Thread 5: 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 item in the Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-the-truth-behind-the-blockbuster-book-video

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Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn

I keep being drawn back to the comments of the nephew on LI ( subsequently deleted) that his uncle and aunt are pathological liars who have left a trail of chaos behind them.

On this thread, as readers of TSP, we can analyse and speculate about SW and TW but, even having read her books, we aren't family.

Blood, as they say, is thicker than Walker ( oops water).

There is a good article in The Guardian today from Marina Hyde suggesting Greg (ggg) Wallace's next career move might be to embark on an epic walk around Britain, either with or without underpants.

Not in Wales, unfortunately.

I have a lot of experience with complex rare medical conditions. And a thought has occurred to me.

Every consultant’s letter we have ever received in our family has any diagnoses that have been confirmed, and any medication prescribed, listed as the first things on the clinic letter. As a clear record for any other professionals involved.

Perhaps there are situations when this doesn’t happen… but it does suggest no certainty at all in TW’s condition, which the content of the letters would seem to also suggest.

I feel for Gigspanner they’ve created great and profound music from her work, and that music still stands, regardless of any murkiness surrounding the original creation. I’m off to Latitude shortly and had hoped to catch the Saltlines gig, but whatever happens, it will be a real pleasure to see them anyway.
I suppose that in feeling the vicarious emotions provoked by this song lie the seeds of the deeper sense of betrayal some people are experiencing. I get it.

Yes exactly. In my experience, NHS letters include all previous diagnoses.

Something like such a significant change in prognosis from life-threatening in within 2 years (2013) to the mild, indolent disease (2015) would most definitely be included in the 2015 letter. It wasn't and she failed to include any evidence from earlier than 2015, so I don't believe that Moth was ever given a terminal prognosis.

To me, it seems that she wrote the book then they needed medical backup so in 2015 Moth and Winn described symptoms to match CBD to the neurologist. Moth does have minor issues of a "mild" and "indolent" nature but not CBD. I doubt any neurologist now would diagnose CBD, not even atypical or mild.

Plus where are the MRI scan reports she wrote about in the book? She said one showed damage then a later one showed the damage had gone. Those reports likely don't exist in my opinion or she would have included them in her attempted rebuttal this week.

If SW can produce a letter from a specialist based in Liverpool dated July 2013 confirming a tentative diagnosis of CBD it would go an awfully long way to strengthen her defence.

Ohh that's a really nice song. I feel for them too. I wonder how this talented bunch got taken in by such a shyster

Thankfully i have no experience of rare medical conditions but i have taken my mother to many Eye clinic appointments at their local hospital for age related macular degeneration reviews and my father to cardiology appointments. Both clinics operated with paper files pulled from a large library behind the reception. My mother’s was like a book as she had been a patient there for 10-15 years. I believe that if I went and asked for a letter from the start of her treatment to compare her results to the most recent tests they had done that it would have been in that file. I imagine neurologists diagnosing terminal conditions and providing ongoing care to someone keep similarly good records whether paper files or now scanned records.

If she had lost a letter from 2013 in a house move / homeless period, she could have got a copy from either the hospital or the GP. The fact she hasn’t published one tells me there wasn’t one.

I used to live in France not far from where the winns property is....at the time they went on their walk even a patch of brambles with a doer upper on it would have likely fetched in excess of 20k for a really quick sale...likely much more.
Each to his own, perhaps they didn't want to sell it...it wouldn't be anyone else's business were it not for the fact that RW has stated multiple times in the book and interviews that they were homeless and had 'nothing'.

Well the eejit that I got was something else. It seems to be a perculiarity of French medicine that you see the person doing the thing completely on your own. No nurse, no other female.

It was just me and Dr Mengele in a tiny, scruffy room at L'hôpital Européen in downtown Marseille. He must have been well over seventy and a bit doddery himself. I've known older doctors who were lovely but this one...

After I'd righted myself and was putting my tights back on, with trickles of that clear tissue fluid stuff coming out of my legs, he was dictating what he thought of me to his secretary via what seemed to be some kind of 1960's CB radio affair.

I'll try my best to describe it to prove that I'm not making things up:

It was like a beige coloured plastic walkie talkie thing attached to a coiled cable that went to the, "Big Phone" on the desk.

