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?

PMK

I wonder if the CBD charity will make further comment.

This is the web archive page relating to ‘Raynor and Moth’ .

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250501010702/www.pspassociation.org.uk/information-and-support/living-with-psp-cbd/personal-experiences/raynor-and-moths-story/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20250501010702/www.pspassociation.org.uk/information-and-support/living-with-psp-cbd/personal-experiences/raynor-and-moths-story/

Not difficult to understand why a small charity would want to use the publicity generated by the books and film - but did they question the story, or consider how helpful it really is to people with this diagnosis?

I thought the Walkers had made Ros Hemmings sign an NDA about the embezzlement? Or did I imagine that and it was just money returned for dropping the case?

I haven't read the book or watched the film but found the article very interesting!

And be the first actor in history to win a Bafta/Oscar etc for both 😂 please make this happen!

I wonder what part of the Observer articles they could say are misleading.

They own property in France, they weren't homeless, and they had assets when they said they had nothing

They didn't invest with an old friend who then shafted them, she embezzled money, then borrowed money to pay that off, then they had their house reposessed when the debt was called in

He supposedly has been diagnosed with CBD but is miraculously atill alive, and doing not bad, 18 years later.

@Aspanielstolemysanity
completely agree with your post on the first thread. It’s hard enough for people to get the care they need without all this miraculous cure stuff. Have you tried non-dairy/non-gluten/vegan/walking/cycling/eating spinach/not eating spinach/howling at the moon at 9.17pm on the second Tuesday of each month with five Saturdays? No, you haven’t? Are you even trying not to be ill? In fact can’t you just try that? Say, I’m not ill and you’ll be great! Where’s your willpower 🙄

I think it was her husband who signed it.

They could have married abroad, in which case it wouldn't show - it was beginning to get popular to marry abroad in the late 1980s

They made her husband sign an NDA I think, rather than her.

I think if she'd signed one too she might be in bother (although perhaps not if criminality is involved).

yes, and he is no longer alive

That does make sense, but why is every reference about them being ‘husband and wife’ rather than just being partners? I know some people refer to their partner as being their husband/wife even when they’re not actually married, but just seems a bit strange that journalists would also repeat that rather than being more precise.

Oh yes, true. But if you marry abroad, does that mean you’re not legally married in the U.K.? I’m never quite sure what the legal ins and outs of that are.

I thought her husband signed the NDA, and he is now dead. Presumably she doesn’t inherit it.

But might also explain why this has taken so long to come out.

My Mam has CBD, I haven't read the book or seen the film, but am aware of their story.
CBD is an incurable degenerative disease. Whilst, I'm sure everyone's symptoms are different, even when she first diagnosed she couldn't walk far. Its something that really struck me about the story.
Mam is 6 years post diagnosis, 9 years post first symptoms. Whilst its incurable, she is only recently classed as terminally ill.

I'm doubtful that we will ever have the full picture, which is frustrating.

If they are not married and the French property is in his name only then she could rightly claim to be homeless . Moot point but I don't think that it would technically be untrue ...

Even so , definitely lying grifters imo

I wonder what part of the Observer articles they could say are misleading.

She didn’t take £60k reported.

It was more 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Yes - and thinking about it, the implication is not actually that this was a miracle cure, but that he did x and therefore y happened.

I read The Salt Path and thought it was wonderful. Then her second one I thought was rubbish, and I recently read the third, Landlines.

And what struck me when reading the last one was that she talks about Tim being just about crippled by his illness so she decides they need to go walking again, and this time they head off on some ridiculously dangerous walk in Scotland.

All the time I was thinking to myself, if walking allieviated his symptons then why had they not done any walking since the previous book? Why had they come home, and not walked, and he'd apparently regressed to the point of almost immobility. Until she decided she wanted to write.

That didn't make sense, so I was then completely open to it all being nonsense.

Ah, of course.

Yes, exactly that.
I have had to distance myself from several close friends because every time I saw them they would weave the conversation round to " have you tried yoga/blueberries/running marathons /essential oils"

One of them is a nurse

It's so offensive and minimising.

I was really healthy till I got ill , I love yoga and running and swimming. I am mourning the loss of being able to do them and yet having to deal with people suggesting they would be my miracle cure.

Well, he died in 2012, and the loan relative in 2016.

But I think, if I were her, I wouldn't have the first idea who to get in touch with to try and get the story out there.

So no wonder it's not gone anywhere until this investigation.

Makes sense, thanks.

I'm not surprised this was such a big hit among the middle class wellness, crystal gazing, vegan, sexual healing, weaving your own yoghurt brigade.

Just to pick up on a couple of the points recently discussed:

The second book talks a lot about her childhood.

They eloped to Scotland (Skye, if I remember correctly).

If it's true, of course.