In The Liberody

Prior to Keith Skinner making the Barrett/Gray tapes available, I said that if he did this, I would make public a document in my possession which, on one interpretation, could be said to be helpful to diary defenders.

Nobody seemed to notice this promise, and it played no part in Keith Skinner releasing the tapes, but, nevertheless, I did make the promise and now I'm finally getting around to fulfilling it.

Below is an undated and hitherto unknown document in Mike Barrett's handwriting, with his terrible spelling and capitalisation, apparently addressed to Paul Feldman about the the line on page 43 of the diary which reads:

"Oh costly intercourse

of death"

albeit that Mike writes it as "Oh sweet intercourse of death" even though he appears to be enclosing something (a copy of a page from the Sphere History of Literature?) which must contain the correct wording. At the Cloak & Dagger club meeting in April 1999, Mike also initially misremembered the diary line as being "Oh sweet intercourse of death" but he then got it right at the second attempt. Beneath the document is a transcript I've created in which, as we can all see the original document, I have corrected the spelling and capitalisation, changing for example "LiBerody" to "library" which is what one assumes Mike was trying to write:

"Dear Paul,

As promised, please find enclosed, 'Oh sweet intercourse of death'.

I want you to know I did really find it in the library.

It reads 'O sweet intercourse of deaths.'

I have a big problem though. Because you want me to tell you the truth.

I also find it in a book we (meaning Anne) had.

It is a long story."

It can only be imagined that Mike was enclosing for Feldman's benefit a copy of page 184 of Volume 2 of the Sphere History of Literature, entitled English Poetry and Prose 1540-1674, in which one finds an extract from a 1646 poem by Richard Crashaw called "Sancta Maria Dolorum" which reads:

"O costly intercourse

Of deaths, & worse,

Divided loves. While son & mother

Discourse alternate wounds to one another."

We know that Mike spoke on the telephone to Martine Rooney of Duocrave, Paul Feldman's company, on Friday 30th September 1994, to inform her (for Feldman's benefit) that he had found the source of the quote and that he had the book in front of him. By way of confirmation that he had the book in front of him, Mike also told her that the first line was rendered in the book as 'O costly..." whereas in the diary it was wrongly written as "Oh costly...". On Monday 3rd October, Mike called Shirley Harrison to inform her too that he had found the line, which he said was by Richard Crashaw, in Volume 6 (apparently) of the Sphere History Of Literature in the Liverpool Library but he didn't have the page reference, so Shirley told him to return to the library to get it. Shirley immediately called Keith Skinner whose note of the call reads

'Mike seems to have found “Oh Costly Intercourse of Death” – quite by chance. Is in the Sphere Companion To English Literature Vol 6 (MB thinks) – did not even make a note of it!’

Three days later, on Thursday 6th October, the Liverpool Central Library faxed Shirley the relevant page of the correct volume (Volume 2) of the Sphere History of Literature.

That being so, what can Mike possibly have meant when he told Feldman that he also found the Crashaw line in "a book we (meaning Anne) had"?

I suggest he is referring here to the fact that, as outlined on page 145 of Inside Story by Linder, Skinner and Morris, Sphere Books had donated several volumes from their literary criticism series to Mike, at his request, to assist with a charity appeal for victims of the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster, "including a volume containing an essay on Crashaw". Mike had put the books in the attic and forgotten about them but, in the summer of 1994, had taken them round to the son of his friend, Jenny Morrison. Jenny confirmed to Shirley Harrison that this story was true. Mike did have the Sphere volumes including Volume 2:

These days Caroline Morris doesn't seem to like the information found in her own book and will not concede that Mike was in possession of Volume 2, although she accepts that he did have other volumes from the series in his possession prior to March 1992.

But let's face it. Sphere Books were hardly likely to have sent out an incomplete set for a charity appeal. The overwhelming likelihood is that they sent out all the volumes in the series and that Mike was in possession of Volume 2 containing the Crashaw quote as at 9th March 1992.

