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.

I always assume the Germans are here to see the landscapes where Rosamunde Pilcher books are set. They're very popular in Germany and have adaptations on TV there. I used to walk the coast path about 15 years ago, there were always lots of Germans.

rosamunde Pilcher

v popular in Germany apparently

I think it’s a bit odd to describe them as middle class (if it’s intended either as an insult or a reason why they got away with their story for so long). Moth is a plasterer turned gardener. Raynor is a bookkeeper. That’s not middle class.

Oh, Rosamund Pilcher- The Shell Seekers. I've never read it, but I hear her books are beloved in Germany. Yes, year on year you see more German (and Dutch) drivers looking traumatised in the lanes, but there seemed to be a sudden influx of Germans on the coast path yesterday.

Yes that’s what mil said - driving was scary!!!

she has a friend who is such a pilcher fan she comes over with her caravan every year

Plus I really don't know why anyone would take what's written in the books as verbatim truth anymore... wasn't the consensus a couple of threads back that letter most resembling a diagnosis came in 2015, two years after the walk was done? Plus the recent report from BC that they lied to him about 3 months for Moth to live.

In terms of who wrote it, even SW has admitted it's based on notes TW made in walking guides (possibly from a temporary home with walls not camping on the edge of a path – has anyone else heard of the Victorian armchair explorers who wrote travel books without going anywhere?) We're assuming that's just the odd reference here and there "shoulders aches" "tent blown over" but remember we're supposed to take SW's words with a large pinch of salt.

Yes, it is. She talks much more about it in the second book. I just thought it was odd that she was representing them as on completely foreign territory spending a winter in the Midlands when they both grew up in Leicestershire.

I mean, I get that they'd been gone for a long time, but it was hardly unknown to them, and presumably Raynor's mother at least was still living in Leicestershire from what she says in the second book. (I don't know when her father died.)

But yes, apart from the Rosamund Pilcher fans, TSP has been translated into German. On the Icelandic walk in the second book, Raynor and Moth are recognised by Germans after some German magazine had featured them.

The death of SWs mother was registered in the East staffs district. So not Leicestershire, but still the Midlands. I could be wrong but I got the impression that the family had moved to Staffs and that's actually where SW grew up.

The article in The Observer about the chap that let them stay on the farm in Cornwall is interesting. After all that they just left with the key under the mat and he didn't even see them.
Strange after he started asking a few questions that they just left.

They have apparently invested in a family property business and bought land in France.

They started a publishing company (albeit unsuccessfully)

I think the Welsh property was used for holiday lets?

Yes, the book has been released in Germany as Der Salzpfad and here is the German trailer for the film:

There is also Wilde Stille and Uber Land.

Yeah, bit of a digression but I'm not terribly keen on framing hiking on a shoe string as "middle class". Why should the middle class get all the nice things?

The mass trespass of Kinder Scout was by factory and mill workers who wanted to walk in the hills on their day off.

I've met various people who came across as long term homeless while walking on the SWCP- presumably because they preferred doing that rather than being stuck in a hostel or temporary accommodation.

Are "proper" WC people supposed to sit inside drooling slack jawed at the footie on their wide screen TVs while necking lager? 🙄

I think it is middle class to make the decision to do something irrational and foolhardy because you don’t think you will suffer consequences.

Yes, I was going on lots of articles that described her as having grown up on a farm near Melton Mowbray, and someone who said they'd found a birth cert giving that as her place of birth, but you're right, others say Staffordshire, and the Wiki page now says both.

The Melton Times describes her as a 'Melton woman' and quotes her as saying, when Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson visited, that 'It's not supposed to happen to a girl from Melton Mowbray!' Which would still mean she grew up elswhere, obviously.

Yes, a PP makes point it could be he’s self conscious due to disease progression which is fair enough but Ray makes point he’s very well today but popped out for provisions. A static photoshoot cancelled last minute.Possibly saving face, but Sophie Raworth asks if he’s there another time & can she chat if so & he’s in the room and superficially at least appears in very good health. He’s been a silent spectator.

Sophie R is the one who first flagged Meryl Streep I think as an aside. She thinks Ray looks like a younger version of her.

On the One Show ‘he can’t be here’ not ‘he’s unwell today’ but again appears via link. Again very well and we hear elsewhere ‘it’s a surprisingly good day’. On the Rick Stein episode, poss before disease progression, there’s no awkward gait & he’s very physical here too. Maybe this all came later?

He’s a huge, charismatic, popular extrovert, we’re told, and someone at a lit fest, from memory, after a talk tells audience no he’s not absent. Here’s here! Everyone is stunned he’s in the audience. At the bar off camera etc he takes centre stage with Ray apparently and is larger than life, seemingly well, magnetic & charismatic. People prefer him to her apparently. Has his media low profile been agreed between them at some stage? Possibly for a noble reason or is he understandably self conscious due to tics via disease etc (?) which might be unpredictable.

Agree

Also, you can have quite a good lifestyle if you can build successful plastering and bookkeeping businesses. (Although the ability to plaster depends on continued good health)

She has meryl Streeps nose interesting she looks like meryl but was played by Gillian and both actresses played Margaret

RW's mother used to live in Old Hall Cottage, Dunstall, Burton-on-Trent. (according to British Phone book - Public record)

And the ability to bookkeep depends on continued trustworthiness.

Moth = Fly by night ?

I have half a dozen large logs - remnants of a huge old beech tree, carefully placed in a pleasing pyramid shape (obviously symbolic and an ancient log drying formation, rarely seen). Happy for any academics to come and take a look!

I can assure you that that's definitely not true!! Impulsive decision making spans the classes!

If she's from Melton Mowbray maybe that explains the pork pies?

i actually think the middle are the people who are more aware of their precariousness

you need to be more secure financially or with family that are to take a risk (eg Martha lane fox)

or have nothing at all so you’re not losing anything by taking the risk anyway