Thread 8: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

Well, this has turned out to be slightly longer than the dozen or so replies I expected when I started the first thread!

The Observer The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...

2nd Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-whats-in-the-book-and-what-the-observer-has-found

3rd Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-the-truth-behind-the-blockbuster-book-video

4th Observer
‘I felt I was being gaslit’ – the landlord who helped Ray...

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husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

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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 extremely cautious when it comes to naming or implicating people and addresses not in the public eye or with no direct 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.

We have done amazingly well together - in the main that is, not mentioning any names but you know who you are! - for seven threads so far. I can't be on the threads as much as I'd like so all help with keeping our discussion ticking along in a healthy and civil fashion is very welcome.

No saltiness. Keep to the path. Thank you.

I think this conclusion is fair. It seems likely the idea snowballed into something that RW couldn't then stop. She never knew how successful her book would become. Nevertheless, the narrative should never have been presented as non-fiction and she must have known that.

It must be the major arse covering version. The one they bring out with things don’t seem quite right but the story is bound to sell.

'How Not to Dal dy Dyr'. That ridiculous neither Welsh nor English title gets more annoying every time I see it 😂

Just watched it, thanks for posting. A very clear and balanced explanation of all manner of things, including how many times Chloe H approached both the author and publishers, initially to ask them about her findings and then to examine what had been written pre-publication. Ample opportunity to counter / explain any of the points, offer contrary evidence, or whatever. I recommend a watch, especially for @Humankindness .

I think on reflection the wording of ‘we didn’t lose our house because of the Hemmings dispute’ may actually be accurate - it seems it was because the loan was passed on and then called in due to default. So the hemmings issue and subsequent loan was the underlying issue but not actually the final trigger for losing the house . I think it was selective wording.

But what did Sally Walker want?

She may not have imagined it to be the success it became, but she wanted it to make money, she wanted it to be published.

Did she imagine it would only make a little, and that Tim would just quietly go into his newly trained job role and they'd live quietly ever after?

I can believe that because of how bad The Wild Silence is. It's a cobbled together mess in essence.

However, the wild story of Tim's health could easily have been dealt with in TWS and Landlines.

She would have been just as successful I believe if she had said in TWS that the consultant thought that he may not even have CBD. The hope she could write about! The joy! The weight that was lifted from their shoulders as the medical profession potentially gave him his life back.

But no, she just keeps going with her, harder to remain believable, narrative. Introducing miracles of brain scans reversing visible damage to his brain.

Just like a pathological liar would.

Agree, especially on the point about the author being advised to stay out of the media frenzy and not feed it.

The way in which I’ve been treated on here is exactly how the author would be treated if she opens her mouth and fails to provide an answer that is 100 percent in line with expectations. It’s a no-win situation. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If I were her, I’d stay well away from the baying hounds.

Happy to have been a distraction on here. It was much needed. I’ve been following this thread for days (yes I have had a careful read through) and simply don’t agree with a lot of it. It feels somewhat hysterical. Fancy raising questions about the colour of pen used in a guidebook notation and feeding that into a narrative about retro-fitting. Who actually cares?

I've been following but think I last posted on about Thread 3!!

I was looking at the walk itself and pulled out my old copy of TSP again. I remembered that the bit I was most interested in when I first read it was where I used to live on the path in Devon.
But this section had been missed out of the walk. Sal & Tim decided not to walk between Starcross and Brixham (about 20-30 miles) as they thought it would be too difficult to wild camp with their being several towns en route and would end up in shop doorways instead.

SW talks about stopping at Dawlish Warren (just beyond Starcross) and camping behind the visitor centre. Dawlish Warren is a huge spit of land going out into the sea. It is a nature reserve which then melds into sand dunes and finally the beach. One end (nature reserve end) is beautiful and wild and only attracts walkers / bird watchers etc. The other end is completely commercialised with funfair and ice cream kiosks etc. The visitor centre is somewhere in the middle. But what surprised me (besides not being a great choice of location given how much more suitable and remote the nature reserve end is) is that they weren't caught. The Warren is always busy and also always patrolled by rangers. There is a very big presence there to stop people camping / overnighting in vans etc. One place on it I would most definitely not camp is by the visitor centre!!

I suppose if you don't know it you might make that decision - especially if arriving late and leaving early - but it seemed a strange one.

No real point here ... just another observation!

Oh yes, well spotted and corrected. But you are also right, it still coveys an inconsistency.

Interesting observation about the degree. Even if they could argue "well, Moth changed his mind after the walk and decided to do horticulture instead", it doesn't change the fact they were considering a lengthy career move in the face of little, or uncertain time. I do wonder if the idea of studying was simply a way to get a loan to begin rebuilding their lives.