In fact, Caroline Morris' theory that Mike didn't have Volume 2 is based on a mistake by Mike at the 1999 Cloak & Dagger event when he said he only had 9 of the 12 Sphere volumes, so that three were missing. But what Mike didn't know (and what Caroline Morris also did not know) is that Sphere never published all 12 volumes, even though they originally intended to. They only ever published 9 volumes in the set created in the 1970s and 8 volumes in the set created in the 1980s (see History of Sphere).

A note by Keith Skinner dated 5th December 1996 reads:

"Jenny still has Sphere volumes minus the relevant one which Mike took when he left + £70!

KS asked Shirley to see whether we could get hold of these books from Jenny."

That is clear confirmation by Jenny that, at one point, she had all the volumes, including Volume 2, but that Mike took away Volume 2 when he left.

You can't get much clearer evidence than that.

Diary defenders like to jabber on about coincidence and this is a coincidence too far. That the person who produced the diary to the world had in his possession the obscure volume about English literature which contained the even more obscure quote of a sixteenth century poet which none of the researchers in the diary team had been able to locate in two years of searching cannot possibly be a coincidence.

So how do the diary defenders deal with it?

Well they have a whole variety of strategies to throw dust in our eyes and make us think that what seems such crystal clear evidence of Mike having been involved in the diary forgery plot is no such thing.

As I've mentioned, Caroline Morris likes to pretend that Mike didn't have Volume 2 even though her own book says that he did, and her claim that he did not is based on a simple factual misunderstanding. As I've said, if he had some volumes sent to him by Sphere, as corroborated by Jenny Morrison, he must have had them all.

So they like to focus on the fact that Mike didn't claim to find the Crashaw quote in the book in his attic but in a book in the Liverpool Central Library. As to that, according to a note taken by Keith Skinner of a call with Feldman on 7th October 1994:

"MB had been asking everybody at Liverpool Library whether they knew source for ‘O costly…’"

No evidence from a single such person has ever been produced and Feldman does not say how he obtained this information. My guess is that he assumed that this is what Mike had done. Skinner's note, incidentally, reads, "Carol Emmas supports this" which strikes me as meaningless because it could simply mean that she supported Feldman's theory.

Shirley Harrison's attempt to undermine Barrett's discovery also involved the unsupported claim that Mike was given the answer by the staff at Liverpool Central Library who he "badgered", with the additional claim being made by Shirley for good measure that she had sent Mike Barrett to the library to locate the source of the quote in the first place. Hence, she said in her 1998 book:

'Without success we had hunted high and low in anthologies to find it. I asked Michael to look in the Liverpool library. He badgered the staff there for help and sure enough he rang me within a few days and told me, '"You will find it in the Sphere History of English Literature, Volume 2. It is by Richard Crashaw".

This, however, is not supported by her contemporary account of events for, on 11th October 1994, she told Keith Skinner:

"MB v. upset (w/b Sept 26th 1994) by remarks in p/back about him being alcoholic…determined to do something serious about this he spends week in L’pool library trying to find source of O Costly Intercourse (p231 of Shirley’s p/back)"

So the truth is that Mike sought to find the source of the quote on his own initiative. Not at the direction of Shirley Harrison, as she would later claim. Her summary of Mike's motivation may or may not be correct but it doesn't change the fact that Mike found the quote in the library. Shirley's claim in her book that Mike "badgered" the staff at the library in order to locate the source of the quote was not mentioned in her contemporaneous 1994 note and is not supported by any evidence.

Is there a problem if Mike found the quote in a book in the Liverpool library, not in the same volume of that book which was supposedly sitting in his attic at the time?

I would say no. It can be easily imagined that when the diary was forged, Mike, or possibly even Anne, used a line from Crashaw's poem which was in a copy of the book in their house. Two years later, however, Mike could easily have either forgotten which exact book the quote was from or, more likely, knew, at least vaguely, which book it was but couldn't find it in his house. So he simply went to Liverpool Central Library to check their copy. Having a good idea what it was he was looking for, he would have had an advantage over everyone else. I suggest that this is how it was done and that this is entirely consistent with him owning the book and being the forger.

