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.

@sualipa You've shared that article so your name is showing!

Maybe a bit "niche" but maybe that is the title of the warts and all biography of Ray and Moth!

I wouldn't put it past them.

Chapter one: I accidentally on purpose deposited 64k of Martin Hemmings money into my account and everyone was so mean about it.

I hope she has invested the money from her books well, will be able to live comfortably with Moth and give some money to her children.

I also hope she has good friends, who she can walk or swim with in the winter, have a cup of tea or a glass of wine with.

She can spin a good yarn and she had made some good money from her talents.

Thanks for the heads up but it's not me I got it from X and Julie Dee is the writer but you're abolutely right to be careful about doxxing yourself on a public forum.

Okay, but it's not Julie Dee who is revealed, it's someone whose first name begins with L.

Oh yes, he wrote it all from memory 44 years afterwards. And some of it must have been completely from memory because he had his earlier notebooks nicked in Vienna, didn't he? But it's still such a beautiful evocation of a Europe now lost.

Which sparks another debate: to how much of a degree should travel writing be held to 100% accuracy, when you're trying to craft a narrative and evoke a feel of a place? It's why some of the nitpickier contributions to this thread have irritated me- there was a comment posted originally from another site saying that the Liverpudlian family quoted at Gillan couldn't possibly have been real because the poster knew the only Liverpudlian family around those parts and they wouldn't have said that 😆 Oh, and the ferry wasn't accurate. I mean, I know Gillan well, and I thought RW's description of it was a nice evocation.

(Not excusing the health claims or owt)

Thanks @Stravaig I did look back but there is...so...much now!

Stone Soup with John Hurt in links took me back with the puppet dog.

@crackofdoom

Is the description of Gillan accurate in the book? Because I think if I'd read about a place, then visited and it was not like how I'd read, I'd be miffed.

Didn't that poster on Reddit say Sally had written about a rowing boat crossing but it wasn't?

I think the problem is the health claims and the backstory about how they lost the house. People aren't willing to suspend their disbelief in the way they would if (eg) Simon Armitage made a few claims about his trip that added colour/narrative sense about stuff that doesn't matter.

PS please don't sue me Simon, you are on this occasion a hypothetical example! (I'm safe from George Orwell)

You are inhabiting a Mumsnet pressure cooker a great one, I'll admit, but a pressure cooker nevertheless.
It sounds like some cathartic event should take place best on the Salt Path, for peak resonance where a group of the dispossessed fooled gather under a full moon to burn their copies, exorcise the demons and dance arounf the embers and move on. A sort of reverse Wicker Man to purge the darkness.

FWIW my thoughts are that artistic licence and tweaking certain events are to be expected. What I cannot tolerate is fabricating the central premise to trick the audience into believing the protagonists are victims or significantly retrofitting things into an untrue timeline to the detriment of authenticity just to create a dramatic and sellable narrative arc. That's what fiction is for! Truth has to take precedence when stories are presented as truth. It's an unwritten contract between author and audience. Truth comes in many forms beyond mere facts, of course, but outright lies to create plot points do not yield a deeper truth to a story, they only hide it.

Once more to sleep on the beach, dear friends...and watch out for the incoming tide and a wet tent!

It's ok we'll have a pot noodle and I'll nick us all some fudge bars.

@sualipa It sounds like some cathartic event should take place best on the Salt Path, for peak resonance where a group of the dispossessed fooled gather under a full moon to burn their copies.

But I don't have a copy of TSP. I guess I could get one out of the library (from the fiction section, obvs,) but they might frown on me burning it.

That just reminded me of this

Yeah, she's got the shepherd's huts, and the general feel of the place rings true. I didn't even know there was a ferry though- I've only ever crossed by the stepping stones at low tide or taken the long way round.

But in general, as someone who's walked about two thirds of the Cornish coast path, I find her descriptions spot on. I just opened the book at random to Perranporth just now and found myself nodding in recognition- abandoned army camp yup, nudists down the end of the beach yup, getting lost in those bloody dunes yup.

I have no doubts about them having walked the SWCP, although their interactions with people along the way have never rung entirely true to me.

I was outraged! Well, a little bit cross and - of course - disappointed!

It was just a minor detour on the path.

I hope she/they pay every last person she/they still owe money to. The Welsh garage owners, the buyers of the defaulted loan, the French taxman, the cafe, shop and campsite owners they stole from on the walk (if they ever actually did it). Then make a sizeable donation to every soup kitchen they ate from when they weren't homeless because they actually owned property in France, and also to the CBD charity for using a terrible illness to pull heart stringers and cover up shenanigans. I won't hold my breath though.

She/they made good money from lying.

Here's the website for the ferry, but doesn't seem to show the ferry.

https://sailawaystanthony.co.uk/ferry/

I have just looked that up - an excellent analogy as to what they may have done !

Some travelers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the very hungry travelers. Then the travelers go to a stream and fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travelers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful and which they would be delighted to share with the villager, although it still needs a little bit of garnish, which they are missing, to improve the flavor.

The villager, who anticipates enjoying a share of the soup, does not mind parting with a few carrots, so these are added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travelers again mention their stone soup which has not yet reached its full potential. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient, like potatoes, onions, cabbages, peas, celery, tomatoes, sweetcorn, meat (like chicken, pork and beef), milk, butter, salt and pepper. Finally, the stone (being inedible) is removed from the pot, and a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by travelers and villagers alike. Although the travelers have thus tricked the villagers into sharing their food with them, they have successfully transformed it into a tasty meal which they share with the donors.

You make an interesting point - is Paddy Leigh-Fermor's travel writing being judged on the same standards as Ray Winn's?

Probably not (for all manner of reasons). In my view there isn't much comparison between the standard of writing of Raynor Winn and other great travel writers or the description of the natural landscape or the historical background of the places she visits or any encounters with any particularly interesting people she encounters en route. Which may help explain why so many people have found the film adaption as dull as ditch water.

So what is the core of the travelogue that has made 2m+ people buy the book (TSP)? Could it be the story of a couple unjustly evicted from their home, made homeless through no fault of their own, one of them being diagnosed with a terminal illness and then embarking on an "unflinchingly honest" journey which involves a redemptive battle against the elements, fate and humanity to emerge miraculously "healed", their lives changed and a world of savage injustice, turned on its head?

If, as has been claimed and documented, the Walkers were the authors of their own misfortune (through reckless embezzlement of £64K from their employers), exaggerated the extent of Moth's neurological condition to exploit the commercial opportunity of a "feel good story", simply made up large segments of the "unflinchingly honest" narrative and fabricated the miraculous improvement in Moth's neurological condition giving false hope to many who genuinely suffer from debilitating and incurable neurological conditions, then wherein lies the value of The Salt Path other than modern day Snake Oil?

I’d imagine charity shops will have them piled high for 50p, as their censorious volunteers wrestle with the moral dilemma: sell the books and keep spreading the lies while funding the charity, or quietly pulp them in the backroom bin and achieve a kind of moral clarity!

♥️ that film is a classic that TSP can only dream of getting close to.