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.

Loving all the AntArt suggestions!

I was homeless a long time ago and yes there are some cruel people working in council housing but as the WalkerWinns are a middle aged couple, articulate and one's got a serious illness and almost certainly got consultant neurologist support, I think they could have got a council or housing association flat.

It seems odd to me too, Tim/Moth maybe but Raynor isn't a shortening of Sally or even what you'd call a "pet" name. It also doesn't account for why he now has Winn as a surname.

Here's an interview they did about it on BBC local radio: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0jb0cfl

The 2018 clip with odd look between them at end feels to me ‘I told you to stick to the script/well done for not elaborating as I told you’. Could we be looking in the wrong direction here? Other parts of interview too. Moth very composed.

Both my uncles were called different names but both left Northern Ireland to live in England. Their work colleagues and friends called them different monikers - derivative from their actual names of Jack (John on birth certificate but it was always Jack from birth) and Michael.

Agreed. In the book I was struck by how many bases she covers for why they choose the walk over other options. There's a couple of paragraphs in 3rd chapter I think which essentially goes through excuse after excuse to arrive at walking as the only way to go. E.g. "we could try to get a council house but there's a waiting list and Moth can't show he's ill enough as a priority...and I can't imagine living in one so close to the home we lost; we didn't want to impose on other people; I could get a job but I have no qualifications, I'm 50 and unemployable, and I can't possibly leave Moth on his own while I worked 9-5; we could sell our remaining furniture but I couldn't part with the memories of our kitchen table; but but but...." RW had the foresight to include all of these (questionable) excuses to justify to the reader that the walk made rational sense.

Haha true!

Really? That’s amazing! They ought to try selling them. I’d buy Ant Art!

When I said they were middle class I was meaning that I don't know any working class people, myself included who manage to have a second home in France, not even a shell of a one.

Rather than anything about the walk itself. Walking is one of my greatest joys and I am far from middle class (but I don't like larger either).

I've come across this odd piece written by Raynor/Sally during lockdown. It describes how during the first lockdown her daughter was living in the city above a fried chicken shop and insisted on staying there rather than joining her parents in the countryside on the cider farm.

She rang her parents from isolation every day but then for 3 days, nothing. Raynor/Sally says that, while going out to sunbathe on the flat roof, her daughter had fallen through into the closed up chicken shop and was trapped for 3 days banging on the windows while passers by just laughed.

No details about injuries or how she was finally rescued. Or who footed the bill for the property damage. Just the inevitable fact that her daughter was vegan and so had an additional moral dilemma to deal with in her crisis.

I mean, you couldn't make it up. Oh hang on ...

https://www.penguin.co.uk/discover/articles/raynor-winn-lockdown-hope

The funniest thing about that was that she at a bit of cheese and that totally killed off her veganism and she became a vegetarian instead!

I am wondering if one of the little artists goes by the name of Adam?

For all the lovers of nature and wildlife on these threads, here is a brief and uplifting comfort break away from The Salty Path:

Red kite filmed mid-flight by drone over Norfolk countryside - BBC News

My father was born on 17th March (St Patrick's day) so he was known as Pat from the day he was born even though two other names were on his birth certificate. During his final illness when he was in hospital the nursing staff were addressing him by his official name & I had to let them know that he was really known as Pat.

In light of all that has been revealed, I still wonder how the idea of walking came about. Did they think of it after they fled the house in the night? Or was it something they had planned for a couple of years knowing that the debt was due and the house was at risk? Or was it just a walking holiday they had been planning to do at the time anyway, but was re-imagined to form the basis of TSP? It feels like such an odd thing to do as people who clearly didn't have much experience of long distance walking or camping, irrespective of Tim's health, and they both had a living parent.

Oh well if we're up to red kites, here's one I did earlier!! And taken in Leicestershire, to maintain the SW link!

@AldoGordo and a lot easier to avoid the debt collectors national or local trades being blunt

They’d long experience pre kids.

I've missed the link for the Rick Stein clip, could someone re post it please?

I used to know someone like this. She was also a pathological liar and there was always a complete turnover of her friendship every 1-2 years as her lies were found out and she moved on, reinvented herself, even changing her beliefs and politics, and blanked people from her previous life.

Like SW she was always the victim and always had sob stories to manipulate people into helping her with housing, money and storage for her stuff when she was "homeless". She could also be vicious and dangerous when confronted with her lies and tried to get someone I know arrested who had taken her in when she was "homeless".

SW's constant reinvention into different occupations and careers also mirrors the person I knew and she frequently adopted the careers of people she was jealous of. She tried teacher training (when she was trying to attract a guy who was a teacher) but failed her teaching practice when she spent more time attempting to sabotage the other student placed in the school than she did on her own teaching. She then set her sights on academia - but it was short lived when she failed her Masters when she plagiarised her dissertation (unfortunate for her that the author of the very niche book was invited to be an examiner). Currently it is a political career .... from what I've seen in the local paper, she's currently on her 4th political party!

Really? They come across as total amateurs at wild camping in the book...

They did though. TSP touches on it, and then it's expanded on in TWS. Pre kids they used to undertake long walks, climb and wild camp- mostly in Scotland.

I thought it was really weird that the film has Jason Isaacs remarking that they'd never done anything like this before, contradicting the books.

It made me wonder if we are more forgiving of inaccuracies on the screen than we are in books somehow.

Where can I watch the Rick Stein episode? Its not available on iPlayer I don’t think? Thank you

It was actually on her statement 'rebutting' (trying to) the Observer article:

'Our friends and neighbours use Sal and Tim interchangeably with Ray and Moth.'

It does seem odd.

This damn scam only works if there are no friends, family, co-workers or any other outside influence.

It's just them, locked into their folie à deux (I'm becoming more and serious about calling it that in more than just a pop culture sense) and their targets. Other people just exist as their marks, as it were.

Every time a third party gets involved it goes wrong.

Like Richard, Bill's mate, who seemed to have only needed to suffer one surreal evening in their company, as it were, to rumble them, or Bill's wife, who had them sussed from the start, or Ros Hemmings...

I'm quite surprised that in all the dealings with neurologists over the years, there has been no mention of seeing any kind of mental health person. Maybe there has. I don't think they'd be keen on that kind of thing though.