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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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.

Given his job he clearly has an interest in farming. I don’t judge him too much on trying to realise a dream but he would have been better getting a professional farm manager

Placemarking

Surely because the ‘bargain’ was presented as either (1) you get your money back on a ‘non admissions’ basis or (2) you are free to enter the long process of criminal prosecution, followed by a compelled sale of the accused’s property to try to recoup the funds, which may take years.

In the age of computer-written books, accountability is going to be a growing issue for everyone.

If readers stop trusting us, we may not be able to walk it back.

@MerryMet That piece nicely links present problems with possible futures.

In a few decades, perhaps the most trusted and authentic tales will once again be told around a campfire; the storyteller will begin with a ritual drop of blood to prove they are an organic life form; any false true-story claims will quickly unravel in real time; and charlatans will risk unmasking and the creatively just deserts of a live audience. Full spiral.

And Moth still won't be dead !

My mum has just told me this story has been on lunchtime news
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c80p2pzgpmgo

I like the sound of that world much better!

He says he was ‘gaslit’ by Raymoth but it seems odd to me he didn’t know how they’d be portrayed in Rick Stein (?) (just to look at that bit) If that’s what happened. He could surely have been main contributor here on show if his wish?

Maybe he doesn’t want to be front and centre and him speaking to the papers now is actually a big deal for him

I don't think (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that there is any evidence at all that there ever was an investment in a relative's business which didn't pay off. I think it's much simpler- they went cap in hand to a relative with access to that kind of money because they needed it to avoid the embezzlement from the Hemmings being pursued. Then everything flows from there.

So 1, 3, and 4 never actually happened. They just borrowed a lot of money from a relative, secured against their already-mortgaged house, then when the relative went bust he gave the debt to one of his creditors as he had no other assets to offer them. Raymoth didn't pay the new owners of the debt, and the house was repossessed (though those creditors never got payment from it as it didn't make enough to pay them after paying off the mortgage). There was no bad investment, just borrowing money they couldn't afford to pay back, to get out of the embezzlement accusation.

I wonder if Mrs hemmings would have been content to have the story out there and left it at that but SWs rebuttal and almost blaming of her husband has led her to think ‘sod you, I’m going to talk to whoever asks!’

Claiming you are going to die within the next few months if you actually aren't seems very gaslighty to me

I think that's exactly what's happened.

I think if Sally had not tried to badmouth the Hemmings this would have died down by now

I'm still a bit baffled by some of the timings and events that led up the Welsh house being repossessed in July 2013 and the events as described in TSP

The real Salt Path: what’s in the book, and what The Obse...:

The Observer article states:

• SW's embezzlement was discovered in 2008
• They took out the £100K loan in 2008
• In 2009 the property company went bust
• In 2010 the Walker £100K loan was transferred to other company creditors
• in Feb 2012 a judge ruled in favour of the creditors and gave the Walkers a year to find the money to repay the loan or their house would be sold by the creditors to recoup their money
• In July 2013 the bailiffs came and repossessed the house

This doesn't tally at all with the account in TSP which among other things says their savings quickly ran out and they became litigants in person because of changes to the Government Legal Aid regulations which denied them free access to a lawyer when their savings ran out.

However, the judge's ruling against the Walkers came in February 2012 and the changes to the Government's legal Aid regulations (Legal Aid,Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012) didn't come into effect until April 2013.

Another question I have is how the Walkers managed to make ends meet between SW losing her job with the Hemmings in 2008 and their being evicted from the Welsh house in July 2013.

I agree.

Difficult to understand the acceptance of the terms of the loan (18% interest, charge on house) unless directly related to the need to avoid criminal proceedings.

I do believe that they are the kind of people who would make an investment in a family member's business without understanding the nature of what they were doing or the risks involved.

After all, they bought the land in France.

Good point! You may be right. There is no apparent evidence, as yet, of the original property investment.

Agree, shocking. No one can defend that.

I also don't think 1, 3, 4 happened.

The investment in a friend's portfolio was made up to account for why they were taking out the loan. We know now the loan was needed because of the embezzlement.

There was a property investment, though, the house and land they bought in France in 2007.

So she's conflated the two.

I agree with @Nameychangington — there’s no evidence of them investing in anyone’s business.

It may of course be true that they invested at some point in something that didn’t see a return on the investment (they seem bad with money, to put it mildly), but at a time and place that had nothing whatsoever to do with the money borrowed to pay back the Hemmings.

