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?

Thanks for the link @AWanderingFool .

Just above the Linkedin piece by James is this, from Nikki Walker (a project manager at WMD-?wife)

'It was certainly a interesting weekend in the Walker house.

Yesterday this story about ‘The Real Salt Path’ was front page and published by The Observer. It has since been featured by other news outlets.

The article is raw, honest and shows the deception by Tim and Sally Walker, who now go by Raynor and Moth Winn. '

Scamming people together, it's so romantic.

See, I imagine all kinds of details in the book are probably true. Received wisdom about lying is to invent as little as possible -- the little details that really happen are more convincing, and you can be questioned about them without looking in any way suspicious because you're remembering, not inventing, just transposing stuff to a different time/place/person.

It's entirely possible, to my mind, that they had an elderly sheep that died, but the timing of the death being just before the bailiffs arrive, and after they've failed to find anywhere for her to go, and them both digging her a grave in the field etc etc sounds suspiciously schmaltzy. Smotyn the sheep does a lot of work at the start of the book in establishing them as good and caring people, who didn't sell her on for petfood, and evoking memories of their two student-aged children, who are largely absent from the entire narrative.

I've always found it deeply weird that her first mention of them is 'the children couldn't help'.

@AveriltheAvidReader I thought it was obviously not meant to be a quote from her, but I guess I should have been clearer.

No they aren't - the Observer was recently sold to Tortoise media.

🙄

The Observer has recently split from the guardian having been bought by Tortoise, so they might be avoiding drawing attention to a publication that's now drawing people away from their site

Posted too soon. The Guardian isn't owned by TM.

The Guardian have form for being the last ones to admit that a middle-class grifter is a middle class grifter. They were super reluctant to cover any of the controversy about Jack Monroe, having featured her recipes that were well below recommended calorie counts as healthy eating for years.

There’s a Sarah Moss novel called Night Waking where the protagonist has a child called Timothy who is known as Moth.

It read fine to me.

It was obvious. Don't worry.

@AllPlayedOut I have read that, it must be what I was thinking of.

edit - just read the synopsis, it’s definitely the one I was thinking of, thank you.

Bonnie and Clyde but with no guns, bank robberies but lots of walking and crap tents. But now a major motion picture. If the real story gets to be written and dramatized then I will definately watch that !

Yes I was aware they had split. You could be right - perhaps they now see the Observer as a rival, but it still seems odd to have nothing in the Guardian at all when everyone else is covering the story. Unless, as another pp suggested, they have their own revelations up their sleeve?

The people they stole from are in Pwllheli, north Wales, completely different and the other end of the country to Pembs! I was born and raised and still live in (north west) Wales and have had family living in Cornwall

Screenshot from LinkedIn from posts by relatives of the couple.

Yes and Jack like the Walker Winns, seemed to think she was entitled to choose not to work and the state owed her a living and the guardian was fine with that. I find that hard to understand, but then I am someone who continued to work full time as a disabled single mum (with no family near by)

quoted the wrong post!

Farmers don’t dig holes for dead sheep. If in the Welsh hills the farmer leaves the carcass for nature to deal with or like us we call the knacker to take it away to be disposed of. It certainly doesn’t go for pet food 😳

I'm finding the LinkedIn comments from James (and Nikki) Walker really interesting. I don't see why people with proper jobs, lives etc would do so about their relatives unless there was a world of pain as a back story.

It probably isn’t the case now but around 2010/11 it was possible to claim some kind of income support if you were self employed which had the bonus of not having to report to the job centre every two weeks. I know because I had to claim it for a few months. I can’t remember how much it was precisely but the £48 arriving could have been roughly accurate if they hadn’t told the job centre they were no longer actually self employed. I don’t think I had to prove anything ie work although I did obviously have to include it in my Self assessment tax return.

Agree, reading between the lines it reads that Sally and Tim have causes a huge amount of pain to their family

As for all that guff about rewilding….🤮

He talks about the "trail of destruction" they left behind them, so that indicates pretty awful things that the family has had to deal with.

They've obviously decided to post something publicly which I doubt they would if Tim and Sally hadn't caused a lot of distress.