To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

The real Salt Path: how the couple behind a bestseller le...

I read Raynor Winn's book The Salt Path and her other two books. I was looking forward to seeing the film at some point and to reading her next book. I felt sorry to read about the challenges the couple had faced, especially with regard to losing their family home and with Moth's health. Now, having read the article in today's Observer, I feel a bit stunned and am not sure what to think.

I read it a long time ago, but I remember thinking how self centred 'Raynor' was in - as a PP puts it - dragging 'Moth' hundreds of miles along a cliff path. I'm glad that my spidey senses were proved right and I hope that there are consequences to this level of fraud.

faffadoodledo

Possibly or a little strange maybe that a film with Gillian Anderson and a huge book deal would have let something like that get through and only one newspaper looks into it?

eta is just really all the people saying ‘vindicated’ or I knew it on the basis of one article. Yes could be totally one hundred percent true but also could be one lady selling a story (and honestly could be either)

Three friends and myself did South West Coastal path July 1978. Passages in The Salt Path DID NOT match The South-West Peninsula Coastal Path published LettsGuide in 1978 and 1980 a copy of which I own. The section we walked from Hartland Point, Longpeak, Chisel Ridge, Welcombe Mouth is extremely challenging with 3 very steep combes to climb and descend. No-one with walking difficulties carrying 40 pound ruck sack could have navigated these stretches of coast!! In my view. My three friends and myself were in our twenties and reasonably fit and we wild-camped the whole time. We went for two weeks and only got to Porthtowen! I kept a diary and photos, sadly two of my friends are no longer with us. Happy Days!!

Strange that their 'real' name is Walker.
If that is their real name.
Now I'm doubting everything about them.

It's a pack of lies sold as a true memoir. People reading it will think they are learning about human capacity for healing etc when they may instead end up feeling anxious and guilty because they are failing to match up to fiction. Its unethical and dangerous the way photoshopping models to look even thinner than they aleady are, is dangerous and unethical.

Emperor’s new clothes. No-one wants to be the one saying it out loud and spoiling the parade.
Unless you’re on MN, in which case there is a chorus of vipers singing ‘he’s not wearing any clothes’.

Gotta love the vipers!

Oh dear! I shred this book to pieces at the book club a couple of years back, I left feeling like a cynical negative twat, because everybody waxed lyrical about it. You know when you think maybe you’re the crazy one?

I'm not on there, what's the gist of the replies, please? 😊

@BeCosyExpert . Happy memories!

I second the fact that this walk is absolutely gruelling. The initial climb up out of Minehead would be enough to put most people off.

she must have spent decades trying and failing to get published
There was a piece in May in Big Issue about the book:
"Winn emailed the Big Issue in March 2017, asking to write about the overlooked topic of rural homelessness and the two years she spent living in a tent on the South West Coast path.
“If it hadn’t been for Big Issue, there probably wouldn’t have been The Salt Path book. It’s that fundamental,” Winn explains in this week’s Big Issue."

She know the right buttons to press: homelessness, 'incurable' illness, nasty capitalists, plucky underdogs, ...

Big Issue

Well done for getting that far!
I hadn’t read the book, have only seen the film trailer, and I presumed he had cancer. Not a degenerative disease affecting movement, which would surely rule out rocky paths, let alone scrambling over cliffs.

Investigative journalists don't put their reputations on the line by accepting anything a person says to them.

The investigation has found their property in France, with accompanying documentation, and details about the court case, again with documentation.

That article is based on well-researched court reports, arrest records and the word of individuals who knew at first hand what was going on back up by evidence of contracts and settlements. It's been published in the Observer, a newspaper of standing, which would have had everything fact-checked and referenced and run past the lawyers before publishing.

And yet you're still trying to play the 'how can we know what's true?' card?
You are one of those dangerous people who takes the line that although there is a painstaking record of evidence that adds up and is verified by various individuals and authorities and the courts, it's 'just one lady selling a story?'

The lack of critical thinking astounds me.

Its the journalist describing the facts of the investigation, with an interview of the wife of the husband who Sally/Winn originally stole the money from. The journalist is well respected in what she does. The replies are various but mostly saying they need to give the cash back.

No it couldn’t be either. The Observer will have had this legalled to ensure it’s not defamatory. The journalist makes a living investigating cynical, manipulative liars and finding evidence which does not fit their version of events. Every point the journalist makes is evidenced. You can make your own mind up. I know what I think.

The Observer changed hands recently and most of the long term quality journos lost their jobs. Its chasing clickbait just like everything else now.

I’ve just posted about this on the other thread - that piece is very carefully worded and I’m as sceptical about some of the article claims as I was about the audiobook story (which I enjoyed as an evocative piece of the path but never assumed the story was unvarnished truth).

Ah yes, the trauma of being a second home owner in France, I can see how that would resonate with the Big Issue community

Maybe the relative was desperate as he knew his business was failing and there was going to be nothing to help him retire. Sally / Raynor needed the cash asap so told him her house was mortgage free and he could give them a properly drawn up loan at a ‘good’ rate of interest then declare his business bankrupt and after the business was shut down get his money back plus interest.

Ring-fencing £100k would have looked appealing to the owner of a failing business in his 50s/60s and he thought it would allow him to grift HMRC who are never seen as a victim. In reality Sally / Raynor was grifting the distant relative. Except she hadn’t done her homework properly re being a debtor to a failed business and who debts might be passed onto when a company goes under. (I am not a bankruptcy lawyer so don’t know how likely this scenario is)

@C8H10N4O2
Chloe Hadjimatheou is a quality journalist with a long track record of effective investigation. She’s no click-bait one trick pony.

I’ve not RTFT so apologies if I’m repeating what has already been said.

I’m absolutely amazed that the publisher didn’t do their due diligence, especially when the reason for the loss of the house was patently glossed over.

It's a deliberate hit piece. And half or a third of the story.

True, some things don't add up in the book or the film but the story is still remarkable. And they never intended to be this famous.

I watched the film for the scenery and on that basis, it didn't disappoint.

Given how so much is searchable nowadays online, its very hard to hide, for example, photographs of people before they changed their names, etc. I wonder how much will be unearthed in the next few days. I'm sure this story has a lot left in it to run and won't be going away any time soon.

Compare with how people could seemingly get away with bigamy even in the last century by merely changing their names, moving and starting again. There was a brilliant book by Ferdinand Mount called Kiss Myself Goodbye: The Many Lives of Aunt Munca which told the fascinating life of his uncle's wife who appeared to have been married many times over without ever seeming to have troubled herself with a divorce iirc.

Please explain clearly how the Observer changing hands and some staff leaving undermines this piece?

Please explain clearly what you mean by ‘carefully worded’. Of course it’s carefully worded - it’s been written by someone who writes for a living. She probably takes some care over her word choice and sentence structure. And, I repeat, it will have been past the lawyers to ensure that the points made are true and not actionable.

So what are you suggesting, exactly? Some Tortoise sponsored conspiracy?
If so, please lay it out for us.

yes a lovely lady in our town has this disease and believes that walking will heal her. I hope that she is not taking this too badly.

I was coming on to post exactly this.

I have walked over 100 miles of the SWCP and I have read the book, I found a lot of it unbelievable and I didn't find Raynor Winn likeable at all.

FFS if you are actual adult human and not a Russian bot, I despair.