Testimony is admissable evidence. That's why courts present witnesses. Are you saying you won't believe Ros Hemmings and their solicitor and daughter until they swear an oath?

I truly believe a large element of this saga is sibling / couple rivalry. Tim’s brother bought a house in France in the early 2000s. So did the Walkers. Tim’s brother published Stopcock in the 2010s. So did the Walkers - possibly How not to… definitely TSP. I am not convinced Sally was the sole author as Tim’s family seem far more creative minded.

I think the embezzlement could well have been to source funds to keep up with Tim’s brother in getting a house in France and a nicer house in Wales. At some point - possibly around the time the embezzlement was uncovered - they seem to have fallen out which might well have galvanised their drive to exceed the brother’s perceived success. And TSP definitely achieved that as financially they are now probably the wealthier of the two couples.

There's a post about this a thread or two back. A pp found there was no copy lodged with the British library and someone else pointed out they probably didn't have to as it was self-published.

@Choux I too think that’s a big part of it - the desire not to look like the poor sibling .

There’s a whole lot of detail not to care about, or to ascribe to artistic licence…but the trifling matter of embezzlement and the events surrounding that are what began the second, deeper investigation. Which simply would not have gone to print without extensive legalling.

So While there’s a bit of messing about in the weeds of the story on these threads, that’s not what’s causing the reputational damage — damage which Sally herself shored up with her lengthy non-rebuttal.

Thanks for your contributions. You've not really offered any answers though. Initially you asked for kindness and empathy, which I find perplexing unless you are someone who has a close connection to Sally and are trying to protect her from valid scrutiny. All you've managed to contribute thus far is to highlight the very many holes and inconsistencies that don't add up, rather than explain them.

Someone kindly posted a link to TSP online and I've just skim read it. I tried to imagine I was reading it pre-revelations (not really possible, I suppose). Here are my thoughts, which echo a lot previously expressed.

1. I find it really annoying that she calls grown women girls.
2. The encounters with other people are not credible and the dialogue is wooden. I'm not saying they didn't happen but it looks very much as if they've been embellished - badly. The bit near the beginning where they do a bit of matchmaking for the young lad and the 'girl with pink hair' - just cringe. The people they meet fall into three clichéed categories: mystic sages (sage mystics, even); comedy fodder; stuck-up posho types.
3. The illness feels like an add-on - it's shoehorned in now and again.
4. Tim/moth going to university - this is utterly unconvincing. You're homeless, living in a tent and you're way out is to apply to university? When you know you have a terminal illness and are unlikely to last the length of the course? And the idea that a student loan would be enough for two of them is ridiculous; if their children were at uni, they would know that it's barely enough for one person to live on.
5. The constant comments about them being old - with one young woman ('girl') in a café even phoning her friend across the street to go and have a look at the 'old people with big rucksacks'. Just no way.
6. The Simon Armitage stuff - who are they kidding?? And they've never heard of Simon Armitage but they happen to have a copy of Seamus Heaney in their backpack? That's a pretty niche choice for someone who's not heard of one of our best-known poets (pre-Laureate days but even so).
7. The line where she says something like 'you can make up your own story and in the end you'll believe it yourself.' Just wow.

If I was still working in publishing, these would have been my views on the typescript (except number 7, of course) and I wouldn't have recommended it for publication. But it was picked up by a major publishing house, became a bestseller and won awards - so clearly I know nothing.

While there’s a bit of messing about in the weeds of the story on these threads

I love that phrase! It's exactly what we've been doing. 😁

But like you say, it doesn't detract from the embezzlement.

Or the loan, and the illness, and the other big inconsistencies in their lives.

I also agree with this. And the entitlement that went along with it.

They've got x, y, z. Why shouldn't we have it too? We deserve it.

Out of interest, do we know whether anyone has read Martyn Walker’s novel Stopcock? I know it’s fiction of course, but could be an interesting read😁

Good morning, all. We're popping in with a reminder that, while it's fine to disagree with other posters, please do so in a way that doesn't breach our Talk Guidelines. Posts which veer into personal attack territory, or trollhunting, will be removed.

Well one person has, although he/she only gave it a 2 star review!

Stopcock: Walker, Martyn: 9781478335979: Amazon.com: Books

Agree. I'm really not interested in some of the minutiae/areas of artistic licence (although I question the use of the phrase "unflinchingly honest")

But the theft story is significant. And I think SW compounded it with her ill advised statements and attempts to taint the reputation of the Hemmings'.

If she had had good PR advice I think the story wouldnt have gained as much traction

And I actually have some sympathy with the naivety perhaps of writing a very embellished book and not realising now popular it would become. But that doesnt excuse the doubling down on the story in subsequent books and interviews

Maybe this will be the new direction of The Observer? Not the book, but the brother offering his side of the story.