Thread 7: 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

Fourth item in The Observer
‘I felt I was being gaslit’ – the landlord who helped Ray...

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Thread 6
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Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn

New posters welcome. It would be helpful to read at least the four Observer items above before posting.

To all - Please be careful when it comes to naming or implicating people and addresses not in the public eye or with no connection to the story, and around the understandable health speculations, especially where details are unclear or still emerging. Please do not engage with possible visitors who seem to have their own agenda and seek to derail.
Keep on the path as we have done together amazingly well for six threads so far. No saltiness. Thank you.

Well spotted. This looks very much like the consultant writing that letter was completely unaware of their coastal path walk. And as you say, why wouldn't they mention this remarkable recovery? A consultant treating such a patient would generally be incredibly excited and want to know none.

The major smoking gun, for me, is now the claim from RW that MW has had now had a clear scan compared to his earlier ones. No evidence of any of these scans is in the public domain. Intrusive as it might be, it would clear them.

Funny isn't it. All the (alleged) work rewilding a farm they didn't own and that probably didn't need it while a property they were responsible for crumbled away into ruin swamped by brambles.

@Uricon2 we’ve got some ‘rewinding’ going on near our offices - just looks a ginormous unkempt mess and is a woolly excuse I think to leave somewhere untended -

Hi all. Been following these threads with great interest. I have all three books as audio books. Most nights (since 2019) I have listened to TSP (read by Anne Reid) through the night. It helps to block out nocturnal sounds coming from the other side of the bed and lulls me back to sleep in the early hours of the morning. I was looking forward to seeing some of the passages come to life in the film. Whilst I realise they can't include everything from the book in the film I was surprised that Dave and Julie were omitted completely. But Dave and Julie make an appearance later on in the book (when they walk from Poole back to Polruan) which wasn't really covered in the film so I guess that's why.
I was VERY surprised at the Grant story. In the book they get taken to Grants lovely holiday farmhouse (reminds Raynor of the farmhouse they lost), pitch their tent in the orchard, have showers, wined and dined (copious amounts of lasagne), Moth has his massage, they stay the night in the orchard and are sent on their way the next morning with bacon butties and apples. All along it's implied that Grant and his household of ladies (wife and 2 employees) think he is Simon Armitage. However in the film Raynor makes it clear that Moth isn't Simon and they are immediately sent packing with no lasagne. I can't understand why they would change that story so much. It's interesting that in the book Grant tells Raynor a story about how he came to be in the wine business (left home as a tennager, bummed around Europe with only a piece of bread and cheese in his pocket until he reached Italy. There he finds himself in a vineyard where he lived for years, sleeping in a barn under the stars. Learning everything he needed to know about wine. Then he came home and set up a very successful wine business). His wife then tells Raynor to ignore the story..... Grant studied wine at night school and his dad got him a job with a wine merchant he knew!

Re Dave and Julie. I think they exist. According to IG they walked the Thames path with them last year. There was a photo on there but it seems to have disappeared now.

But they had a caravan on the land which they stayed in

Having re-read The Observer's findings, it seems that Cooper wasn't seeking to recoup the loan debt from Raymoth in order to pay creditors of his company. Indeed, it seems there is no direct connection between Cooper's company failing and the recouping of the Raymoth debt.

As far as I can see it, Cooper owed two men a personal debt. In order to pay that debt, he simply gave them ownership of the loan agreement that had originally been between himself and Raymoth. This then meant Raymoth were now in debt to the two men. Cooper simply testified to confirm the debt was now the two men's to recoup and that it had originally been a personal loan to settle a criminal allegation against Sally. It just so happens his company is failing at the same time.

Now, if it can be established that the loan was in fact made using the failing company rather than Cooper's personal funds, then it would cast doubt on the above. This is the argument and claim Raymoth made: that liquidators of Cooper's company confirmed to them that the loan was from his company. As such, whatever agreement he had drawn up to give the two men a claim of the Raymoth debt was null and void. Instead, the liquidators would be the ones to claim it, and Raymoth could repay it in agreed installments.

It all boils down to whether the loan was from Cooper's personal money or if it was from company funds. The named lender - either Cooper or Company - would be quite obvious on whatever agreement Tim signed. However, I can also believe how such a detail could be overlooked by Tim given Cooper was director of the company. So it's entirely possible Cooper mislead them (intentionally or not) into thinking it was a company loan when in fact it was a personal one.

Just an observation...

Grifters/liars/theives... are generally THE most hurt and aggrieved people going, trumpeting it loud and trading on it endlessly, when it is they who are the victim.

I am starting to think that, hoist by their own petard of course, they were screwed over by 'Cooper' selling that debt on and genuinely hadn't realised it could happen.

Oh absolutely @WiddlinDiddlin it's the classic DARVO tactic. My ex was like this. He was always on the 'bones of his arse' yet could find £200 at weekends to shove coke up this nose and was always wheeling and dealing. He could absolutely shell out any amount of vitriol, banter, lies and exaggeration, but couldn't and wouldn't accept it from others. He was relentlessly 'woe is me' yet if you told him you had a problem, all you'd get was "oh give over, it can't be that bad"

‘Grant’ feels like he might have something of a Moth backstory about him. Does Grant exist? A ££ man living with x3 gorgeous blondes who massage, feed and anoint at will, uncommon & memorable.

I suppose their argument that it was from the company would be supported by the odd claim that it had to be repaid at the company's standard rate of interest of 18% - but who knows what was going on there.

Agree entirely that PRH must have had enough notice of The Observer story to not send out the advance proof copies that would normally be doing the rounds for reviews, advance buzz etc by now for a book scheduled for October.

