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

The way Sally Walker describes the cider farm in that, as if it was desolate and abandoned but that they have turned it around.

I hope that DM article with the farmer's account reappears soon.

They are con artists or at least she is. So trying to understand their actions by normal motivations is pointless. Con artists will mix facts and fiction with complete abandon to suit their current narrative.

There are many still going ahead in July

www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=23909488085328756&set=a.129078553796376

I think this is one of the disappointing aspects for me. I had forgiven them the small thefts described in The Salt Path. I believed they had acted out of desperation and in near destitution when not paying in a shop, asking for hot water to use their own teabags in a café and not paying for camping facilities. In TSP Raynor/Sally also describes feeling shame about this on at least one occasion.

I had some idea that once they had a steady income again they would go back and pay what they owed to all the small businesses and left a generous tip. I know that is what I would have done. Instead it all just seems like a continuation, albeit on a smaller scale, of their previous behaviour.

Again if, once they became relatively well-off with the book income, they had repaid with interest everyone else they owed from before they walked off - like the garage in Wales - then I would think more of them. I think a lot of people would think more of them and perhaps things wouldn't have blown up for them quite as much as they have now. It's also about having some decency and self-respect to be able to look yourself in the eye in the mirror every morning.

If the walking had been truly transformative, Raynor/Sally would have changed from being the person who could embezzle £64k from her employer and she would have wanted to put things right as best she could to all their creditors.

Moth/Tim too - was he unaware, was it joint enterprise, was he the driving force or was she?

One early Easter many years ago, early 90s, my exh and I were in North Wales and took a drive up to the mountains where there was snow. There we witnessed a twin lambing. So special. We notified the nearby neighbour as it was very cold.

Article from BBC about due diligence from Penguin.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89eqpk9pjvo

Seems like SW's set up the perfect backdrop for a future RW novel – 'How I was forced to leave an idyllic cider farm Moth and I were running because of a mean investment banker [after I swindled him out of half his revenue]'

Moth/Tim too - was he unaware, was it joint enterprise, was he the driving force or was she?

From what their nephew said, plus the comments on the DM article,it is 'they' when it comes to describing the lying and ruination of other people's lives.

That it was both of them seems very clear. Tim Walker is just as culpable as Sally Walker.

Don't buy it, rehome it from a charity shop. It seems the poor buggers are going to be inundated with unwanted copies that haven't made it into the cat's litter tray or onto a garden bonfire.

Not only that but even their woodpiles have become such sites of ecological interest that academics from nearby universities have been studying them !

Agreed @DisappointedReader . I think if the sole transgression, serious as it was was the embezzlement, she could even have included it in the book. Desperate, Moth's health, hoped to pay it back but it spiralled, unwise borrowing to repay it when discovered, lost house, felt dreadful, recognised the betrayal. It could have been included in TSP as a redemption arc and when published they could have sent Ros a further chunk of money with a grovelling apology.

However...I think the poor Hemmings are far from the only people who have beef with this pair and it might have lead to similar issues much sooner.

On another note, was the price of their property £435K (I think) in 2011 (Escape to the Country)? That seemed steep for then in that area. Apologies if I'm wrong.

ETA plenty of books about reformed criminals sell well. John McVicar anyone?

LBC article about the contract and potential legal action. It features some quotes by Richard Osman. He says Sally Walker will have made millions.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/salt-path-author-legal-publisher/

That was my initial thought too. They do look like them so as the image is a bit blurry I had to watch it for a while before I convinced myself that it wasn't the Walkers.

I think it looks so like them that it actually IS them. Although that makes no sense

Or possibly he’s done a deal with a newspaper to tell his side of the story and they asked him to delete it to give them exclusivity.

Your friends will be even more impressed when you tell them that the Llŷn peninsular is also famous for its wild goats.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wn8z

Llŷn sheep can run at 15mph. I am not going to explain how I know this!

Are you the Thread Police? I was only responding to a PP who misleadingly claimed that few people received PIP although this is a discussion forum & thread drift does regularly occur but suitably chided I'll return to TSP.😀

It does make one also wonder what may have happened before they moved to a remote farmhouse in North Wales. As, in the context of what we've learnt of them, that too sounds very much like it could have been an escape from swindling and local dislike elsewhere.

They didn’t have even a power bank charger for phones. V odd.

I think that's probably something they will wish they had done with the wisdom of hindsight, but obviously when RW wrote TSP she had no idea it was going to be so successful, and that it would bring in so much money and fame. So I'm not surprised it's not in TSP.

Apart from anything else, it wouldn't have been bought if the narrative was 'We went on the run from our debts, after losing our house because I'd embezzled a big sum from my employer and defaulted on the loan I used to repay him and shut him up, but hey, we found nature and serenity on the SWCP, so that's fine, right?'

And by the time they knew it was a bestseller, it was too late.

However, after the huge success of TSP when money was rolling in merrily and Michael Joseph clearly gave her another book contract, probably for two further books -- that's when someone thinking more clearly would have thought about ways of trying to winkle in a sanitised version of the truth, presented in the most self-excusing light ('I made mistakes, we were desperate, I couldn't bring myself to tell the full truth in TSP') and being able to say they had obviously paid back everyone to whom they'd owed money in full, and made a whacking great donation to a homeless charity. It might have worked, to an extent.

(But that's obviously only dealing with the financial side. If Moth was never ill, or had an entirely different illness, or was in fact a crack addict or something rather than someone living with CBD, hard to see how the best retro-PR could possibly have prevented that from sounding monstrous.)

I am getting the strongest vibes that they think debts are things other people pay. It goes with the sense of entitlement to a perfect environment that somehow they need more than other people, because they are Special.

What I can't get my head round is how they thought they could be doing publicity for the film with 2 internationally famous actors and stay under the radar.

Debating what is and isn't disability is NOT the topic of this thread, as someone has already mentioned to you. Please stop.

cc @DisappointedReader

I think you are absolutely right, I imagine living in a remote corner of Wales didn’t suddenly turn them into cheating, thieving, dishonest people, I bet they fled there to remove themselves from a previous area where they’d been behaving in exactly the same way.

I’m sure more will be revealed.