discussion carefully, you could see your way to judging some of us as non-believers of any of the modern events as speculated here, looking for more evidence or proof, to render 'belief' unnecessary and therefore redundant?
And as you so rightly say:
'...in the absence of proof, all explanations remain possible.'
'The diary was written by James Maybrick...'
Well, I won't address any of this because none of us contributing at present (Mark seems to be absent) appear to believe JM wrote the thing anyway. We all seem to be wondering who did.
'I think we have ro admit that probability favours the Barretts...'
I'm quite happy for any of the probabilities to be turned into definites. It just hasn't happened yet.
'But no one used the sheer incompetence of the forger to argue that Hitler might really have written it after all.'
Good point! Especially if anyone here is doing that....er, are they?
'Caz, i know you think Weedon Grossmith was JTR, and that he forged the diary to implcate Maybrick. I respect your right to believe this.'
Perhaps you missed my post to Jill on May 4th @ 04.14am, in which I wrote that I had found nothing further 'to suggest [Weedon] had any more sinister designs on the good folk of Whitechapel.'
In other words, you know what I 'thought', not what I 'think'. And I'm sticking with my belief that it's a woman's privilege to change her mind. :-)
It's also quite a healthy trait IMHO (though I would say that, wouldn't I?) to adapt our minds to accommodate new facts, information and knowledge along the way, and admit when the evidence is simply not there to prove something. Just as I can't prove (without further evidence) that Weedon had anything to do with the Diary or JtR (and therefore I hope I've learnt from past mistakes and moved on), I am now looking for proof of who did write the Diary.
If that's okay with everyone?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Tuesday, 13 June 2000 - 08:23 am | | Paul
It's 10 years ago I had Latin, and I was never interested enough to memorise one bit, but "Qoud est" is Latin. Only it's too far gone now to check if it was written in the right way (dative, nominative, ....?) It certainly wasn't French (although I know that was a joke on the part of Simon himself).
:-) |
Author: Paul Begg
Tuesday, 13 June 2000 - 09:50 am | | Karoline:- forgive me but you are simply returning to the questions asked back in 1992 - is it genuine, an old forgery or a modern forgery? - and in reciting the 'Mike-and-Ann-did-it-for-financial-gain' liturgy you have totally ignored the questions and criticisms people have raised about it. Can we move on a bit? And how about giving us your thoughts on those questions rather than going on about things which haven't been said? You go on at great length about there being no mystery about incompetence as if somebody - I think me - has ever said there was. I think you are working to your own agenda again.
The incompetence of the forgers has not been an issue, except to wonder whether anyone who has no knowledge of forgery and no knowledge of the subject matter they intend to forge would seriously embark on a forgery as the means of making money. It's like me deciding to secure my financial future by becoming an actor, doing a blockbuster movie, winning an Oscar and demanding millions for my next movie. I mean, acting is just pretending to be something you're not isn't it? Any fool can do it! Or although I know nothing about forgery, I'll forge a document on a subject I know nothing about and I'll sell it for pots to a publisher. Easy! Hi ho, hi ho, and off to the bank I go… You seriously do buy that idea Karoline?
Sorry to sound fecetious. I'm not trying to be rude or to get at you. I'm simply trying to convey how unlikely it sounds to me that an ordinary Liverpool couple would seriously imagine that the answer to their financial worries was forging the 'diary'. Especially when there had been the high-profile Hitler diaries debacle and when there were other (legal) alternatives.
You mention Konrad Kujau's decidedly slipshod and homemade forgeries, but Kujau didn't just come home from cleaning windows one day and over a plate of sauerkraut and franks decide to forge a document about something he knew nothing, deceive all the experts and flog it to a publisher for big money. Kujau knew his subject, was a seasoned forger, sold to amateur and unquestioning enthusiasts who were unlikely to seek authentication, and did this from a background of having been an established dealer and collector of genuine Nazi memorabilia. And he didn't set out to fool the world at large, as you have it that Mike and Ann did, but to deceive fanatical collectors like Fritz Stiefel who wanted to believe. The Barratts and Kuhau are apples and pears, Karoline.
But okay, Mike and Ann forged the diary for financial gain. Which of them put the ink on the paper? If neither of them - and even Peter Birchwood acknowledges that the 'diary' writing doesn't look like either Mike or Ann's hand - then no matter how comfortably obvious the 'Mike-and-Ann-did-it-for-financial-gain' theory may be, it is getting awfully close to being flushed. And if by some chance it isn't the solution, what is?
The current speculation isn't 'ultimately non-productive', Karoline. If it seems probable that, say, Mike had no part in or knowledge about the forgery, and if it is shown that the 'diary' was not penned by Ann, then an alternative hypothesis must be sought - and that hypothesis might just bring us one step closer to resolving this mystery.
Caz:- as interesting as your thoughts on Mr. 'Nobody' would be, please resist the temptation to expound them as there is just a chance that they might divert attention away from the awkward questions being asked :-) |
Author: Paul Begg
Tuesday, 13 June 2000 - 10:03 am | | Jill:- Ah, Latin! The benefits of a classical education are so rarely enjoyed these days. How I miss those halcyon days when Martin Fido and I would walk through the leafy parks of Oxford spending entire days conversing in nothing but Latin. Except, of course, when we entered a hostelry to slake our thist with a fruit juice or coffee, both of us being staunch teatotallers! And if you'll believe that....
lapsus calami means 'a slip of the pen', calammi being derived from the word calamus, which was a type of reed used as a pen. That's wot this 'ere book sez! |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 13 June 2000 - 12:07 pm | | And that, as they say, is 'quod erat demonstrandum'! (Only know 'cos I did maths and Latin at school. The language choice was either Latin or German then, but it was Hobson's choice 'cos they made me pick Latin. Good if you happen to pick up the odd centurion outside Beggy's hostelry. :-))
Paul,
I was wondering myself only yesterday when poor old dead Mr Nobody would be dragged in again as....surely not a diversionary tactic? I will resist the temptation, as I have for some months now, although I notice Martin Fido on another board defending Lupin Pooter as possibly the only type of lower middle-class punter who might stray to the East for a bit of hanky-panky!! :-)
Much as I'm enjoying all this, I've just returned from town and have three posts to type from Keith so I'll catch y'all later.
Love,
Caz |
Author: David M. Radka
Tuesday, 13 June 2000 - 12:25 pm | | Very rarely is Latin actually spoken anymore, even in the highest halls of academe. If Martin and Paul were strolling about speaking Latin, that would be a high achievement indeed, really something to hear. They'd have to either be discussing nothing but matters for which the language was developed, such as horses, swords, and the like, or be creating real new Latin forms to depict contemporaneous realities, resurrecting the dead language. Having had a classical education myself, with six years of Latin and Greek, let me offer my compliments to them both.
David |
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