I think the conflation of various events enables RW to believe she is speaking ‘truth.’ I suspect she totally believes TSP is an honest account of their journey. When someone describes what occurred with their employer as ‘mistakes’ and claims to deeply regret them, it’s a pretty clear signal as to what the reality was

Interesting in the attached podcast (20.50) SW doubles down on Moth's original CBD diagnosis and says "the prognosis gave him possibly 2 years of mainly quickly declining health".

She also says that the original weekly tax credit payments of £48 quickly dropped to £30 a week.

Feed swap: The Salt Path author Raynor Winn speaks to the Folk on Foot podcast - The Outdoors Fix

As an aside Sam Lee is a fantastic folk singer!

To add, we also only have Raymoth's word there was any investment to start with. Conversely, companies house records don't back up their word. The company of Cooper's that began liquidatIon in 2010 was only set up in 1999. So if any investment was made to Cooper's property portfolio in the early 1990s then it must have been to a different company of his. Except, there is no property company that he was associated with pre-1999, according to companies house records, and Raymoth has already stated the investment was made with the company that failed in 2010.

Meanwhile, notice how Raymoth's story has changed in the course of this. In TSP, the story goes:

"Trusting enough that when an opportunity arose to make an investment in one of his companies we took it, putting in a substantial sum. The company with which the investment was made eventually failed, leaving a number of unpaid debts. The suggestion that we owed money had crept in insidiously. At first we ignored it, but over time Cooper became insistent that, owing to the structure of the agreement, we were liable to make payment towards those debts."

In summary: they made an investment, the company failed, debts were owed, Cooper claimed the Walker's were liable as investors.

In her recent statement, however, the story now goes:

"In The Salt Path I describe a financial dispute with a lifetime friend, who I call Cooper to protect his family.

In the early 1990s, Moth (not "we") made an investment in Cooper’s property portfolio (not "company"). When the investment was due to mature, Cooper claimed it had failed due to low occupancy (not due to "failed company"). However, we later discovered this was not the case. When we raised this with him, he conceded and although he couldn’t at that time, he promised he would eventually pay us back (still no "failed company" or no "debt owing to the structure of the investment agreement").

In 2008, we asked for the money back. He said he didn’t have it but offered us a loan through his company. We agreed (finally, a debt that was agreed). Because the loan was coming from his company, he said it had to follow the company’s standard loan terms: 18% interest, which he would cover, and a charge on our home in his name. He assured us this was standard practice and only temporary as he would soon repay the loan to his company, and the charge would be removed. We were uneasy, but after so many years, it seemed like a way to finally resolve the issue. We trusted that Cooper would honour his word and repay the money to his company, as repayment of our original investment."

But he didn’t return the money to us or his company (so they got no money?? If so how did they pay back Hemmings?) and the charge against our home wasn’t removed. Instead, he used the charge on our home to pay off his business creditors. In 2010, his company went into liquidation." (no "the suggestion that we owed money had crept in insidiously.")

In summary, in this newer version: they made an investment, Cooper lied about the investment making money, the Walkers found out and asked for their investment back, Cooper gave them a company loan against their house, he didn't pay the company back (so basically pocketed the loan), the business failed, Cooper passed the Walkers' debt to his creditors, and they called it in.

Compare with what the documentary evidence says:

Cooper set up his first property company in 1999, he loaned TW approx £100,000 with a charge against the house, his company went into administration and then liquidation beginning 2010, Cooper transfered TW's debt to his creditors, they called the debt in, Cooper provided a witness statement that the loan was to settle criminal allegations of Mrs Walker's, the creditors took possession of the house.

I agree with this. Also, given there's no new image of Bill with the article (i'd seen the one they used before the article published) it seems to be to have been a reluctant interview, probably over the phone, and Chloe got as much as she could to write a story on. He refused to speak to the Daily Mail which I think shows he's not too keen on making a big deal of his side of the story.

I think buying a wreck of an ancient farm building in rural France is right on brand for them. It's partly keeping up with the Joneses (TWs brother), and partly playing into their middle class vaguely hippy self image as rustic types, doing up a rural French house by hand themselves while living in tents is right up their alley.

Whereas investing in a property company doesn't tie into their image at all. They're not the type of people who invest, they're eco friendly simple country folk in tune with nature and the land! And certainly not in residential property, surely private landlords are evil capitalists exploiting poor people (which they sometimes claim to be, just not the type of poor people who live in a council house because everyone would gossip).