Thread 2. To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[AWanderingFool]

Thread Two for The Salt Path and Raynor Winn/Sally Walker/Sally Winn discussions.

Thread One is here: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5368194-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Never heard of them. And I’m glad I haven’t!

I don't think he did. He walked a small part of it, I believe before ending up in hospital. His son ran it and Moth watched him at the 25 mile mark.

I think he will have been diagnosed with CBD in good faith. It’s a bizarre thing to make up. Surely you’d pick a more common condition and scans and physical signs can’t be faked.

Try watching Anatomy of Lies - the Sky documentary about the Gray's Anatomy writer who lied about having cancer so she could write on the show bringing her 'authentic experience'. You're watching it agog, because of a similar choice to pick a strain of the disease that is so hard to fake and can't be cured so the scammer is committing to a scenario that seems impossible to pull off over time, and yet there's a brazenness or narcissism or something beyond our ability to fathom that makes these people able and willing to really go for it. It's almost the bigger you go and commit, the less likely anyone is to call you on it even though lots of people can feel uncomfortable and like something doesn't add up. It's an astonishing story and the cancer is only part of it, but just mentioning it here to say don't assume that just because a normal person thinks it's a bizarre choice, that that's any kind of argument for it not having happened. The kind of people who happily cross lines to steal £££ from their employers don't have the kind of compunction you're imagining and will think in very different ways to you or I.

People like stories of hope that have a beginning middle and end and lots of people like to go on holiday in Cornwall.

😀

There’s a justgiving for this year (he didn’t run) that states he ran the year before

This came up on the last thread but can we stop calling a professional investigative journalist 'the Observer lady'? It's not the 70s!

If they had any evidence to refute the assertions in the article their lawyer would have provided it

I'm absolutely late to the party but thanks to the OP for starting the threads! When I read the book a couple years ago I remember thinking "meh if 10% of any of it is true I'd be massively surprised", sounds like 10% was generous 🤣

Wasn't even a particularly good book - if it wasn't for the amazing cover art and the promise of it being a "true memoir" then it wouldn't have become such a phenomenon...

Apple Cider Vinegar vibes, as many have said!
Shocked at Penguin who seem not to care about doing any due diligence - I suppose that same as with Belle Gibson, they just didn't want to know - more profitable this way.

Can't wait for the inevitable Netflix documentary 😂❤️

I doubt it was enforceable even when he was alive.

As far as I know Stephen Hawking did not claim that his longetivity was due to his personal choices, or that he had managed to reverse the progress of his condition.

Same grift vibes as Captain Tom (who I think was just as bad as his vile daughter).

I share the unease about speculating about someone's diagnosis and whether they look ill enough for it to seem plausible, though of course when someone is found to have been guilty of such large scale deceit it's inevitable that people will wonder if anything they've said is true.

My guess is that his medical situation is one of the true bits she's built the structure of lies around, and the reason they haven't issued a rebuttal yet is that they're going to focus it on his poor health and use that to draw attention away from the fraud and the theft and the lies about properties etc.

I find this with a lot of nature and travel writing, to be honest. The audience laps up description of a heartfelt reaction to a landscape, because we too know how it is to feel a sort of awe, or connection (we are just animals at the end of the day, of course we feel environmental awareness).

But most often it covers up a sort of navel gazing, selective view that says more about the writer. And usually ignores the people who work the landscape now, who did for millennia and have shaped it. If nature writers acknowledge anyone who is there, they often romanticise lives of utter hardship and graft and sometimes abuse by actual landowners. I think it says a lot about readers that they don't look into the social history of a landscape, they just look for holiday destinations and a feeling of escape or 'special' connection.

Yes. The 'But you don't look sick'. And the 'Well I saw you walking to the shops fine last week and today you have a walking stick'. etc.

I always thought it was odd and very selfish of her to drag him around the south of the country seemingly whilst he was dying.

Wouldn't he have been entitled to respite care of some sort?

Last page of Landlines. I hadn’t read it - was given it for Christmas so read The Salt Path first and it irritated me so much I didn’t go on to read the others.

Starmer's a lawyer we need a national inquiry and a Royal Commission to investigate !! (not really!) The Court of Mumsnet is enough.

I daren’t say - they stalk platforms like this and are vicious in their response.

I just wanted to share just how difficult it is to get people to see the truth even if you follow the correct procedures and have written evidence. The public would rather believe social media posts and a good story then someone trying to disclose the truth. The whistleblowers are cast as the villains for not believing in the cause.

I for one am angry and disappointed. I enjoyed the book (thought it was an inspirational story) and defended the author and her husband on a thread here. I also bought a copy of it as a present for a family member.

What made the book more convincing was that the couple seemed a bit inept. The narrative was that they lost their house because they dabbled in an investment and got badly burnt. They didn't understand the ramifications and that their house had been put up as security. There have been lots of stories in the news about people being conned, sometimes by their own friends and family members. Lots of financial pyramid schemes out there. So that part of the story sounded quite convincing.

And they underestimated how difficult the walk was (that difficulty was exacerbated by their lack of planning and supplies). IIrc, they ran out of time and winter was coming. So they had to abandon the walk and resume it the following year. Again, that sounded like an honest account. If they had faked the walk, I would have expected them to complete it in the planned time frame.

So, I suppose all that remains is to establish what's true and what's fake.

We know that the circumstances in which they lost their house are very different to how they portrayed it in the book.

We know that they weren't truly homeless, but owned a property in France.

The big question is, was Moth diagnosed with the medical condition as described in the book?

Did they ever walk the South West Coast path? And if Moth doesn't have that serious medical condition, then it's just a story about an average, middle aged couple taking on a rather arduous hike. It would have been a very different story (and book).

I would love to be a fly on the wall in the publishing company today.

We read it quite recently in our book club and it generated very mixed opinions. When we resume in September, I think it will make for an interesting discussion.

If she got 5% royalties on 2m books sold at £10 she now has £1m plus whatever she got for the film rights. And possibly some for tv, festival appearances etc

Minus 20% to her agent and taxes.

She may have got more than 5%-8% per book as publishing deals often have a clause where if a book sells more than x number, royalties go up.

Whataboutery at it's finest. You obviously don't know history 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts', anyone?? Imagine posting in Mumsnet sticking up for the Zeig Heil. LOL. Sad.

I don’t think it says anything about its readership. Readers took the story in good faith, as a feelgood narrative about overcoming adversity and going on a literal and metaphorical journey plus a few home truths about homelessness— it’s quite obvious to me why an agent was interested, why it sold to an editor, and did well.

What interests me as a thought experiment is whether in fact it would have done equally well if RW had been more upfront about the reason their house was repossessed (‘I stole money and took out a loan from a family member to repay it and avoid prosecution, and that loan was sold on and our house was repossessed, so we went on the run to avoid other creditors’). It might, if she’d sounded sufficiently sorry.

I feel sorry for Jason Isaacs. He obviously felt a huge amount of compassion for the two grifters.

Ooops..