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

Yes she's difficult to listen to. Especially now we know she's a phoney con artist

I've just stumbled across this, I think some of you will be interested. I'm still watching so don't yet know what conclusions he'll come to.

Basically he's picking apart her statement and examining it to see what exactly she's saying.

It's a beautiful song and, if anything good has come out of this whole debacle, hopefully Gigspanner have won some new fans.

I suppose they got taken in the same way as all the fans of the books (including me), the publishers, the filmmakers, Jason Isaacs, Sophie Raworth, the BBC, the Guardian, the banker/farmer, the lost goes on.... I'm still absolutely stunned. With the benefit of hindsight - together with the new information that's come to light - so much doesn't add up. But they were clearly incredibly convincing!

Yes I wondered that too.

True! Serious sociopathic powers at work. Loving the username!

I don’t know how to do a share token from the Times app, sorry, but there’s another article just gone live:

https://www.google.com/url?q=www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/the-salt-path-france-property-unpaid-tax-dbxsx0282&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjgho75h7iOAxUeT0EAHcnyMqgQxfQBKAB6BAgIEAE&usg=AOvVaw31LTHk58enh67Num1giH8Z

Reading it now. Sounds like the French village has been awash with journalists all week.

I'm a newly devoted fan, currently immersing myself in Gigspanner’s back catalogue on Qobuz. Coming from a background in classical and jazz, I’ve been genuinely struck by the depth, nuance, and emotional richness in their music it’s stunning with superb ensemble work.

I’ve dipped into nu-folk and alt-folk before, but never truly ventured into the heart of it. Gigspanner has changed that. This is brilliant, boundary-crossing music that resonates far beyond the genre and for me is truly compelling like a new door opening.

As for the Saltlines collaboration,from the little that I have heard Raynor Winn’s monologues were the weaker element artistically but her lyrical odes to the land have clearly struck a chord with the band. Flawed or not, she obviously tapped into something real and deeply felt something they recognised in themselves.

Where would Sally have got a few thousand pounds from so quickly? It would more likely be her mother's savings, perhaps, as it would take a while to sell anything, surely. And I doubt her mother's wedding outfit would fetch very much.

With a different author, or perhaps the same author with a different personality (and possibly a different editor) there would have been a way to tell the story completely truthfully (both facts and timeline) while engaging readers.

Open the book during the walk itself; two hapless, middle-aged "hikers", one has a number of baffling health issues. They are homeless, they're inept campers. Some chapters on the difficulties of the walk and wild camping, genuine descriptions of the landscape and encounters they have en route, some of which lead into the wider social topics of rural "holiday-isation" and homelessness. Honesty about being short of money, theft from shops and blagging campsites. Reflections on how the weeks of walking are changing them, and their perspective on their lives. Ruminations on why the health issues have abated.

Circle back to their being homeless. Why? Because of a court case. But why a court case? Deep breath - in 2008 this is what I did...full confession, and full disclosure on the author's faults and flaws, how she explains it to herself now (in 2013) and how the family moved on. Then, back to the walk: much better health, is it connected to the walking? A tentative plan of what to do next, offered a flat to live in, begin to put lives back together again. Conclusions on what was learnt on the walk, on redemption, learning to live with oneself etc. Then, a diagnosis from a neurologist, "atypical CBS". Not as bad as it could be, still shattering news, what does it mean for the newly-established precarious future? How long is that future going to be? To be explored in a second book.

Losing everything is something millions fear, or have experience of, as is chronic or terminal illness. Engaging readers in the story of the walk first, building that connection before dropping the bombshell of "actually, I did a horrendous thing" means they will at least read on. And if the writer is honest and truly contrite, the whole story gives readers new insights and things to think hard about, and will resonate

We'll never know if Penguin would have commissioned such a book of course. And, like I said, it probably requires a different (type of) writer to write it.

Archive version; archive.ph/AmeUg

Maybe she still had a stash of the embezzled funds at this point?

The story feels like a neutral addition to the overall narrative it is, after all, a cheap, dilapidated property that has sat unloved for decades since they bought it. I wouldn’t have thought it changes the arc of the unfolding narrative in any significant way though at last I have got my hoped for snooped photos !

Yes, I agree. In Cheryl Strayed's Wild, she has a breakdown and goes on a drug and sex binge, not the same as stealing, I know, but she is very honest about her bad decisions. But if Sally has a cluster B disorder, this could prevent her from ever thinking or admitting she has done anything wrong.

Sky News has been repeatedly retweeting the clip of Charlotte Lytton talking about when she interviewed Sally.

They’ve just shared it again. https://x.com/skynews/status/1944121835857317969?s=46

Am so intrigued as to what might appear in tomorrow’s papers. This - and the smattering of other new pieces today in the Times and Independent, is typical warm up behaviour by media so I’ll be disappointed if there is nothing!

I agree. It just feels like keeping the story warm. Which I don’t think they would do if there wasn’t more to come.

Although it's a pretty gentle article, I note that it does say that the understanding in the Village is that the Walkers bought it to develop it. Not to "save it from developers".

I said it, I called it!

Thirsty hacks went to the French village to redo the outraged Welsh villagers article! I knew it would happen. With, of course, extra bucolic detail.

The number of times I have held off from writing a spoof article about this very occurrence!

What I don’t understand is why suddenly these allegations have come about, when the book has been out for 7 years and won awards? Two other books came out, and again no issues. The film was premiered in September last year and released in quite a few countries since then, again with no issues. Yet all these issues which supposedly happened years ago only come to the fore a couple of months after the UK film premiere? Does anyone not find that strange?

Not at all

the journalist said that she was approached months ago by someone questioning his condition. With the publicity from the film and the length of time since the first book that was never going to be quick to come out.

as to all the rest - I think without an interested journalist it can actually be quite hard to get your voice out there. And for Mrs hemmings she may have been reluctant to rake up the past but felt more comfortable because she’s realised it’s not just her speaking out

Not really - seeing the two protagonists on the red carpet getting the Hollywood treatment ahead of the film launch in the UK clearly stirred up emotions and unwelcome memories amongst those they had wronged.

The sister of Ros Hemmings (whose husband died in 2012 and was defrauded of £64K by SW) stated in an article in the Times how painful it must have been for her sister to have seen the Salt Path film being premiered in a cinema in Pwilheli just yards away from the office where SW had worked and defrauded her sister and his husband of £64K.

Frankly, I can empathise with her pain and bitterness!

The 2015 letter states the Moth had a brain MRI, EEG and EMG tests in 2011 so there were obviously neurological assessments done before the walk in 2013. The fact that they were negative fits with CBD.

The neurologist says that he/she UNDERSTANDS that Moth has undergone multiple tests suggesting that they were not his doctor at the time and they have not seen the results so I think it is likely that Moth was under the care of a different neurologist at another hospital when the tests were done, if they did not have those records.

No one could have predicted that his CBD would be so slow to progress other than with the passage of time so it’s unlikely that the original diagnosis was indolent CBD.

For those who have pointed out that there are other causes of CBS than CBD (the most common cause), they are all just as awful - PSP, CJD, Alzheimers.

Unless Moth chooses to share medical records from 2013, you can’t really know much from those letters other than he has had a diagnosis of CBD. And that it looks like the consultant wanted reassurance that they weren’t going to tout walking as a miracle cure…

Thanks for sharing. I analyse language in my career, but take my hat off to him! Really in depth scrutiny and observation.

Ditto - excellent analysis!

I agree. But none of that explains the incredibly erm bold claims in one of the later books that brain scans showed a reversal of the degeneration. That must be pure fantasy

Thank you - much better explanation than I’ve managed to give about the complexity of these things.