Thread 3: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

The Observer The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...

Thread One ^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?^

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

Actually it makes sense that he doesn’t have any actual diagnosis / evidence as otherwise the council would have housed them as a priority. It a long time since I read the book but I could understand how someone with a diagnosis of a progressive condition didn’t get housing as a priority. (In Wales. At that time)

Couldn’t

The Bookseller are running a piece saying Penguin are saying they did their due diligence. Can't link I'm afraid.
I think from here on in 'due dilligence' will mean a minimum of checking medical diagnosis. of course a publisher can't check everything. But the medical stuff must be correct.
Unless of course at time of publication it was a misdiagnosis and the Walkers conveniently forgot to tell Penguin when the misdiagnosis was realised.

Few people? 3.7 million is not an insignificant number of people. Over 5% of the UK population receive PIP.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-to-january-2025/personal-independence-payment-official-statistics-to-january-2025

Perhaps the DWP don't connect the Tim Walker claiming benefits with the Moth Winn featured in his wife's book?

Since you insist on bringing other people's disability into this then here's some more statistics. The DWP themselves consdier PIP fraud so low that it stands at 0%
https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/zero-percent-fraud-rate-for-pip,-dwp-figures-show

Perhaps because people with disabilities have to provide substantiual evidence and the DWP actually do do "due diligence".

And perhaps, since there is absolutely not a shred of evdience that he claimed any benefits, you are simply using this as an oportunity to bash disabled people?

Investigative journalism is what we need more of these days, not less!
Thabk you to all the journos who believe the true is of upmost importance!

I agree. A lot of journalism these days seems to be trawling social media and click bait headlining based on what skybummer435 and turtlegun912 have said about an issue.

😀

Turns out the blind man at start of the book was prophetic when he said the ‘tortoise’ would be trailing them alongside…This really puzzled Winn. Later ‘Tortoise’ media/the Observer…Beware the Tortoise, Walkers…

Oh I LOVE THIS

I don’t subscribe to it any more, but this is from their Instagram.

Several comments suggest that bookshops are getting requests for refunds on pre-orders of RW’s fourth book, due out in autumn, though I’m slightly dubious about this. I can’t imagine all that many pre-orders are likely at this point.

I would love Louis Theroux to do a program on them. I've never fully been able to watch the Hamilton's one. The cringe factor is just too high.

@AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSantaYessss that would be brilliant

She did have surgery - she had the lump removed. She didn’t then have the advised follow up mastectomy and chemotherapy. It’s not true to say that ‘eating healthily’ cured her. She had a standard first-line intervention.

Now that Penguin Michael Joseph have commented, that pretty much closes down any arguments about the Observer findings being incorrect.

If there was any doubt, the publisher would express it.

Our family ran the vet practice next to James Herriot's and would know him well enough at the time. At no time did he ever say it was an accurate recolation of exactly what happened in his practice and nobody thought that it was. Titles like 'it shouldn't happen to a vet' and then antidotes about things that happened to vets, mostly himself but not always, and embelished for entertainment. It might have got a few people interested in being a vet but it certainly didn't give people false hope about overcoming terminal health conditions or impact on charity fund raising. And he wasn't pretending to be someone he wasn't or running from debts and lies. So I wouldn't say it's the same what so ever.

Several comments suggest that bookshops are getting requests for refunds on pre-orders of RW’s fourth book, due out in autumn,

I've read many comments across social media about people cancelling their pre orders, especially with independent bookstores, some of which haven't taken it very well.

I'm not bashing the disabled at all just providing a logical explanation for how someone with dubious eligibility to benefits might have been able to claim.

I have pre-ordered books up to a year in advance. It's very common now.

This is from the Penguin blurb for the upcoming book (I quoted it on the previous thread but this is the most relevant bit)

'Despite 45 years of walking together, setbacks in her husband, Moth's, health have led him to see his decline as inevitable, which Raynor refuses to accept. Feeling trapped, she is drawn north, like a migratory bird, seeking the peace and hope that walking brings her.'

It particularly annoyed me as a carer knowing the impossibility of taking off at will. I'm not sure when this walk was done?

It would be interesting to scan through Sally Walker's pseudonymic novel "How Not to Dal dy Dir" (published 2012) to see if she recycled anything in it for The Salt Path. But I don't want to pay for it 😄

I think I remember reading in one of the Observer's pieces that the plot involved a couple being cheated out of an investment, but can't be sure.

It has a 4.67 rating on Goodreads, but 1 star on Amazon!

Earlier on in the thread, people were commenting that the couple looked like they had spent a good but of time in Goa, I was just following that up.

I agree with you btw, have been myself.

Really? I mean you'd think that was understandable, not sure why the booksellers would be cross with customers about it