We do, of course, have Mike telling Feldman, "I also find it in a book we (meaning Anne) had" and saying that it was a long story. One can only assume that the long story involved the Hillsborough charity appeal. Why he said the book belonged to Anne is anyone's guess. It may be that she was more involved in the charity appeal than we know. Or she might have appropriated the set of books for herself.

The silliest diary defender argument goes that as the Crashaw quote was in one of the books in Liverpool Central Library all Mike had to do was read all the books about literature and poetry in the library and he was always going to find it. Right. And by the same token, if you're looking for a needle in a haystack, all you have to do is examine every piece of hay and you will find the needle.

I mean, sure, if you're going into Liverpool Central Library and you know with 100% certainty that the Crashaw quote is in one of what Keith Skinner described as the "vast oasis" of books on the shelves, you give yourself a decent chance of finding it as long as you carefully read every single page of every single book relating to English literature and poetry. But if you have no idea whether the Crashaw quote will or will not be in any of the books on the shelves, it's an entirely different matter. It would then be an enormous task to embark upon reading all the books not knowing if what you are looking for is even there. It's the equivalent of looking for that needle in the haystack without having any certainty that there even is a needle in the haystack. Yes, if you combed the entire haystack you will find the needle, if it's there, but who the hell is going to have that level of motivation and concentration, let alone time?

The rest of the discussion about the Sphere book then gets into a murky area because Mike claimed to have lodged a copy of the book he'd received from the publisher with his solicitor which he then retrieved from from his solicitor in December 1994 (although the solicitor claims not to have known anything about it) and gave to Alan Gray who sold it to Keith Skinner in August 2004 for one hundred pounds. The point here is that the volume sold to Keith Skinner looks old and battered (and apparently contains student annotations), not brand new like an unused book which the publishers would surely have provided for a charity appeal. This is a copy of that book:

The problem here is that there is no proof that the book sold to Keith Skinner by Alan Gray in 2004 is the same book that Gray received from Barrett ten years earlier. After all, such a volume purchased second-hand would probably have cost less than a pound, so Gray could easily have scammed Skinner out of £99 for a virtually worthless book. All Gray would have needed to do was write on the back page:

'This book handed to me by Michael Barrett outside his solicitors office, 8 Dale Street, Liverpool 7 on Tuesday 6th December 1994.

Mr Barrett referred me to page 184

“O’ costly intercourse of Deaths” which he says he quoted with ‘Ann Barrett’ in the Diary of Jack The Ripper which they wrote.'

with an additional note on the inside back cover reading

'Miss Harrison Th 19 Jan 1995 Tried to get hold of Book

For the sake of those few words, which appeared to Keith Skinner authenticate the book, Gray would have been quids in. And there is good reason to think he might well have done this. For, two years before he sold the book to Skinner, it was in the possession of Melvin Harris.

In a Casebook post dated 16 February 2002 posted by Peter Birchwood on his behalf, Harris wrote:

'As for the Sphere book, it was given to Gray by Mike. Gray has now given it to me."

By August 2004, Harris was dead, having died in January of that year. It's difficult to imagine how Gray would have regained possession of the book in order for him to sell it to Keith Skinner. Harris was clear in 2002 that Gray had given it to him. Not lent it, but given it.

So put yourself in Gray's position in August 2004. Keith Skinner is prepared to pay him £100 for a copy of the Sphere book which he thinks Gray still has, despite the post of Melvin Harris above. Is Gray going to tell Keith Skinner that he no longer has it? Or is he going finally going to be able to make some money out of the diary by selling him a cheap second-hand copy?

That might just be exactly what happened. Gray would have been able to check the date he took the book from Barrett without any difficulty. It's on one of the tapes. He probably also had a record of when Shirley tried to get hold of the book. So the fact that he was able to write the correct dates inside the book can hardly be said to confirm authenticity. Keith Skinner could easily have fallen victim to the old switcheroo tactic.

