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 agree and think I should love her work but I find it elusive.

I am not wedded to a trial by media.

I have been through cancer treatment and experienced random people advising me to eat particular foods, telling me I needed to eat them and would be cured.

Cancer patients are often the target of people like Raynor Winn; she obviously decided to choose CBD instead of cancer and walking instead of food items, but the underlying claims and idea are the same.

How did your family members with those conditions feel about claims that walking could reverse their disease?

Good spot!!

From the article linked:

Moth – real name Ray, his nickname is a hangover from his ecological activism in the 1980s and 1990s

In light of her statement today and the medical letters, some of this article is going to be hilarious. Such as:

Things couldn’t be worse. But then, they got worse. In the days following the shock judgement, Moth was given bad news; he was suffering from corticobasal degeneration, or CBD. It was an illness that was going to drastically limit his life. “In fact,” says Winn, “we were told that he probably wouldn’t last two years.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/the-salt-path-book-journey-walking-coast-path-cornwall-devon-homelessness-a8502256.html

So again a bare faced lie! I understand he is unwell but nothing she presented suggested he could only have 2 years left - the worst they seemed to have been given was 6-8 years. Still not great to hear but why does she feel the need to exaggerate?

one thing though - the tan line on her ankle suggests they did do the walk!!

I know people change but considering how little financial acumen these two seemed to have i find it surprising that someone who was such a hard-core activist he actually had a guerilla nickname that lives on today, would pivot to investing in a property portfolio

I spotted another discrepancy in the doctor's letters posted on RW's website. Wasn't the story that 'Moth'/Tim was doing a teaching course? The letter refers to a course in horticulture, which would actually make a lot more sense given than we know he had been working as a gardener but had no formal training.

Just remembered I had this waitrose newspaper from January 2021, short piece by Raynor Winn

A writer on Insta (kathrynalto) has tonight written a short piece about truth in narrative nonfiction. It's the post with a picture of a path. Part two of her commentary is in her comments

Someone asked her if she'd seen Walker's statement, and she replied 'yes'.

https://www.instagram.com/kathrynaalto/

I have no insider knowledge, I'm not sure what annoyed me most. The weird chuck all my research in to impress the teacher bits. Or the locations, I know the Chalfonts where she grew up and the convent types plus a bit on the Brighton new age and she's an unreliable witness. The Chalfonts have been wealthy, manicured farmland for centuries, there's nothing raw there. It's beautiful but not how she describes. And there's a weird bit about the Quakers which if she was the astute observant type, she would mention Jordans.

Aside from that - are we seeing AI doing the heavy non fiction lifting yet? There's probably a formula even for biog, wilderness travelling.

I did wonder at some point if the walk was some kind of enforced rehab. Hence why he needs to do it again to miraculously recover.

But then I thought, no, surely not.

It reads as though it might have been written at RayMoth's request because the film-company wanted some sort of arse covering medical letter to cover them in case anyone questioned why a man with a "terminal" diagnosis was still managing gruelling hikes together with agricultural and renovation work more that 12 years post diagnosis.

From the BBC article

"Reiterating the events described in the book, Winn said Moth made an investment in Cooper's property portfolio, and when the investment was due to mature, Cooper said it had failed due to low occupancy.
Winn said Cooper promised to eventually pay the money back, and the couple asked for it to be returned in 2008. Instead, she said, Cooper offered them a loan through his company, assured against their home, with 18% interest, which he said he would cover."

Eh? So they lent someone some money. They asked for it back. But instead they get offered a loan and they assured the loan against their home?

I don't understand that. If you are owed money, then the person who owes you money doesn't loan it to you? They give it to you.

That doesn't make sense

As Judge Judy says "If something doesn't make sense it's not true"

It did say this in the Country Living article that was linked in the earlier thread. They’d come back from the original walk, were homeless, and someone offered them a flat in a chapel in Cornwall. Apparently Moth then started doing a course, or a degree, in horticulture and was thriving and really enjoying it.

Then they got the offer of the cider farm (that had been abandoned and needed to be brought back to life - see previous posts about this claim) so left to go and live there.

Typically though, different little angles to these stories seem to have appeared. The chapel flat was described in one article as being not very countrified and there was just 'a tiny strip of sky at the top of the window' or words to that effect. But in another article a journalist who visited said 'the path' (the salt path? It’s not clear) ran 'along in front of the chapel', so presumably they weren’t exactly in the middle of a town?

