Thread 6: 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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Thread 5 Thread 5: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn

NB Please be careful when it comes to naming or implicating people who aren't in the public eye or have no connection to the story, especially where details are unclear or still emerging i.e. DON'T DO IT.

Keep on the path. No saltiness. Thank you.

New posters welcome. It would be helpful to read at least the three Observer articles before posting.

There are worse places to be than Cornwall and Wales too! I'm not sure they are as keen to get to Burton-On-Trent however...

What fun! Did he really?

In my London days I knew a slightly hapless photographer who was assigned to sit on his motorbike outside the Beckhams’ front gate to try to get photos of them coming in and out. For days at a time.

Though these days it’s more ‘citizen paparazzi’ stuff, with everyone taking surreptitious photos of random celebrities looking rough coming out of a shop.

Just read the piece from the person who's not only an industry insider, but who worked at PRH for 28 years.

Basically - publishers don't care.

In my experience, publishers will go to great lengths to avoid difficult conversations with authors.

I witnessed this first hand at Penguin Random House a couple of years ago when Wifedom, prize-winning author Anna Funder’s acclaimed biography of Eileen Orwell, faced public criticism from experts over historical inaccuracies.

Although the publisher and the author eventually agreed to correct these in future editions, the in-house concerns I observed were first and foremost to defend and protect the reputation of a valuable author. In such an atmosphere, to raise any qualms about the authenticity of an author of the hugely money-spinning status of Raynor Winn would require some chutzpah.

https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-revelations-should-be-no-surprise-to-anyone-in-publishing

We were taught in school - ‘summary & directed writing’ etc - not taught anymore?

Yes he did @SmellsLikeTippex . Got sent out to her mother's place in I think the wilds of Berkshire or somewhere. Knocked, little notebook in hand, no answer. Undeterred he went around the back to peer through windows and saw the lady herself in her undies. She apparently spotted him, smiled and closed the curtains.

What did this budding Bob Woodward do then? Ran back to the waiting taxi in a state of flustered embarrassment. His one comment? "She was very pretty". Hold the front page for DH!

I'd like to see

Everyone who is still owed money to get it back.

Criminal charges brought for the £64k embezzlement of the Hemmings

A compulsory course in schools providing legal and financial education about contracts, loans, credit/debt and business investment so people have the knowledge to spot if something seems 'off'.

A compulsory module in schools on persuasive/deceptive language and how to analyse what is said and spot what is not said

A documentary film of this exposé with all proceeds allocated pro rata amongst any creditors unable to recover their money

Also to note with this is that they've stuck a release date on it of over a year away. Plenty of time to drop if necessary.

Amazon are still showing pre-release for this October. Wonder when that will change.

There are some instagram photos on RW's feed which do show them on various sections of the WHW and CWT as well as on the PW, ODP and SWCP. No doubt about it though - the CWT and PW are no teddy bear's picnic for an able bodied person let alone a 60 year old with CBD!

They were living there at a very low rent but not keeping up their side of the bargain, and taking advantage of the farm owner by getting his sympathy.

'Bill, who lived in Sussex but visited Cornwall often, says the couple told him they wanted to be involved in tending the orchards, producing cider and rewilding the farm.'

'Richard says he was concerned for his friend, however, because the farm was losing money. Cider was not being produced and the orchards were not being attended to. “But he didn’t care,” says Richard. “He felt kind of responsible for them, and for Moth’s well being .”'

According to her Instagram they walked 1000 miles on the walks they did for Landlines.

You’ve hit the nail on the head regarding ‘rewilding’ - one of the descriptors and actions I really loathe as it seems to be akin for most to just abandon the land and allow ‘nature’ to do its thing. It shows such a lack of care, attention, knowledge and diligence of our countryside. It’s so fashionable rn to talk about ‘rewilding’ as some amazing thing. Conservation is actually where the good stuff happens but it involves a lot of work and effort to create and maintain habitable landscapes and diversity. Rewilding is the cheap and easy way to sound good whilst doing literally nothing.

It's called trust @sualipa. Did you give the article a read from his point of view at all, or only with a view to keep on defending the confidence tricksters? You mentioned in a previous thread you see them as the underdog, but I have no idea why. They've lived in a series of lovely places at the expense of others.

BC also states his wife had doubts:

'After reading how Raynor and Moth needed a home, Bill told his wife he might have found their next tenants. “She looked at me like she was going to kill me and said : Don’t even think about it! ” But Bill made the couple an offer to live on the farm for a very low rent with a small fee for helping out.'

observer.co.uk/news/national/article/moth-told-me-he-was-dying-when-a-doctor-had-said-his-brain-scan-was-normal

You do tend to find that when these people get exposed there will always be die hard supporters who refuse to believe anything anyone says in spite of the overwhelming evidence that something really isn’t adding up.

