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

I doubt its presence on Wikipedia has anything to do with the doctor who wrote the review. It was added by an editor called Chiswick Chap who is a very frequent editor (around 1,500 edits in the last month) on a wide variety of subjects. According to his user page, his real name is Ian Alexander. The review was removed briefly yesterday by an anonymous editor but was restored shortly afterwards on the grounds that it is relevant and properly sourced, i.e. the review genuinely exists.

I really don't see this review as being suspicious. It was written for consumption by other neurologists, not for the general public. The journal in which it was published has a circulation of around 4,200 people, so hardly the place the authors or publisher would want to promote the book. I suspect none of us would be aware of this review if it hadn't been picked up by Wikipedia.

Yes the neurologist part is just idle speculation really

if he is their consultant then he would have been able to identify the exaggeration and be he should have let the other neurologists he was recommending the book to that it wasn’t the whole truth

and if he isnt their consultant he must be feeling very disappointed!!

Doctors have a duty of confidentiality. That extends to not telling other doctors about their patients, unless they're sharing care, or the patient is fully anonymised, or the patient has given permission.

If he'd identified these two in his review or given away any info about them at all (other than what info/misinformation is in the book!), he could be struck off.

So all he could do is comment on the book as a non-involved reader. He couldn't write anything that would have suggested that TW was his patient.

I hope Chloe Hadjimatheou has had a good week and lots of new contacts have come forward with details of their experiences with the Walkers. I would love to see a new article on Sunday with further allegations and evidence. I think a fine line will have to be trod between exposing the truth and not doing anything which seems like harassment or victimisation. To me it would be in the public interest to publish new allegations / evidence especially as she issued such a lengthy rebuttal to last week’s article but I am sure Sally is looking for a way to make it all stop and a complaint to IPSO might help her shut the story down or at least keep elements of new allegations out of the press.

Can you keep allegations out of the press if they are true?

I find the people popping up in eg the comments quoted above very hard to understand. It does feel that we are in the post truth era where someones subjective, even deceptive account has the same validity as hard fact.

We all (or at least the vast majority of us) understand money worries and debt. Many of us have made financial decisions that were less than great. It isn't hard in the current climate, or if you remember the interest rate madness of the 80s, to be able to imagine losing your home. The old French proverb "to understand all is to forgive all" has meaning.

I don't think though that the vast majority of us can easily put ourselves into the imaginary position of embezzling £64K over years and the book's deception about that is the major flaw at the heart of this story that causes the rest to fall apart in decay. It isn't helped by the self serving victim narrative that was still being peddled in the publicity for the film, years later. It is an "alternative truth" too far.

Yes I get that on the neurologist - the letters do seem a bit star struck!

It is not idle speculation to want to investigate whether a neurologist who has written an oddly favourable professional review of TSP, and who also owns a real estate business registered as being in Pwllheli has any other connections to the couple that could be relevant.

Particularly when combined with rather peculiar comments about the upcoming film in the Feb 2025 letter.

Went to a really small festival called Timber in the National Forest and Simon Armitage was djing !

I imagine doctors can get star struck just like anyone else. I found it odd all the medical letters talked about both of them, but as I haven’t received any medical letters in my time (lucky me) I don’t know if this is normal or not.

I don’t know of anyone personally who has stolen large sums of money from an employer over a period of time, so I don’t understand the mentality that would allow you to do that without conscience. Mistakes were made indeed.

Sally Walker's rebuttal on her website of last Sunday's Observer article has really called into question the reputational integrity of the journalist who wrote the story (Chloe Hadjimatheou) as well as The Observer.

There are still so many unanswered questions that I'd be amazed if there wasn't a follow up article, in some shape or form, from some media outlet which tries to definitively establish "the truth"..

Sally doesn’t refute the embezzlement claim though, or the loan. She even says mistakes were made and she’s sorry for them.

So how has the integrity of the journalist been called into question?

She has refuted the journalist's claim that the house was lost due to the loan being called in which she took out to pay back the embezzled money (£64K) to the Hemmings rather than being the result of an unwise property investment that was made in the early 1990s and which the Walkers tried to get back in 2008.

The problem with sallys rebuttal is that it doesn’t put anything to bed and the biggest risk for her is that the journalist gets her teeth into it! The cooper story can be proved with court documents I imagine

sally admitted to the stealing but dressed it up as a ‘mistake’

the medical letters don’t support him having a terminal diagnosis or a definitive diagnosis of CBD

No she doesn’t. She accepts that the house was lost due to the loan, but provides another explanation as to why she took out that loan (a way of getting back their supposed previous investment).

It is not convincing but that is irrelevant.

She doesn’t disprove the Observer’s allegations at all. If anything, she has confirmed them.

I wonder if whoever monitors his internet presence for him is puzzled by the spike in mentions on MN!

He's a friend of Stuart Maconie. Highly recommend SM's stuff, including the book after he'd followed the route of the Jarrow march.

Has anyone read his account of the swcp? Does he mention turning up places and people telling him there was an impersonator!!!

I think you’d have to be quite naive to think this, or to not have read it properly.

The RW response doesn’t rebut the embezzlement allegation (it implicitly admits it, actually, under the classic ‘mistakes were made’ position, and admits that her former employer went to the police, that she was questioned, and agreed to repay the money on a ‘non-admissions’ basis, and that this was why they needed the money back from ‘Cooper’). It’s pure casuistry to insist that the theft is not why they lost their house.

Neither do the medical letters provided support the memoir’s claim that Moth received a CBD diagnosis immediately before they started the SWCP walk. They suggest a rather vaguer diagnosis, much later, of some form of neurological disorder which has progressed atypically, making a form diagnosis difficult.

I think that he was ahead of the Walkers on the path for most of the way (unsurprisingly, as he had readings booked ahead for specific locations, so had to walk to wherever he said he’d be on any particular day, and also wasn’t carrying anything), so he’s unlikely to have met people who’d already encountered Tim Walker for a good chunk of the route, at least.

Fair point. However, Raynor Winn's rebuttal implies that the loan (£100K@18%) reflected the initial investment (ie £100K) in Cooper/Raymond's company rather than the £64K that was embezzled from the Hemmings. It would be interesting to know exactly how much the Walkers did originally invest in the property company..

The problem is that the observer has seen the court papers that show the judge agreed with the witness statement saying the loan had been to cover her criminal activity

As far as we are aware, nothing. The Observer article refers to the court documents about the purpose of the loan:

"During the case James filed a witness statement in which he told the court that “the purpose of the loan is clear: it was required to settle a criminal allegation made against Mrs Walker”."

There was no reason for James to lie in a witness statement since he had no way of knowing that they would subsequently claim anything other than the truth.

Discussion on Today on R4 about autobiography and where the line of accuracy sits

Hadley Freeman - talks about autofiction. Points out a lot of readers pointed out really early the flaws and questions why the publisher hadn’t done basic checks or asked the same questions. Said harper Collins heavily fact checked her 2 autobiographies. Says publishers need to be tougher. Fact checking is a good thing!

a ghostwriter (for Robbie Williams and Harry) - said he is always very wary of people telling fibs and will avoid. Thinks in TSP they crossed the line into fiction. If it is non-fiction it has to be true as people believe in it (mentions the CBD, how they survived on so little money)

both guests clearly believe the allegations!!!

He loved The Fall as well to which I am partial too as well - very apt given this story. He would no doubt have thought their story was a bag of shite or somesuch but more poetically put. Love the Smiths as well and was in a band The Scaremongers - a real polymath !