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 4 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5370609-thread-4-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

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

Thread 6
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5372494-thread-6-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

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.

So, if I’ve understood correctly, she’d block the rabbit holes and then trap the rabbits in the fox traps? Or just kill them? Bloody hell.

I see there are signs at home re: illness that do seem more troubling as I progress beyond the dramatic prologue. If her I’d be questioning the diagnosis & focusing on seeing specialists rather than going on dangerous walks, perhaps this happens later…

That wasn't the take home message I got 😂. I thought she meant she trapped them in the sense of stopping them hopping back down holes so she could watch them. I guess we'll see if the Daily Mail follows this thread if an animal cruelty headline appears.

Yes, it's the shrug and "it's not that deep" attitude towards the truth that baffles me.

This is how we ended up with someone like Boris Johnson as prime minister - a known liar but hey everyone likes him because he's rich and funny and he spins a good yarn. Farage has made a living out of lying and showing utter contempt for public service but it doesn't matter, it seems a majority of voters are lapping it up. Trump is a convicted felon and rapist but millions of people literally see no problem with that, they like him and look up to him and they identify with his words.

Do facts matter? Not for most people it seems. They're just not interested. Stories are more fun.

I think there’s sometimes a perception that someone well groomed with money is ‘posh’ NB: Victoria Beckham, her Dad had a Rolls after all. Also Rayner is intelligent, cultured & well read which muddies water further for some. A different kind of ‘Posh’. For some again ‘posh’ simply means someone who appears to think they are a cut above the majority as the majority see it.

Well, in TWS, where she spends a lot of time reminiscing about the early days of their relationship, they apparently spent every weekend climbing with ropes in the Peak District, at his instigation — so presumably he had a strong head for heights in the past?

But I wouldn’t look for logic in Landlines. An experienced walker, she doesn’t try out her new boots in advance of a tough LD walk, they shred her feet, then her size is mysteriously unavailable in both boots and socks at any shop they try, so she buys a size too big and hurts her ankle stepping off a rock, while Moth, who she’s pushed to do the path after his health deteriorates, after an initial wobble, is effortlessly doing long days on tough terrain while Raynor suffers agonies and clearly wants to go home.

Meanwhile, Moth keeps saying ‘Oh, I’m not ready to stop walking yet’ and discovering some other trail that takes them roughly in the direction of Cornwall from the north of Scotland… And there’s a few vague meditations on Scottish independence and Brexit (which is apparently the reason for boot shortages…)

It’s a fair point that a disorientated rabbit might end up in a fox trap as a consequence? Or are they too small to trigger them? Sounds like dangerous all round to ramblers etc. Am reminded again on Ray being cavalier about giving unsterilised water from streams to Moth…Surely she’d have known about the danger from living on a working farm?

yThe house in Wales looked lovely on Escape to the Country. Even though they completely brought it on themselves with their choice to commit fraud/theft, I can see losing it must have been a trauma. (No sympathy, mind, because of the criminal actions and the lying...)

She seems standard enough rural lower-middle class to me. By her own account, the main event in her life was meeting Moth in her teens, when she reinvented herself as a fellow ‘free spirit’ who floats free of such classifications, obviously..

Yes. If this whole controversy has done anything, it's shone a glaring light on how a section of society has no interest in truth and integrity and would rather blindly put faith in someone's written word, instantly dismiss the media, and not bother to look into the evidence themselves. "Well she wrote it so it must be true. And it's a lovely story." It speaks to a mentality that pervades much of wider society beyond a mere non-fiction/fiction book about a walk.

Yes, it was far nicer than I’d expected for some reason. They had some nice old furniture. It was an atmospheric space.

Yep, spot on.

There’s so many negative comments about ‘middle class’ people on this thread and in responses to this news story in general. It’s as though it’s the worst thing a person could be (although add in female and over 40) and you get the very worst, apparently.

@CheerybleBrothers that’s very well put :).

To me, what it shows is that many people don’t read what’s on the page but what they think is on the page.

Raynor emerges in TSP as angry, bitter, self-righteous and resentful, and some of the most vivid writing isn’t her paeans to nature, it’s bitching about fellow walkers — I still don’t quite understand why it is that so many readers appeared to have found her and Moth lovely, and to feel personally betrayed by the discovery they are Not Nice.

I saw a comment somewhere a few weeks ago, prior to this story, of somebody talking about how there was an author faking terminal illness and now I wonder if it was alluding to this.

This organisation appears to be sitting firmly on the fence...at least gives a balance of opinions from its community members

https://noon.org.uk/noon-icons/raynor-winn/

It's such a strange British hang up, the class thing. Some people seemed annoyed the other day when I said that SalRay and Hannah IM are middle class women. But they are and it's not meant as a slight against them but a fact.

I think what makes someone "posh" is hugely subjective and variable. As teens we were convinced one of our friends was incredibly posh because her house used to have Kettle Chips rather than the more down to earth Walkers 😂.

I think there may be a distinction between readers and viewers. As a reader of TSP I found her bitter and resentful. It was quite off putting and I didn't read the subsequent books for that very reason. As a viewer of her various pieces on TV (which I've only watched as a result of this thread) I've been surprised to find her much warmer and more likeable in person.

But maybe time and being several million better off has something to do with it!

She’s the cat that got the cream as richer to the tune of 3 plus million (?) Interestingly I said she not ‘they’. She’s glowing. You’re right.

Sorry, just to add to my own comment, I’m not suggesting this, it just made me think of that post.

Where might you have seen this?

I’m wracking my brains, I thought perhaps Threads as I’m not on Twitter anymore. Gah! I can’t find it. It did seem to refer to the author but I suppose that’s how I’d read it. I thought at the time it was a bit out of order, because it makes people speculate, versus just saying who you’re referring to - or saying nothing.

I agree with those commenting that trying to establish whether SalRay is a psychopath is going too far.

However, I do think it is relevant to consider whether she and RayMoth are "pathological" liars. The psychiatric definition for "pathological lying" is interesting. SallRay seems to match a good few of the classic symptoms, if the Observer claims are true.

10 Pathological Liar Signs and How to Cope | Newport Institute

I don’t know on class - society today is obsessed with labels - and class is just another one afaic. A way to ‘other’ people or a way to join a tribe and put yourself in a box

Agree with pp that she doesn’t come across as likeable so you have to wonder about those people who read the book and thought she was lovely - did they read the book at all!