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.

The charity dropped them because they understand what the medical letters SW provided actually mean.

They show that he hasn't actually been diagnosed for sure with the disease, no brain scan evidence, no reference to short prognosis, and that the neurologist is far from convinced CBS/D is even the correct diagnosis at all given the extremely mild and indolent course. They show that TSP lies about the terminal prognosis and that the dates do not match up.

The charity are correct to have dropped them. They were mislead and naive. They will not be as naive or trusting in future.

We were shocked and disappointed to learn of the allegations made about Raynor and Moth Winn by The Observer this weekend. We know the article has taken everyone by surprise and has made people affected by Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD) and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) feel angry, let down and eager for clarity.

Raynor and Moth worked with many individuals and organisations since their first book was published, including PSPA. We received the family’s need for support, and desire to raise awareness of PSP & CBD in good faith. Whilst we are thankful for the awareness opportunities their story has provided; too many questions currently remain unanswered. Therefore, we have made the decision to terminate our relationship with the family.

In the meantime, we want to reassure supporters that any fundraising Raynor and Moth conducted for PSPA was via official platforms such as JustGiving and monies raised have been received in full by the charity.

Our Helpline is here to support you by providing a listening ear should you wish to talk.

-

That's the PSPA's statement. Interesting that they first mention 'the family's need for support' along with their 'desire to raise awareness of PSP and CBD'. That makes it sound as if the Walkers were using their services as well as raising awareness, and doesn't suggest they were fundraising, or donating to the charity. Though that is then contradicted by the third paragraph in which they acknowledge that they did fundraise, and reassure people that all money they raised has gone where it was supposed to.

I suppose what it suggests is that they don't want to run the risk of discrediting their charity and its work by association with people whose reputation has been publicly questioned.

(I assume this was before RW's statement, though, was it?)

Sorry not sorry but 'the nature connection' mutated in my head into 'the rainbow connection' and therefore this tune

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.

@mauvishagain, it would be a very unscrupulous editor who completely changed the story. If you're editing a memoir, particularly an 'unflinchingly honest' one, you might ask for more detail here or less emphasis there but you wouldn't mess about with the truth. So my money's on SW doing it. Presumably the Big Issue piece she wrote before the book was commissioned included the terminal diagnosis?

Presumably they might have asked for more private proof before they did so? Surely, almost more than anything else, this puts a question mark on the diagnosis?

Yep this. The letters published with the 'how very dare you' rebuttal don't show either a) any existing damage or terminal diagnosis, and b) the miraculous reversal produced by the walk. And as I said earlier, RW can say how intrusive it is all she likes but it's what it would take to clear them of deception about Moth's medical condition. It will say quite a lot if they don't do this.

Some TV producers & editors can be very persuasive re: ‘good TV’ & books that will generate ££ & therefore unscrupulous although I do tend to agree.

I have to say, no publisher would expect a first book by an unknown author to be a bestseller. It so rarely happens. So when considering what publishing decisions were made, it's worth remembering that they probably thought they were looking at sales of a few thousand copies. I'm surprised they commissioned artwork from such a well-known illustrator though, as it wouldn't come cheap. Having said that, for this kind of book, marketing will be crucial for the target audience of Cornwall fans, amateur walkers and nature lovers, so maybe that's why they invested in the cover.

It's the false friends that stands out for me. False friends how? Because they wouldn't lend them any money? Because they were disgusted and horrified by SalRays embezzling? Because they wouldn't swallow the poor, innocent, hard done by us narrative? Because they questioned the sensibility or a terminally ill man walking for miles?

[EDIT - I meant to post this in response to a pp talking about SW statement, where SW said TW had been treated for CBD by doctors for many years.]

Yet CBS/D is known to be untreatable - she even admits this herself many times.

I re-read the 2015 letter and note the neurologist's ONLY DEFINITE OBJECTIVE finding is a slowed saccadic eye movement. What this suggests is everything else is SUBJECTIVE, including Tim's described symptoms.