In France you can leave Google reviews of doctors because the distinction between public and private medicine is not quite the same. He's a one star. I'll love to name and shame him but that would be...

Not jumping to her defense, but, just as a different perspective, I have a relatively rare neurological condition and am under the care of a Neurology specialist team.

My clinic letters don't list my diagnosis or medications.

I also work for the NHS and when I format letters, I don't include it in my letters either, there's no hard and fast rule for letter writing or templates.

Very helpful, many thanks.

Any thoughts on the veracity of SW's claim that in 2013 TW/Moth was diagnosed by a specialist with indolent CBD?

In every MRI or CT scan I have had (I have had multiple MRI scans), the reporting radiologist starts by stating diagnosis and reason for the scan, followed by noting the date of the most recent previous scan. They then proceed to compare and contrast the current findings with that most recent previous scan before writing a summary and any recommendations.

Moth's alleged brain MRIs would provide extremely interesting information regarding whether there was ever brain damage, and if so, the type of brain damage and whether if as claimed in the book, the damage was no longer detectable in later scans. The dates would need to also match the timeframe of the claims in the book.

I bet though, there are no scan reports showing the above.

It makes me furious how they have lied in the book about Moth supposedly havign such an awful terminal disease when he clearly doesn't. When I was bald from chemo, I lost count how many people I hardly knew eg the electrician, random other people etc etc gave me unsolicited and unwanted dietary advice saying things like I had to eat almonds or whatever claptrap and I would be cured. CBD patients have likely been told by people who read TSP that they must go on long strenuous walks and they will be cured.

I should think she's already writing her pretendy version of all these current events. And the inevitable walk to recover...

I, too, have a relatively rare neurological condition (MN seems to be full of us). My neurologist and neurosurgeon copy me and my GP into everything and at the top of each letter is a full list of diagnosis plus latest MRI results.
So it clearly differs from region to region. These two are in two different Trusts, though, and I know that different Trusts don't have automatic access to each other's records, which is mad in this day and age

Ooh, been looking for info on this!

I'm sorry that happened to you @Redheadedstepchild . People are so vulnerable in those situations, deserve to be actually cared about and I believe you.

A Holocaust survivor who was a doctor himself and had the misfortune to know Mengele at Auschwitz was recorded as saying that without WW2 and the opportunities it gave him, he could well have just ended up as "a slightly sadistic Professor of Medicine".

I've known some absolutely wonderful doctors, including consultants and others..not so much, at all.

For me this is the key issue - did SW fabricate Moth's terminal CBD diagnosis in 2013 to spice up the narrative and sell TSP or did she get a diagnosis of CBS in 2015, while she was writing TSP, and retrogressively fit it into the narrative. I don't know the answer to that question.

She just needed to get a copy from the GP.

Over to Bear Grylls (or Emily Maitliss!)

Even if as claimed in TSP the prognosis changes from terminal within 2 years (2013) to "mild" and "indolent" disease (2015)?

I would definitely expect more analysis in the consultant's letter when there's such a fundamental change. I would expect an explicit reference to the previous prognosis and how it is being changed and why.

Maybe this hasn't happened to you as a patient or in your NHS letter writing experience. I imagine it's extremely rare because doctors are so cautious with prognoses.

I truly do suspect this is what happened: invented it in 2013 then tried to get it diagnosed 2015.

But ( I don’t know about you) it took a long time for them to come to my diagnosis so initially several conditions were mooted - none of them good. And even now one part of my diagnosis was only revealed in 2024 ( as a reason why I couldn’t have a particular treatment) and they’d never told me I had it ( myelomalacia) even though apparently it was found in 2015, I’m not trying to support the Walkers- I think they’re definitely wrong ‘uns of some form I’m just pointing out that his diagnosis or questions around it may not be as straightforward as it seems.

Maybe I am naive, but even accepting that she embezzled 64K from the Hemmings, had v little remorse for her behaviour, may have fabricated aspects of the SWCP walk (artistic licence?), to deceive readers that Moth was diagnosed with a terminal CBD condition in 2013 would be 'beyond the pale' in my view.

IF SW deliberately lied about the CBD diagnosis in July 2013 to spice up the narrative, then I struggle to see how Penguin could continue to support them.