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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Thread 6
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husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 7
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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.

Yes, I hope her family are keeping her away from all forms of media, and only keeping her up to date with the general gist.

All her own doing I know.

Simon would play himself, of course, though we may need to ban him from bringing his sock.

I think we should all play ourselves, although I sense the singing may be a little variable in places.

ETA: I've just sung my post out loud in the style of musical theatre and I suggest that you all do the same with your own posts as we go along.

It’s all about her, curiously.

🤣 But only paper thin sleeping bags, and plenty of fudge. Would be billed as the longest musical ever, it may even have no ending.

@AldoGordo that's v kind, but it's good for my brain. Here's Pt 1, which runs from just under the pic of GA & SW:

"Martin Hemmings, who died in 2012, owned a property and surveying company in N Wales and was Debbie’s Dad and Ros’ husband.

The mother and daughter got to know Tim Walker, Sally’s husband, when they worked in the gardens at Plas y Rhiw for the National Trust in the 1990s.
The family said that there, in 2001, Tim Walker mentioned that his wife had lost her job keeping the books at a hotel in Abersoch.

“Dad’s bookkeeper retired.And Mam came home and said to Dad ‘listen, Tim’s wife, she keeps books”, said Debbie.

“So she got to come to work in the office one or two days a week, to help us out.”
She [SW] worked in the business for about 7 years according to the family, and in this period, they claim, things changed in the business."

Oh yes, I’m sure RW is speaking her subjective ‘truth’!! That’s not the same as fact though. What she says in the book about the finances does not match what’s now being exposed

@TonstantWeader no worries. I've asked for my post to be removed to avoid confusion.

it may even have no ending.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! <runs for the hills>

Still no comment from Gillian Anderson or Jason Isaacs? 🙈

😂

I don’t think anyone in their right mind would want anyone to harm themselves.

Equally, it’s of fundamental importance that no one should feel silenced from telling the truth, however inconvenient or uncomfortable that truth is. It’s a dangerously slippery slope to feel any truth should remain hidden just to avoid the perpetrator in a situation to feel better.

😂

Yes I agree. Can't help remembering Caroline Flack here.

What a fantastic idea! It could be a rock pop opera musical featuring Welsh bands of the nineties:

Super Furry Animals: Run Away.

The lyrics are perfect: "I still recall your banking details."

Catatonia, "Mulder and Scully." Needs no explanation.

Manic Street Preachers: A Design For Life.

Again, very apt lyrics, "Libraries gave us power...
...And we are not allowed to spend,
As we are told that this is the end...,"

That's just five minutes of thought from me. Could your people talk to my people? This project has legs.

Pt 2 (from sub-heading to next pic):

IT BROKE DAD
Debbie Adams said “There wasn’t enough money. They started looking back through the accounts and saw that money had been going missing.
“9 thousand pounds to start with and they couldn’t see that this had been put into the bank.
“Dad phoned me and he was in tears. It was an absolutely terrible time for us all” she said.
“Admittedly, Dad wasn’t good at sending out the bills…..I remember that he’d do work for people and then come home and say ‘I took two lobsters instead of money’.
“I just thought that the bills hadn’t been done, not that they’d been sent out. But he said ‘no, no, I’ve been doing them because I’ve got staff to pay.’ ”
Debbie Adams explained that it was SW who was responsible for the paperwork in the office, not her dad.
“He had just trusted her because she was a friend of the family in a way, so he trusted her. Dad was a trusting man, he trusted everyone.
“It broke him, it broke him.He [went from] trusting everyone to trusting no one…..it was really hard for him to trust people.
She said later, Mrs W came round to the house. “Sally came into the yard one morning in floods of tears saying ‘oh, I’ve had to sell my Mum’s things to get you the money to pay you back, these are the only things we have’, and this and that.
“But by this time Dad had had time to call the police and they said 'well take the money, because maybe this will be the only thing you'll get back from her.’ ”

It was ‘Mr Angry from Purley’. Oh I loved Steve Wright.

Thanks for that lovely memory, @DisappointedReader, and for all these threads which I have read avidly.

Someone has just noted that GA and JI have not said anything. On the GA front, has anyone else noticed (or am I imagining it) that in photos of her and SalRay, she has a strange expression on her face? I saw this a couple of times previously but most recently in the BBC article of this morning. She is sort of gurning rather than smiling, and it looks odd to me as, being an actor, she will be used to giving a winning smile at these publicity events. Yet, she isn’t. She did say that she found SW to be ‘guarded’, is that why she looks uncomfortable (to me, anyway).

There have been countless articles on the importance of veracity in memoirs and travelogues in the last couple of weeks. I have come to the conclusion that:

Fabricating and embellishing to make the narrative more exciting or coherent for the reader = ok. Fabricating and embellishing when the lie underpins the heart of the entire story = not ok.