We're also told by diary defenders that Mike knew nothing about the Sphere book until after 31st September1994 and that his call to Martine on that date was the first he knew of its existence. But according to Alan Gray, speaking to Melvin Harris, he (Gray) was first told about an "evidential book" by Mike in August 1994 when he was engaged to search for his wife. When he was re-engaged by Mike during the first week of September in order to expose the diary, the book was mentioned to him variously as a poem book, a Sphere book about poems, and a Sphere book of poetry. While there is no confirmed proof of this, and we have to rely on Gray's memory that this occurred in early September, it has never been refuted either. If all Mike could remember about the book was that it was a Sphere book, this would have helped him find it relatively fast in the Liverpool library.

At the same time, Keith Skinner made a note of an ansaphone message left by Shirley Harrison on 11th October 1994, apparently based on what Mike had told her, which said:

"During Mike’s serious week at library, when he found the reference, he later recalled that he had these particular books, which were the ones he had loaned to James. Mike insisted he discovered the reference for himself at the library - and nobody did it for him."

It is, however, stretching credulity too far to believe that Mike found the reference in the Sphere book and only then realised that he had the exact same Sphere book at home. No, regardless of what Mike might have told Shirley in October 1994, it has to be the other way round.

It may be noted that on 13th October 1994, Mike had a 30 minute telephone conversation with his solicitor Richard Bark Jones and the notes of his assistant, Liz Winter record Mike saying:

“O sweet intercourse of death”, Vol 2 P 184. In diary. Santa [sic] Maria 1643-1652. Found phrase in library."

Once again we have Mike confusing the word "costly" with "sweet". But on 10 April 1999 while Keith Skinner was asking him about Maybrick's Will, Mike blurted out unprompted:

"Oh Costly Intercourse of Death.  Hang on.  Spell. “Oh costly intercourse of death”.  Ask everybody here to spell it."

He was obviously focusing here on the spelling of the word "Oh", as opposed to "O", but it shows that he could get the "costly" part right even though he'd said "Oh sweet intercourse of death" earlier in the evening and went on to repeat "Oh sweet intercourse of death" after having correctly used the word "costly".

Here, for the record, is the full explanation by Mike (MB) from the Cloak & Dagger event in April 1999 of how he came to own the Sphere book and why the line was included in the book. as told to Keith Skinner (KS):

KS: 1712, right.  Nobody could actually trace the source of this quote.  It defied everyone.  It defied astonishingly Martin Fido. It defied Don Rumbelow.  No-one is surprised at that (laughter).

MB: Rum, you are, no offence, bloody clever.

KS: And the one person who identified it was Mike Barrett.  Not only did Mike ident-  Tell us about it.  Why did you include it, what does it mean?

MB: Right. Slowly but surely, let’s start from the beginning. Hillsborough happened.

KS: Ten years ago to the day almost. 1989.

MB: Thank you very much.  Hillsborough happened. And I’m not saying this to get sympathy.  I’ve always been a charity raiser, do you understand?  I enjoy, you know, giving back to our society… and I sent away to a lot of people, right, all the people I’ve interviewed, like Bonnie Langford, Cliff Richard and people like that, Ken Dodd, do you understand what I mean, could you all literally send, you know, something –

KS: An appeal to help the victims.

MB: To help the victims and, I’m not being funny, but Hillsborough was a very, to us Liverpudlians, and I mean that, it was devastating, you know, to see 94 victims or 96 now as it happens to die on a field at Hillsborough and Liverpool was totally devastated, and I mean totally devastated, we were all gutted, that’s probably the word, gutted, so I thought to myself I’ll do something heroic so I picked up the phone… and I started phoning up, I said, er, I hope you don’t mind me asking, I hope you haven’t got any objections, but would you mind sending me all sorts of things.  So I got, literally, Ken Dodd’s stick, Jimmy Cricket sent me a couple of books and what have you and an awful lot of people, Stan Boardman sent me his German helmet (laughter), no I’m being serious, this was an auction, this was an auction, right.