This unusual eye observation alone is not indicative of definite pathology. Yes, often brain diseases cause it, but not exclusively.
Of course, I'm not a neurologist and they must have had good reason to determine this as in indication of a "cerebral disorder." Yet, there is no other objective evidence. The neurologist can only rule out certain diseases and arrive at their best guess, which still doesn't quite fit what Tim presents with.

Recall in TSP when RW writes that the consultant says "I think the best thing we can do is give you a diagnosis." This seemed odd at the time of reading. But such a comment, if it is to be believed, would make sense in light of the 2015 letter because the neurologist is clearly in diagnosis mode. Did Raymoth go home, look up the disease and discover how awful it is and write that into the book version even though Tim's was diagnosed as indolent and mild?

PMQs!

https://x.com/i/status/1945450208692736466

@AldoGordo if you block rabbit holes isn't there a risk of blocking rabbits already inside the holes from getting out, could that kill them?

Moth, Simon Armitage

Who's who though? 😂

Dead ringers!

The charity published their statement on the 8th July, distancing themselves from the family. The rebuttal on the Raynor Winn website and photos of the consultants letters were put up a day later on the 9th July.

It's interesting how quickly the charity responded and whether it was a knee jerk reaction from a very cautious board or it was on the back of existing concerns/disquiet.

That does seem a little premature but as you say maybe more to it.

I died when you let that demon take our home

Hmm. Is that the demon who paid off the money you'd embezzled and saved you from possible imprisonment? Or the demon(s) who legally took over your debt from him and wanted their money? Or was another "demon" the architect of your home loss, Salray?

Well, we’re clearly supposed to think it means ‘Cooper’ and his financial betrayal of Moth, his trusting, trike-riding childhood friend, who continues to think the best of him right until the court summons.

Actually, it does raise the issue of their non-imaginary friends. Do they not have any? Are they like those Mners who come on here in such numbers and say they’ve lost all their friends from their younger days in middle age, or have never had any?

RW does present herself as shy and solitary in childhood and adulthood, and it’s pretty clear that meeting Moth was, from her POV, the main ‘social’ event in her life. In the books she seems to relate to other people mostly through him. He’s the one who was going out climbing with his friends every weekend when they met, and apparently involved in environmental protests, he’s the one who starts every conversation with a fellow hiker or cafe owner or a homeless person.

Yet there’s apparently no one to help with solicitor’s fees, or to offer them more than a temporary floor in TSP when disaster strikes. They’re alone in the world apart from offstage children, and the not particularly warmly-received help from ‘Jan’ and ‘Polly’.

Is this dramatic licence to heighten their plight and make going on a long-distance walk while newly homeless and newly diagnosed with a terrible condition seem less weird?

Or are these really two people with few or no real world connections?

I mean, I’m fairly reserved and private, and I withdraw when I’m not in a good place, but my closest friends would know something was wrong. No one has come forward to say ‘We knew about Tim’s diagnosis in year X’ or, alternatively, ‘I knew Moth years ago and he was always coming up with terrible money schemes’ or ‘I knew Sally at school and she was great/ a nutter’. Or ‘Dave and Julie’ saying ‘You lying bastards!’

Or would the lie about the eviction/reinvented illness timeline only work if they withdrew from anyone who could blow holes in either?

That made me laugh @FlyAgaricc ! It is too funny that SA looks appropriately pissed off😂

"The readers outside looked from poet to Moth, and from Moth to poet, and from poet to Moth again; but already it was impossible to say which was which" 🤔

😆

The nephew and his wife on LI?

Is it stated in TWS who the friends are who join them in Iceland? I don't have the book, nor have I read it.

The funny thing is that, looking at those two photos and asked to choose which one is

(1) the cheery poet whose book about walking the Pennine Way starts with funny anecdotes about apparently having 'small lungs' and his wife saying wouldn't it be easier for him to have a more predictable midlife crisis and grow a ponytail and buy a Harley, and who is

(2) the dubious confidence trickster and pathological liar

you'd probably say that poor, blameless SA looked like the sinister one. He always manages to look surly and vaguely shifty, and in his Poet Laureate official photo he looks like he's up in the dock for petty theft.