People will turn a blind eye because they produce ‘art’ or just ignore the evidence they don’t like

Resharing as this seems to have been overlooked by some and reflects my view very well.

My ex brother in law was an investment banker. He worked for Credit Suisse at the Gherkin.

A gentler, kinder, more lovely person you couldn't imagine.

I saw a brilliant thing on TwitterX about how he changed his name from Tim to Moth. TiMOTHy. Good job their surname isn’t Scunthorpe.

Sounds about right - the instagram feeds suggest they walked from Cape Wrath to Polruan (which I reckon is nearer 1,200 miles) over nearly 4 months from mid May to mid Sept. Personally I believe they did the walk much as described in Landlines but I struggle to see how anybody with CBD could have completed it.

"Her journey becomes a meditation on our connection to the land and its power to help us remember, rebuild, and reclaim what is lost."

Yet again it's connected to YOU as if Raynor, the book and you are as one.

It didn't help her remember why they lost the house!!!!

The 2015 letter refers to neurological tests in 2011. There will presumably have been a diagnosis (or multiple different diagnoses given that Moth’s condition doesn’t fit any known disorder exactly) before 2015. It seems likely that CBS/CBD would have been considered and possibly diagnosed before then.

I thought the quote from the letter that The Observer used and described as his doctor “praising” them for their work raising awareness of CBD was a bit of a gotcha 😂 Way to say your neurologist warned you not to claim walking is a miracle cure for CBD without actually saying it 😂

The Observer article says that Raynor hasn’t explained fully about the book “lottery” in her rebuttal.

“Winn has not clarified how giving away their home in a free prize draw would have helped them manage their debts. Nor has she addressed the issue that they promised how entrants that they could win could have won a house “offered free of mortgage or any other legal or registered charge”, as promised, when more than £300,000 was owed to the bank and private lenders.”

I am sure in one of the articles linked to on one of the threads, Raynor said the plan was that they had set the limit at 300k entries for the prize draw to go ahead. So 300k books at £5 each (the price of the ebook, I am assuming £5 profit on the £7 paperback after printing costs) is £1.5 million. An Izzy Wyn indeed…

Or did I imagine that? 😂 Anyone else remember that or which article it was?

Like all their walks, I think they did parts which have been elaborated in the books.

That someone who has had CBD for 14 years at that point did any of it is ludicrous.

I hope Netflix pick this up and put out a documentary expose as they did with Belle Gibson.

I hope the Observer go back further: I'd love to know if WalkerWinn, as the Observer called her, was always a writer as books are rarely published that become overnight successes without having been years in germination. It would totally explain Ray & Moth away as being a literary fabrication, written to fit in with the Cost of Living crisis, and Wellbeing market.

I doubt they'll be any repercussions apart from loss of face. Three literary liars from the past, come to mind:

Anais Nin published her diaries in the late 1960s painting herself as feminist writer & pioneer until it was revealed that her life was bankrolled by her wealthy banker husband. It later transpired that she was also a bigamist, having married another husband on the West coast, as well as having had an incestuous sexual relationship with her estranged father (denied by her brother) . She spent most of her life writing and re-writing her diaries until she was satisfied with the presentation of herself.

In the 1970s, playwright Lillian Hellman was called out for having completely fabricated her war time escapades that were later made into an Oscar winning film starring Jane Fonda & Vanessa Redgrave, called Julia. Allegedly she took a heroic episode from someone else's life and made it her own.

In the 1990s, JT Leroy, a trans author that had been savagely abused and prostituted, drugged, beaten, etc as a child was exposed as a total fabrication and fictional creation and person by a woman named Laura Albert. Even going as far as to appear as this character during interviews. One of the three books, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, was also made into a film.

Any others to add?

Oh we're back.
I could've sworn this thread disappeared earlier.
Must've been pesky aliens again. Will get Scully on the case now she's stopped all that walking.

The instagram posts which are date stamped, do document the walk in some detail. There is a section (50 miles!) between Glasgow and Edinburgh which they bike in a day. But to stage the shots and then take periodic trains back to Cornwall to recuperate and then resume the walk for short stretches which are documented on instagram, seems a bit of a stretch.

I am more inclined to think that the CBD/CBS condition has been completely misdiagnosed. If that is the case, then SW could claim that her book is based on what the specialists told her. Just a thought.

Maybe Chloe H needs to get somebody to come out of the woodwork and state that they definitely didn't do all the walks as described in the books. So far nobody has been able to definitively disprove that the walking bits of the book aren't factual (even if there may have been some embellishment about certain episodes described such as the SA misidentifications)