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...

Thread One ^www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5368194-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?^

Thread 2 Thread 2. To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

Thread 3 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5369425-thread-3-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

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.

Made me laugh. Thank you

The problem however is TSP frames itself around RWs despair at the diagnosis and though of him dying and being alone. Some people may still buy into it even in the knowledge he hadn't been diagnosed but they must really not care about it being a true story.

I reworked the synopsis of TSP that is on PRH website in case they want any pointers towards the true story.

After years of living with a mysterious undiagnosed health condition, Tim and his wife Sally suddenly lose their dream home as well as their livelihood due to a debt they owe for past wrong-doings.

With nothing left and bailiffs closing in, they flee in the night before making an incredibly impulsive decision: to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.

Staying on campsites without paying and eating chips when they can, they must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story of guilt, coming to terms with losing it all and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.

I think the chronology is fairly crucial. TSP is framed around the concept that Moth has just being diagnosed with a terminal illness and could have just months to live. They are living in the moment, reconnecting with nature which enables Moth's condition to improve.

If, in fact, there is no CBD diagnosis until AFTER the walk has been completed and during the walk there are just some inexplicable symptoms which could be related to many underlying causes, then the whole thrust of the book is entirely negated and it just becomes a book about a couple of people going on a walk on the SWCP who have had their home repossessed after embezzling £64k from their employers and having the loan they took out to repay it, called in.. It just becomes a work of fiction.

I didn’t read this because I read the reviews about them stealing from campsite owners and thought that was pretty despicable.

I was then put off buying a beautiful Angela Harding book in our local bookshop because of her association.

If I was to hazard a guess at who had lost and who had gained from her artwork I wouldn’t be feeling sympathy for Tim/Sally

I think that's a very generous suggested synopsis, @AldoGordo.

I was thinking of their adult children and wondering what on earth they may be feeling, or to what extent they are or feel implicated in the whole thing -- a friend has just had cancer surgery and concealed the real purpose of the surgery from their young adult children, and is only telling them now it's become clear they need chemotherapy too, which made me wonder about how much the adult Walkers disclosed to their children about Moth's diagnosis, and when.

I've had similar thoughts.

Moth was clearly having symptoms that predate the walk by years - long enough to have had a raft of tests in 2011.

They walked in Cornwall in 2013, SW's mother died in 2015 and Moth had a name put to his symptoms later in 2015. They then went off walking again. TSP was published in 2018, so probably written (or at least completed) after Moth was given this putative diagnosis, ie after the second walk.

SW could have written in TSP about the anxiety of undiagnosed symptoms. I can believe that Moth did improve with the exercise - 2 years later the consultant remarks that physiotherapy has been useful - so she could have bigged that up. The CBS diagnosis could then have been the bombshell in the second book.

Where I think she has gone wrong with this is the timeline - writing about walking with mild mobility issues doesn't pull the heartstrings the way that writing about walking with a terminal diagnosis does, so she's retrofitted the diagnosis. She's also bigged it up bigtime - that much is clear from the consultant's letter. And she has overtly suggested that Moth's brainscan went back to normal after another hefty walk, and that's just irresponsible.

And I do wonder if all this was SWs idea, or if her editor thought the book would sell far more the way it actually is presented.

@Sooty20235
On my shelves, I have three Angela Harding jigsaws waiting to be completed. I know that's a bit excessive but I had a spate of charity shop finds a while back. I think I'm going to have to leave them for a while until I've stopped associating her style with SP, if that's possible.

Angela's artwork is so distinctive. If I were her, I'd be concentrating on producing images with a colour palette that didn't focus on blue, black, grey and white!

ETA reply to Sooty!

If either of these two are found to have any connection to fox hunting, then for me, that’s war. I’ve loved foxes for many years they’ve often visited my garden. They’re beautiful, deeply misunderstood creatures who live quietly in our shadows once our mortal enemies, back when precious food was scarce and every hen counted.

Their only evolutionary misfortune was not being born as dogs or cats animals we’ve conveniently chosen to adore though in many ways, foxes are superior to both.

Did their children think their father had a terminal disease with a prognosis of less than 2 years? (in 2013)

Did they think that their father was going to die by Christmas in 2021?

This is what SW (in TSP) and TW (in Oct 2021) were claiming regarding his prognosis.

Nowhere in the NHS letters does it even suggest that TW Moth's life expectancy would be affected let alone provide a short prognosis.

@Catwith69lives "If, in fact, there is no CBD diagnosis until AFTER the walk has been completed and during the walk there are just some inexplicable symptoms which could be related to many underlying causes, then the whole thrust of the book is entirely negated" Exactly, and parts of the book don't ring true:

"Shouting, crying, throwing the water bottle in anger...Die – just do it and die now... Don’t leave, ever. Leave. I’m already dead. I died when you let that demon take our home and throw our children into the street... We spat out words of pain, self-pity, hate – for judges, doctors, false friends, each other."

Good points.

I still think those letters were very strange ones to provide if they seeking to prove beyond any doubt that Tim has CBS.