Fabricating and embellishing to make yourself seem more scandalous and wicked = ok. Fabricating and embellishing to cover up your own criminality or to turn yourself into a hero or victim = not ok.

Although, even when you love a book and even when you already suspect bits of it are too perfect to be true, it's still always slightly disappointing to discover that events didn't happen exactly as they appear on the page.

I feel like the true story of Salt Path would be far more compelling than the re-worked one.

Imagine the real story - Walker, for whatever reason (there must have been reasons, not that we'll ever know), embezzling the money but then getting caught, losing the house, "but we deserved to lose it..." the walk could be framed as a sort of self-inflicted sentence, a redemption arc follows, and Tim's illness, once thought to be CBD but then it's evidently not, could be hopeful.

If they REALLY had been 'unflinchingly honest' then I think they'd have had a far more human story.

Or maybe I'm just soft.

But outwardly re-writing the narrative, lying, showing zero remorse and painting yourself as a perpetual victim - just hints at narcissism.

Pass me a KitKat.

Pt 3: (next sub-heading to next pic):

FEELING SHAME
After taking advice from the police, Ros & Martin Hemmings went back through the company accounts over a number of years. According to the Hemmings family, £64k had gone missing from the business.
Weeks later, they received a letter from a London solicitor offering repayment of the money and legal fees to the tune of about £90k. This included an agreement not to pursue criminal charges, and Mrs H said that her husband had signed it.
Debbie Adams said ‘We agreed as a family if we could get the money back…..we agreed not to take any further steps, because as far as we were concerned, everything had come together, the money was back with us, she’d gone, and there was no hope she’d do anything else to us.
“So in a way, what she did was a horrible thing….we are a really private family, and Dad was ashamed that this had happened, he just wanted to draw a line under it and not cross that line.

The story might have been more accurate, human and in a sense gripping but I doubt it would have sold as well for one simple reason - TSP is essentialy a Miracle Play with all that entails.

Everybody wants to believe in miracles and when that miracle is described as being ' unflinchingly honest' by the UK's arguably most trusted publisher, well, you are, to coin a sordid colloquiallism, 'off to the races'.

Gillian Anderson loved the book so much she was desperate to buy the rights and then, when she couldn't, jumped at playing SalRay. She's really identified herself with the role. It must feel to her like she's been duped, and very publicly and expensively so.

I think Anderson's reaction to the book is indicative of the rather dreary Oscar-bait roles that appeal to actors nowadays. Everything has to be worthy and inspirational and a redemptive journey. One suspects these films are more enjoyable for the actors than the audience.

@gattocattivo yes I see that too - I think it’s a very fine line and why I think they should draw a veil over it and make right what they can if they cannot sue/ refute

Pt 4: next sub-heading to next pic:

FEELING SHAME
After taking advice from the police, Ros & Martin Hemmings went back through the company accounts over a number of years. According to the Hemmings family, £64k had gone missing from the business.
Weeks later, they received a letter from a London solicitor offering repayment of the money and legal fees to the tune of about £90k. This included an agreement not to pursue criminal charges, and Mrs H said that her husband had signed it.
Debbie Adams said ‘We agreed as a family if we could get the money back…..we agreed not to take any further steps, because as far as we were concerned, everything had come together, the money was back with us, she’d gone, and there was no hope she’d do anything else to us.
“So in a way, what she did was a horrible thing….we are a really private family, and Dad was ashamed that this had happened, he just wanted to draw a line under it and not cross that line.
In a statement published in July after the Observer article, which contained allegations by Mrs H, SW admitted she had ‘made mistakes’ earlier in her career. She said that she had been under pressure, and although she had been questioned by the police, she had not been charged.
“Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I'm very sorry," she said. Ms W said the case was settled between her and her former employer on a "no-admissions basis", because she "didn't have the necessary evidence to support what happened".
She said “Mr H was as keen to reach a private resolution as I was.”
BBC Cymru put Ms W’s response to Debbie Adams. She replied “Yes, everyone makes mistakes – putting a file in the wrong place, or forgetting to pay a cheque or something…..but mistakes of £64k, that’s a huge amount.
“I think the only mistake we made was getting her into the office to do the work.”
The Salt Path has sold more than 2 million copies since publication, and the author has written two follow-up books, The Wild Silence and Landlines.

Penguin’s statement:

"Given recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth's health condition which has caused considerable distress to Raynor Winn and her family, it is our priority to support the author at this time," Penguin Michael Joseph said in a statement.

”It is our priority to support the author at this time” is a very clear statement of intent.

@Crikeyalmighty That thought has crossed my mind as well but you can't just keep doing these things. In some ways this might be an ideal moment to accept the jig is up and move forward. I hope they do. Time will tell.