Also "beauty fades dumb is forever"

Totally agree. What's more, this aspect of her statement assumes people are confusing Cooper with Hemmings and tries to explain it away. Thing is, I've not read anyone making the suggestion that Hemmings is Cooper, and even if a minority are it's not something that needs explaining. It's clear from the Observer piece that Cooper is most likely the distant relative loan shark guy. All I get from Raynor trying to explain this is to reassert that Cooper was at fault and to create distance from the embezzlement. Except both events seem to be directly related, e.g she stole from Hemmings and needed Cooper's loan to fix things.

That's exactly my thinking

And it's very odd that a doctor would go along with that.... But makes more sense if he's the same neurologist that thinks the Salt Path was the best book ever written

I think it's very interesting how they seem to have lived for years either stealing or getting other people to pay for them and an uncanny ability to just walk away from their old lives, change their names and reinvent themselves. It makes me wonder about their original, sudden decision to move to Wales in the first place - were they running from something even then?

I think the film proved to be their undoing as having their photos plastered in the media led to more people realizing that they knew them under different names which they may not have done if it was only the books.

Wynken, I can tell you about the chapel.. In March 2023, I was staying in Polperro alone and bored one afternoon decided to drive over to Polruan, which I remembered as being an incredibly steep little town fairly nearby with great views. (need good brakes.. I nearly gave myself a heart attack... one slip and into the harbour I'd have gone)...
I had only read the first book (not sure if the others were out then) . Armed with my camera I went off for a walk, photographing quaint buildings. Came across a chapel and tried to get in. Walked around and around it looking in. No luck, all closed up. Only last year did I read the other books and realise this was their former home and no longer an actual chapel!
Polruan is an insanely steep wee place and the chapel is at the top of the hill (cliff). Not on the main 'street'. It IS on a path leading to the cliffs... as I walked down from this 'chapel' and came to cliff edge and an old fort.
And unfortunately, I lost all my photos when I had pc storage issues :(
I can see that they could have lived quite 'anon' there. I recall it was also set back a bit from the path and there wouldn't have been parking (unless round the back??) I seem to recall when they lived in Polruan, RW didn't like engaging with locals and hated them asking questions?

The cider farm is apparently in Lostwithiel... still fairly near to Polperro

and when the investment was due to mature

what kind of investment was this? Is that how time shares work?

Or is there confusion between investments and loans?

The base rate in 2013 was 0.5%

To be relying on an 18% loan they must have used up all other forms of credit, which makes sense, given the clear lack of financial acumen, but again, that isn’t the story they were telling.

All over the world, don't you mean? We have MN agents in all time zones.

Just thinking about what she said in her statement about being contacted by the Observer and telling them she'd explain everything as long as they didn't publish it.

I mean, that just smacks of guilt in itself.

And a particular arrogance that, once again, she can silence people in order to get out of the repurcusions of her criminality.

I find Moth's job as National Trust head gardener odd. He jumped from volunteer to getting the head gardener job despite no recent relevant experience.

Yes, I agree. I hope they do. My thinking now is that this neurologist is the same one in each letter and it is the same one who reviewed the book in an academic journal (referenced in the wiki article) in Spring 2020. In it he describes Tim as "a person recently diagnosed with CBD" yet in the book we are told the diagnosis was in 2013. I wouldn't call 7 years ago "recent". So why does this neurologist say "recent" for a condition with a 6-8 year prognosis?

Could it be because he is privy to other information when writing his book review because he knows of Tim's case already? Could it be because in 2015 he assessed Tim and suggested it "most closely resembles the cortico-basal syndrome...but it is clear he is affected very mildly"? Could it be because in 2019 he then suggests it is an "atypical form of CBD" though possibly something "more unusual." [This would make CBD a recent diagnosis if made in 2019]. What's more, the qualifications/letters after this neurologist's name are an identical match to the ones in the 2019 letter AND he works in Liverpool's Walton Health Centre (a specialist NHS neurology centre) and North Wales.

Incidentally, the journal Advances in Clinical Neurology and Rehabilitation has since removed the book review from its website in the wake of all this but it's findable via archive.