In their shoes, I'd be providing:

1. the alleged brain scans that showed damage
2. the original diagnosis letter (the consultant would have sent one to them & their GP)

I would be wanting to show beyond doubt.

The fact they haven't provided anything to back up their side of the story is evidence enough they've lied at worst, or at best misled.

I honestly think when faced with eviction, they came up with the idea of the fatal disease and mammoth walk aw a good plot and ran walked with it.

Perhaps they didn't think as far ahead as two more books & a film, but there we go.

That final sentence is actually very intriguing.

We spat out words of pain, self-pity, hate – for judges, doctors, false friends, each other."

Agreed, @mauvishagain -- that fits my sense of the 'real' timeline insofar as we can put it together. What interests me is at what point in the development of the MS a significant massaging of that timeline started to creep in, and/or how it related to the other big alteration, concealing the reason for the loss of their home.

By RW's account in TWS, their daughter was the first to read her MS, then called Lightly Salted Blackberries, even before Moth, for whose birthday she wrote it. But what exactly was she reading?

If it was really only ever intended for Moth's eyes only (which I'm slightly disbelieving about for a number of reasons), there won't have needed to be any backstory about losing the farm, as he already knew every last messy detail of that, but neither will there have needed to be any backstory about the diagnosis, whenever it happened. Only a reader who is not Moth would have needed that. So that presumably came later, though it's not clear whether she would have done it before querying agents, or with her agent before it was sent out, or after she'd signed with PRH..

And I'm dubious about whether someone who didn't have at least the possibility of publication in mind would have written something supposedly for her husband with him constructed as a character in the third person, rather than as the addressee. But obviously 'You picked up the tent and dropped it immediately, you were so weak' is not a publishable MS intended for a general reader.

If she did originally address the entire thing to Moth, she presumably altered it before she sent out the MS to agents.

I'd also be interested in how the construction of Moth altered between the original MS and the published version. He's presented as so saintly, charismatic etc in the published book. I can't imagine presenting that straight-faced to my husband of many years, especially when he knows the real story of both the house repossession and the likely illness timeline.

CBD is a pretty specific fatal disease which was (sort of) diagnosed in 2015. Yet the 2015 consultant's letter implies that Moth doesn't really know much about CBD/CBS and refers him to the PSPA for more information. For that reason, I don't think SW came up with the CBD angle in 2013 when she set off on the walk with Moth. I believe (unless SW can provide a copy of the original 2013 letter to back up her story) that the CBD angle was retrofitted into TSP for "dramatic effect". Basically a shamefaced lie designed to emotionally manipulate the reader!

I completely agree with you @OpenThatWindow

My inclination is to think the idea of the book came after when Tim got the 2015 letter. Often their mistruths have a thread of connection to reality and according to SW she wrote the book in 2016 for Tim. I don't believe she did it for Tim, but I can believe it's when she or they wrote it. Would be interesting to know what any people in Poluran recall about their story before 2015.

ETA: in fact it's conceivable they said to one another "oh, so that's what I/you had when we walked the SWCP to end up here. Hey, why don't we write a book about us doing that walk now that we know you have some form of this awful disease. You did that walk with this disease and we'd just lost our home...." and so the yarn was spun.

Based on the facts that are currently publicly available, I agree that this scenario seems to be the most likely.

There are bits in TSP that might support this, they seem clunky add-ons, to remind us of terminal diagnosis.

I died when you let that demon take our home and throw our children into the street

Oh look, some more mawkish dishonest emotional manipulation. Their DC were adults with their own homes when the house was repossessed. No one threw any children anywhere.

Until a brain scan report is provided, I refuse to believe there was any damage detected on the MRI at all, let alone that it was ever reversed (by walking or by any other thing).

We know that the scans in 2011 revealed nothing abnormal. There have been no documents to suggest this has ever not been the case - to date.

I've no reason to think they do, only that the area RW is from is a real hunting heartland.

I think it's also very interesting what SW says about Tim's illness in her rebuttal statement on her website:

Firstly, let me address Moth’s health. With Moth’s permission, and on the advice of his neurologist, I am releasing excerpts from two clinic letters, showing he is treated for CBD/S and has been for many years. This is deeply personal information that no-one should ever be forced to share. The redacted sections are for the personal privacy of Moth and the doctors involved.
Among the Observer’s many accusations, the most heart breaking is the suggestion that Moth has made up his illness. This utterly vile, unfair, and false suggestion has emotionally devasted Moth, who has fought so hard against the insidious condition of Corticobasal Syndrome.

What she doesn't say however, is that the account of the original prognosis of CBD as described in TSP as well as the chronology of the diagnosis is 100% accurate. That seems to me to be a glaring omission! As a small aside, the fact that she has said "devasted" rather than "devastated" suggests that the statement was put out without any input from lawyers.

She claims he has been treated for CBD/S for many years. What treatment is that?

If he is being treated by the medical profession, how can she assert that walking reversed the alleged brain damage and not the medical treatment?

The charity were so quick to drop them too. This seems very harsh & premature. If he has the condition, albeit in indolent or unusual form, why do this so hastily? Isn’t it kicking them when down?