KS: What actually happened was that Mike was sent the 12 volumes of Sphere’s English Literature.

MB: What they done, it wasn’t 12 volumes.

KS: However many volumes.

MB: 9 volumes.

KS: 9 volumes. You say no-one’s going to buy this-

MB: Three missing.* [*Lord Orsam note: Keith Skinner was wrong to say that there were 12 volumes of Sphere's English Literature. There were intended to be 12 in the series but in the set published in the 1980s, there were only ever 8 volumes. According to Melvin Harris, Mike's copy of the Sphere Volume 2 book was the 1986 (second hardback) edition. An earlier set published in the 1970s did have 9 volumes. Hence, despite Mike saying that there were "three missing" volumes, that was not the case. If he had 8 or more volumes, he must have received the entire set. See History of Sphere for more on this.]

KS:  No-one’s going to buy, up they go in the attic you forget about it, you remembered it when you were creating the diary.

MB: Quite right.

KS: Why?

MB: Because I read them and I enjoyed reading them, and I totally enjoyed reading them, they were good.  They give me an awful lot of knowledge. Right, And I found this “O sweet intercourse”.

KS: Did you remember that line when you were creating the diary?

MB: Yes, and that’s when Anne made a mistake because I went O-h and that’s the correct pronunciation and Anne went O. 

KS: How did she make that mistake?

MB: Well I’m working on a word processor…

KS: And she’s writing the diary?

MB: And she’s writing the diary at the back of it.

KS: You’re dictating as you go along?

MB: Yes.

KS: I’m with you. And you say write this down “O costly intercourse of deaths”.

MB: And what Anne does, she’s a bloody fool.

KS: This is women for you. She puts an “h” on it.

MB Oh.  I think we’ve got a hell of an audience here tonight. If I ask everybody to spell O H, right, ‘o sweet intercourse of death’ I wouldn’t know how many people out of this room would put “oh”.

KS: The other extraordinary thing about it is.  What is the line?

MB: ‘O sweet intercourse of death’.

KS: I looked at the line and it’s actually “O costly intercourse of deaths”.

MB: Of deaths.

KS: Plural. Why did you leave the ‘s’ off?

MB: Why do you think?

KS: I don’t know.

MB: Jack the Ripper who is supposed to write the diary is totally illiterate, he’s doing this.

KS: James Maybrick is totally illiterate?

MB: Yes, well I wouldn’t say he’s totally illiterate but you understand what I mean. You’ve got to make mistakes here and you’ve got to make mistakes there.  That’s how the diary is [inaudible] genuine.

KS: Here’s why-

MB: If it was too well written, right, and I tell you this Keith and I mean it, I’m very, very, serious, if it was too well written, right, and I mean it, right, nobody would have believed it.

KS: Here’s where I get a problem, Mike, because you say, and I bring this to back you up, you say you create the diary, the text of the diary on your word processor, you give it to Shirley.

MB: By the way ladies and gentlemen, I just want to prove-

KS Hang on,  because it’s in your favour.

MB I know it’s in my favour but -

KS: Let me finish because, here it is, I turn to “Oh costly intercourse of death”, you’d written that, the stupid wife of yours, she puts an “h” on it.

MB: O H apostrophe.

KS: But in the transcript, on what you’ve written, it’s “O-h”, now “O-h costly intercourse of death”.

MB: I haven’t written that transcript.

KS: Oh this isn’t yours?

MB Hang on a minute let me have a look, that’s if you don’t mind.

KS: Of course….that’s all my stuff.

MB: That’s all yours. Right [inaudible]

KS: So this isn’t your original text?

MB: No.

KS Are you saying-

MB: “…..Sweet sugar and tea could have paid my small fee but instead I did flee.”

KS: I’m with you, what you have done is made a transcript of a transcript?

MB: Yes.

KS: Right. That clears that up.

