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

The most telling thing is that the charity dropped them immediately. I imagine they asked for proof and either received none or received what we’ve seen

This is a very good question. For that, I think we'd need to know when she began writing the book. If we take her word for it (yes, I know), she said she started writing TSP in 2016 and gave it to Timoth as a birthday present. In this scenario, she must have known about the mild cbs diagnosis and begun writing with it in mind.

That said, I'd be inclined to think she started writing the story based on homelessness and Tim's unusual, unknown condition not long after the walk in 2014. Books take a heck of a while to write, she was a first-time author (the house lottery book aside), the piece in the Big Issue in 2017 closely matches the opening of the published book suggesting a degree of polish and editing by then. It would make sense to retain the memory of the walk too, but as we now know, we can't be sure what are genuine memories to require such recall.

I just had another read of that first letter and it says he was referred by the pain clinic. Was working until a couple of years ago, then about symptoms for nine or ten years.

No mention of any previous diagnosis or neurology appt

One other thing has struck me. In the interview with Ros Hemmings, Ros said that Sally came to her with a few thousand pounds (the initial payment, before the Hemmings discovered the full extent of the embezzlement). Sally told Ros that she'd had to sell her mother's things. Except (according to the books) Sally's mother was still alive at that stage. Her mother only died during the second book. So, how would Sally have been able to sell her mother's things?

Either she lied to Sally (about selling her mother's things) or the events didn't happen in the same timeframe as the books.

I don't think they made up symptoms in 2015. Reading the consultant's letter, he describes subtle signs that you just couldn't fake (eg saccadic eye movements).

I think they may have gone for a long walk in 2013-14. SWs mother died in early 2015, then TW got this diagnosis of possible mild, indolent disease later in 2015.

Following these two events, SW probably got writing, and juggled timelines around and exaggerated the gravity of the situation to give extra interest to the narrative of running from the bailiffs, sorry, I mean being homeless, in 2013. (And her editors might not have discouraged this).

That's my reading of the situation.

I agree

Yes, spotted that too. Also that a first referral seemed to get lost and this was a second referral. Maybe the GP made an initial referral that was missed and then the pain clinic followed it up?

Also of note is Tim having to rest his arm on his shirt due to the pain.

Also it refers to the clear scans and testing in 2011, saying that this is strongly implies indolent pathology, meaning that in 2013 the neurologist (if they saw one) would have had the same test results and therefore would have reached the same conclusion?

Again refuting the idea that they had such a dramatic prognosis previously

I think this sounds likely as well.

@Catwith69lives I don't think Penguin know what to do now.

Slightly off topic but I wonder if the Walker family and in-laws are currently housebound and glued to the MN feed!

If so, it must be torture!

Her mum didn't need to be dead for her to allow Sally to sell some of her stuff.

Besides which, even if she told Ros this, it doesn't mean it was true!

She's a pathological liar after all.

I found that I couldn't listen to RW/SW's part and fast-forwarded to the music.

So many people have been taken in unfortunately. The popularity of TSP would also sell tickets and merchandise.

Her mum didn’t need to be dead for sally to tell Ros she had had to sell her mums stuff in order to try and get sympathy

or, she stole valuable things from her mum in order to raise the funds…..

many possibilities! But the timeline has to have been as ros hemmings gave it given her DH died in 2012 so sallys mum wasn’t dead when she handed the money over

eta I quoted you before you edited so it sounds weird!!

The SWCP also dropped RW as an Ambassador very quickly, her profile removed from their website.

I didn't know that.

I'm getting a bit confused about the timeline. Were they back in Wales in 2019?

Because the 2019 medical letter is on NHS Wales headed paper and refers to them attending a clinic/having tests etc. Did they have another address in Wales?

We live near where the factory shop used to be and my other half got a discount from being a bobby. Spent some good times in there getting kit for a Nepal trek.

This should probably in private messages but for people who don't know Marseille that well, L'hôpital Européen (The European hospital) is exactly the opposite. Everybody or practically everybody there from staff to patients are not of ethnically European origin. They came from either the Maghreb or Sub Saharan Africa.

I don't want people to think that I went to a fancy whites only hospital. Dr Nasty was white, of course. And I'm so white, I'm pale blue but everybody else was not.

I don't know what I'm trying to say here. I don't think Dr Nasty was particularly racist. I just think he liked being nasty. A young woman from North Africa went in his room after me and he was equally horrible to her.

I was mainly intent on getting out and back to la gare St Charles but I saw her crying with her mum in the main entrance as I left.

I don’t know- playing devils advocate here- if you had an MS or Parkinson’s diagnosis then were told your disease was progressing indolently ( a term I’d not heard before this fiasco) then told they ( the doctors) weren’t sure how your disease would progress. You’d still be sitting with an MS or Parkinson’s diagnosis and an ultimately fatal outcome.

The diagnosis of possible cbd was in 2015. And he was told it was mild and indolent.

Walker said it was 2013 and that he was expected to be dead within 2 years.

There's a big difference there!

Wow this is so true. Why are they under NHS Wales in 2019 without an address?

They almost certainly mooted several causes for very definite neurological signs they saw in 2013. These things take ages for a definite diagnosis and several other causes would need to be tested for and ruled out. I don’t dispute she shouldn’t have put a definite CBD diagnoses in 2013. That said - for example - I often tell people I have a condition similar to ms because to try and explain the massively complicated diagnosis I do have would a) bore them and b) confuse them.

Another thing about those medical letters. the second one goes on about migraines, and the third about being sorry to hear of his cardiac diagnosis and it was unlikely to be to do with CBS, but had caused him to curtail some of his activities

So it seems there were other things going on, but in later books this is never referred to is it. Maybe a cardiac diagnosis or migraines are not as dramatic or unusual.

Would they have had to show the housing officer any evidence of his diagnosis?