And yes, there is now a huge appetite for nature writing, or nature-focused travel writing, or nature-focused 'redemptive' writing with a focus on recovery (like Strayed, H is for Hawk or The Outrun). In fact, my memory is that the Penryn campus of the U of Exeter used to have an MA that specialised in nature writing that was run by Andrew McNeillie -- I don't think it exists any more, or not in Penryn, anyway, but there are certainly others. Bath Spa has one. Raynor Winn was scheduled to teach on two Arvon courses on nature/place writing, but has been pulled.

I think in a way that's why TSP landed so well for so many people. It hit a happy spot between relatable travelogue, hard luck story, 'wellness', and 'social issue' book, and her style is unchallenging compared to the styles of some of the very good writers in the same vague field, like Robert MacFarlane (whose work I really recommend.)

This was pretty much my thoughts process, as someone who loved the books. I would have considered some of the story far fetched, had they been novels. But I naively thought that the publisher would have fact checked the main plot points and, after all, truth is stranger than fiction, as they say!

If I were to guess, I think Raymoth entered into that loan agreement in desperation to avoid a criminal investigation and it was only afterwards they realised what a huge mistake they'd made. I can believe they tried to argue it was company money to try to avoid the house repossession. The "piece of paper" that the judge dismissed would clear this up, if it does indeed show the loan was made through the company.

So if PRH also had 4 months advance notice, presumably they then notified the various film execs, and so also actors reps. It seems insane that the film publicity went ahead as planned, and that the actors were happy to/allowed to appear alongside the Winn/Walkers. Or are there now almighty rows behind the scenes, liability clauses being invoked, lawsuits being primed?

Yes, as far as I know, Mr Hemmings had cancer.

I'm reading Landlines at the moment, and Dave and Julie are apparently horrified at the deterioration in Moth when they see him first, when the Winns stay with them on their way to Scotland. Then, after he and Raynor have hiked back down through Scotland to rejoin them they're struck by how much he's improved, and Dave says

‘I read something recently about multi-surface training being more effective than flat in physio for people with a Parkinsonism, and it certainly hasn’t been flat where you’ve been.’

Landlines is quite odd. Moth can't manage a 2 mile walk around the cider farm at the start and has a fall in the orchard. Raynor leaves out a guide to the Cape Wrath trail for him to see, and there's a lot of rather bizarre reasoning as to why she needs to take a man who can't walk short distances on paved roads on the toughest and most remote long distance walk in the UK.

What am I thinking? I try to put it back on the shelf, but I can’t, the flame’s already alight and I can’t put it out. If we were to walk again, would it give him one more chance? Would one more long trail set him free from the shackles of CBD, at least for a little longer? Would it allow me to keep him for just a little longer?

Then magically, the CW guide is out on the kitchen table, and she's not the one who put it there and suddenly it's Moth pushing the idea, and for much of the after the very beginning, it's Moth who apparently wants to keep going and pushing ahead with walking all the way to Cornwall from the north of Scotland, and Raynor who has pathetically not tried out her new boots enough and is virtually disabled by pain and blisters from them (and then can only get a size too big when she replaces them because of Brexit!)

Grant is I'm sure the landlord of the cider farm they rented. He appears to have other businesses in the are including a distillery.

Would one more long trail set him free from the shackles of CBD, at least for a little longer?

In terms of unfounded health claims, that is shockingly irresponsible. On a par with 'would another course of coffee enemas make her cancer free once more?'

I thought it was interesting that Ray talks about GA & JI getting into/knowing ‘her characters’ as if all a fiction possibly. Character constructs, contrived, as possibly all of this to make money. 3 million plus thus far. Is it worth it? The backlash, painful. Ray very poignant & plight of homeless here at end. Genuinely wanting the eventual karma of noble causes & a sense of putting things right. She’s glowing with happiness here.

I do wonder at the relative of ‘Stopcock’ fame now distancing himself from authorship & changing to conservator. Does the ‘Izzy Winn’ book plot point to a prototype idea? Was there a writing family collab around a kitchen table & explorations re: self publishing & raffles etc all to generate ££?

I think they are leaning heavily on irresponsible, but not illegal.

Ah of office worker hands fame. But they describe this as overgrown & unpleasant (?) or am I getting confused. The Rick Stein episode shows farm as anything plus. In film apparently ‘Grant’ & co not shown so favourably - that might fit with the later flit etc. Also Grant shown in book as a bit of an economical with truth fantasist.

*anything ‘but’ not ‘plus’.

I thought this too but he said he first contacted them after the book was published in 2018. So unless he's lying too...?

That is Bil Cole who they met after the book came out in 2018, and is named Sam (I think) in TWS.

Phew, have managed to catch up and also be able to post! Still radio silence up here in NW Wales about any of it, which I find v surprising after the increase in the number of interviews being given by various Pwllheli locals and Hemmings family members. But again, reinforcing why it's taken this long to come to light (as I've said on previous threads).

I find this unmasking fascinating because I've encountered a similar 'mis-representer' and it's not a pleasant experience. They are so plausible and charming when they want something from you, and it's only afterwards when you've been up close with all the stories and then got away that you start piecing together the fact that they have been lying to you all along, embellishing facts, and behaving awfully behind your back. And it really is stressful, too, and you feel a bit daft that you fell for it. I can well imagine Ros Hemmings wanted to move on. 'My' Raymoth is celebrity-adjacent, and I could easily go to the press and tell them a few stories, as can colleagues from the time. But I wouldn't want to get drawn back into that orbit, tbh, or to revisit what was a horrible time.