MB: And damn it the tin box was empty. Robert.  I’ll tell you something. Damn it the tin box was empty.  Paul Harrison in 1889 (sic), I don’t suppose you’re here by the way, Paul Harrison in his itinerary and I mean literally in his itinerary says “damn it the match box was empty”. Check with Paul Harrison. The matchbox is empty.

KS: This is extraordinary, the empty tin matchbox.  It is sheer brilliance but it’s also what damns you because the empty tin matchbox is what gives us our 1987 date.  Why did you include it? How did you come to include that tiny tiny detail?

MB: Because I’m a writer full stop.  Okay ladies and gentlemen, sorry, I’m going to stop this now. No I will stop it.  First of all I’m dying for a pint. Anybody buying me a pint.  I’ve been sitting here I haven’t had a drink or anything.   Right. Damn it the tin box was empty [inaudible section]…God bless you….[mumbling]

KS: I’ve taken the gloss off your finest hour which is “Oh costly intercourse of death” and I feel this is so good for you. Anyone got any questions?

MB: Hang on.  Why did I write “Oh costly intercourse of death?” That’s a question you asked me.  You want to get the answer.  I thought it was very, very, good.  I thought the Hillsborough disaster appeal, do you understand what I mean. 

KS: I understand the background to it.

MB: The background

KS: Why did you include it in the Diary?

MB: So I was reading the book, and I love reading, and I thought to myself that’s a cracking line, and I mean, that’s a real cracking line.  I’m talking scouse now, you understand what I mean: “cracking line”

KS: So a line which stayed with you when you were-

MB: All the way through. And I thought to myself -

KS: [interrupting]  You were waiting for the right moment to use it. Within the context of how you used it. Explain how, what it means within the context because I didn’t understand it.

MB: Jack the Ripper is a murderer.

KS: No, what does-

MB: That’s what  “Oh sweet intercourse of death”.  The way I’m looking at it, when I’m boom boom boom, boom, boom, boom, Jack the Ripper is a murderer, factual, right, he’s killed five women, right, Mary Kelly and what have you. Boom boom boom  And I say to myself now this man’s a madman.  He’s got to be a madman because he’s killed five women. Do you understand what I mean?  So I’m saying to myself.  Maybrick is an arsenic eater.  Can you understand where I’m coming from.  Maybrick is literally an arsenic eater.  So I’ve got Jack the Ripper on one side of the coin, and I’ve got Maybrick on the other side of the coin.

So we have Mike's explanation that he read the Sphere book, saw the extract from the Crashaw poem, thought it contained "a cracking line" about costly intercourse of death and thus used it in the fake diary of Jack the Ripper.

An additional part of the story is that at one point, some years after 1999, after being pressed by Robert Smith, Barrett is supposed to have admitted to him that his copy of the Sphere book which he gave to Alan Gray was acquired in a second-hand bookshop. The problem with this is that Mike Barrett seemed to like telling people what they wanted to hear. No doubt Smith had been persistent in asking him where the book came from and Mike knew that if he told him he'd bought it second-hand, Smith would be satisfied and stop asking any more questions

CONCLUSION

To the extent that the note I've produced is helpful to diary defenders it's because it seems to suggest that Mike found the Crashaw quote in Liverpool Central Library independently of the Sphere book he owned and that the Sphere book was Anne's book, although that part doesn't really help them much. Mike was, however, prone to telling lies so not much can be taken from his note.

The note itself would appear to be dated around 6th October 1994 when Shirley Harrison received a faxed copy of the relevant page from the Sphere book. It may be that this is what Mike enclosed for Paul Feldman's benefit. It's unclear if Feldman ever received the note because it seems to have been kept by Mike.

Overall, though, the fact that Mike (a) was able to locate the source of the mysterious quote from the dairy and (b) possessed a rare copy of the Sphere History of Literature in which the Crashaw quote could be found, on its own strongly suggests that he was involved in the plot to create a forged diary of Jack the Ripper in 1992.

LORD ORSAM

15 October 2026