Thread 4: 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 ...

Second article in the Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-whats-in-the-book-and-what-the-observer-has-found

Third article in the Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-the-truth-behind-the-blockbuster-book-video

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

Thread 3 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5369425-thread-3-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn

.

She's just putting more fluff out there to muddy the waters (mixed metaphor alert!!)

She's put a lot of words together about that issue that just obfuscate and deny, just like she did in the book about how they lost their house. And people think she has somehow exonerated herself. And will ask no further because poor dear Sally Raynor is so victimised.

As the old saying goes: There's none so blind as those who will not see.

All of which Raymoth also understood IME & there was no book or film deal re: the forerunner earlier book for connected (?) writer Izzy Wyn-Thomas? Which sounds about as good/well written?

NB: are these ‘ Win’ variant names as they perceive they have WON life’s lottery with these
narratives?

I think the book might well have been bought, but it would have been a different publisher, a different redemption arc, a different marketing campaign, cover, promotion by the author etc etc. I mean, people are fascinated by true crime, and redemptive tales of ne’er do wells going clean have sold well in the past.

But they then run risk some might assume they are not the loveable good egg life ‘winners’ they claim to be?

Chat GPT is very good at aping I ask it to do a Larkin version with echoes of Aubade.

The Saltier Path
(They walked. It didn’t help.)
What did you expect?
A breakthrough?
An epiphany somewhere near Padstow,
feet bloodied but hearts aglow?
They lost the house—
to debts, or fate, or something vague
no one dares name but everyone earns.
So they left.
The coast was there.
It usually is.
The path was long.
So were the silences.
They spoke in sighs and rustling maps,
in muttered slurs about the other’s pace,
or face.
Each mile stripped back
another lie they’d called marriage.
Each night in a damp two-man tent
proved it was never love—
just habit
dressed in wool socks.
The sea looked on
and did not care.
This isn’t a story of survival.
It’s a slow failure,
drawn out over cliffs
and flapjack wrappers.
Hope doesn’t shimmer here.
It shrivels.

Oh yeah, it's gone! Maybe they started to get a bit of pushback about her being an ickle victim? Can't imagine who would have done that 🤐

They are now playing their latest album not Saltlines and offering refunds if folks don't want that.

That's an excellent point. Penguin had previously said the whole responsibility is on the author, per their contract where she's signed that it's all true. The fact they aren't publicly backing her statement is suggestive that they have doubts and are keeping a legal distance from it.

I know it seems funny, but the pedant in me wants to scream "The lyrics are I would walk five hundred miles, not I did walk five hundred miles!" 😤

I imagine they are in wait and see what else comes out as well as doing an nth degree interogation of them with lawyers.

Maybe 'Money'talks. Despite TSP being sold as an 'unflinchingly honest' story of redemption against the odds ( and the same trope being used to flog follow up narratives in a similar vein) if 99% of readers buy any further follow up books and largely don't care about the veracity of the account, then ( to coin a sordid colloquialism) print and be damned - and in the process make a merry mint.

We live in a world where people, rightly, question the veracity of what they are informed via public news and publishing outlets.

IF it turns out that Penguin Random House are prepared to sacrifice the 'truth' on the altar of expediency ( aka publishing profits) then what a sad world we live in. To quote Cicero - O tempora, o mores!

There are so many strings to pull in her statement

would the court documents disprove what she said? Timings of his diagnosis and what it really means? People coming forward to say they saw them on the walk or in a limo! Why the left the previous place (assuming it wasn’t the knee jerk reaction to leaving the door open)? The family wanting to talk

I would like a lot of rock and roll lyrcis to be fact checked - such as we built this city on rock and roll - NO YOU BLOODY DIDN'T - it was builders and architects and planners and bin men and the people who provide the power you just sang about it. And if it had been left to you there would be no city. Bastards !

But her agent’s name and email and a Penguin RH publicist/PR’s name and email are at the bottom of the rebuttal, which hardly suggests that either her agency or her publisher has hung her out to dry, but are fielding enquiries etc.

I asked ChatGPT for TSP in the style of Adrian Mole's Diary.

Thursday, July 10th
Weather: Drizzle (internal and external)

Woke up to find that we are still technically homeless.
Also, that Moth has an incurable brain disease.
(Excellent start to the day.)

After much weeping (quiet, dignified), we made a completely irrational decision:
we are going to walk the entire South West Coast Path.
Yes — 630 miles of cliffs, rain, and blisters.
We own no decent footwear, and our tent smells like old socks and despair.
Still, apparently this is "healing."

Day 7: Discovered that cliff edges are not metaphorical.
Nearly fell off one while trying to pee discreetly.
Moth says he feels better. I think he’s in denial.
My shoulders have developed permanent dents from the rucksack.

Day 19: A woman gave us an apple.
It was the most profound act of human kindness I’ve experienced since Year 9,
when Pamela Millar let me borrow her Pritt Stick.
Apple made me cry.

Day 42: Moth is walking like a Norse god.
I am walking like a broken deckchair.
He says the illness feels like it’s “slipping away.”
I don’t say anything in case I ruin the moment.

Later: A man in a pub garden asked us to leave
because we “lowered the tone.”
Hard not to, when you smell like feet and philosophical epiphany.

Eventually, someone gave us a shed to live in.
I never thought I’d be emotionally attached to a garden outbuilding,
but I wept when we plugged in a kettle.

We finished the path.
We walked every mile.
Moth is still ill, but different.
I am still me, but softer.

Someone gave us a flat.
A real one. With windows.
Somehow, we survived.
Not just the walk —
the grief, the loss, the shame.

Wouldn’t recommend it, exactly.
But also, would.

Yes I noticed that, and almost mentioned it as a 'but' too. However, she still has a right to provide their contact details if they have not stopped representing her. It does not present as an endorsement of her wording.

Only my opinion, but in the brief interview glimpses of Moth I've seen, he really does come over much better than her and I doubt I'm alone in thinking that. I have the same view of the pair of them, but from a purely pragmatic point of view, it makes me really question why he didn't do more interviews. Could be health, I suppose.

Yes I think there'll be prequels to the move to Wales and the time in Wales pre the fleeing.

The Sasha/Avi story (and other similar suggestions of multiple lies /deceit ) is definitely angle I would like to see followed up

Ditto the neurologist story. Both his book review and the Feb 2025 letter are truly odd. Something feels "off" there

And I think the other angle is the French property. its just implausible. Why get into more debt to do that? It's stretching the limits of credibility.

Sue's defence of the bookkeeping being a mess she tried to fix I dont buy for a minute. If that was the case, why vanish before the police interview and show up with all the money and an NDA? That's not the behaviour Of an innocent person. If it quacks like a duck and all that...

@BlueDecoGlass

It's brilliant at copying god only knows how I amuse myself often and a small circle of friends with hot takes. You can keep prompting - make it more brutal , make it apocalyptic and away it runs. Raymond Briggs would have made a good animated version if he could be arsed by the essentailly middle-class middle-aged redemption story.

But that wouldn’t be the persona, then. They wouldn’t be self-presenting as good eggs. They’d be all chastened and apologetic, shaking their heads about what they were like before walking the path. ‘We made horrible mistakes, we hurt people. I thought maybe Moth’s illness was karma for what I’d done. We panicked and went on the run. Etc etc’

I HATE THAT EFFING SONG

Such a tragedy, what happend to Grace and her band.

I think that's the basic template of her website, both that and the contact thing are on a banner at the bottom, and I would imagine appear on all posts.