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.

One thing I have always noticed about SW in all her interviews is that she seems slightly bemused by her stellar success as an author. The Sunday Times nominated TSP as one of the best 100 books in the last 50 yesrs.

How much of this success was due to 'luck'? How much of TSP's success was due to being published just at the right time and seeing sales take off during Covid when the country was locked down for 2 years, desperate for an escape from lock down, a miracle, a chance to escape from the bubble and reconnect with nature?

I don't think there is any way that Penguin or SW could have predicted that TSP would tap into this zeitgeist and achieve such phenomenal global success.

So SW and TSP have been the beneficiaries of being in the right place at the right time (from a publishing perspective) but also paradoxically being, in a strange Shakespeare/Greek tragedian sense, victims of their own success!

This doesn't excuse the lies, deceit and fabrication surrounding TSP, the embezzlement from the Hemmings, the weasly rebuttal statement from SW, the possible manipulation of the CBD diagnosis for literary effect and the collateral damage it has caused in so many ways.But maybe SW and TW are both, to some degree, unwitting beneficiaries and victims of circumstance - that circumstance being the world turned upside down during Covid. A miracle story for our times marketed aa being 'unflinchingly honest'.

Should've been Pamela Anderson, according to Sally.

Just an aside at this late juncture. The names, "Sally and Tim" are much more wholesome and solid, trustworthy names than "Raynor and Moth."

But then, "Sally and Tim" is too close to "Rosie and Jim."

Living on a narrowboat playing a concertina might have been planned for book 94 in the series.

Thanks for thinking of me.

Agree with this...but I think it's the way things are headed these days, sadly. If anyone pointing out wrong doing is accused of pouring vitriol over the perpetrator or being mean/jealous..then where does that leave the poor victims?

I do think Moth has health issues and he shouldn't be put in a position where he has to share his private medical records but it wasn't he that stole from an employer and then claimed to be homeless through no fault of his own...nor he who decided to share his health records in order to defend his actions.

Personal opinion, but I don't think that RW is a very nice lady... I've read the book and the way she is scathing towards others she observes, steals and seems quite entitled, aren't endearing qualities.

We now have @TonstantWeader as our Wales correspondent.

I remember we've also had pps along the way of the eight threads who have identified themselves as our Cornwall, France, Legal, Publishing, Author, Hiking, Medical, Neurological Conditions and Journalist correspondents but I can't remember who they all are at this point.

That is quite a decent breadth of knowledge.

Any more?

@DisappointedReader I am honoured to accept the nomination. I thank my DH, my parents, my producer, the film crew, my dog and everyone in the Top Left Corner, as we call it <bows, curtseys, cries a la Gwyneth Paltrow>

I'm fascinated by what the Obs might be coming out with on Sunday. I'm expecting it'll be people who knew the Walkers of yore coming forward. I don't think there's that much more to be had from the topic of the illness, nor surprisingly the walk itself. It's the criminality which is the key bit for me. And for the avoidance of doubt, no, I don't want any harm to befall either of Raymoth. But I hope they've paid back the guy in the Pwllheli garage by now. They know where he is, after all.

Not surprising, given they have made millions out of her work. To drop her right now would make PRH look very bad. Plus I would imagine SW is very frail mentally right now.

However "At this time" is telling. They will quietly drop her once this furore dies down, or sooner if there is conclusive proof that she lied about Moth's condition. Unless they reinvent her as a fiction author, as has happened with James Frey, I think.

The whole thing really illustrates how morally bankrupt the publishing industry is.

nor he who decided to share his health records in order to defend his actions.

Just on this point, from Raynor/Sally's statement:

'Firstly, let me address Moth’s health. With Moth’s permission, and on the advice of his neurologist, I am releasing excerpts from two clinic letters'

Agreed they couldn’t predict just how popular it would become but a large element is often how much marketing effort goes into a book release. Great books can be published by a large house and still largely sink without a trace when they’re not well promoted. This happens shockingly often. When a book is decided as worth the marketing effort early on then it gives it a huge chance of being a bigger release. Obviously, that’s still no guarantee, and when books do get an encouraging response than they often will continue that marketing effort and spend.

Is anyone else feeling less trusting of a different (non-SW) memoir/travel/nature/healing/fundraising book you are currently reading? Have you found your reading experience change since the Observer-Winn/Walker disclosures?

I began One Woman Walks Wales by Ursula Martin early this month before Saltgate started.

Ursula is currently in the middle of walking LEJOG to spread information about ovarian cancer (she's a survivor), to fundraise for a related charity and to promote her second book, One Woman Walks Europe, at lots of independent bookshops en route. She's doing pop-up signings and organised talks as well. I met her when she was walking through my area in the South of England and had a great chat. I liked her lots - she seemed very down to earth and I'm very much enjoying her first book. I have the second lined up for when I finish it.

I feel a bit sad though that I'm aware of reserving a little bit of wariness just in case I'm proved wrong about Ursula's work in a few years time (sorry Ursula, it's not your fault and I hope that my wariness is temporary!). It's one bad taste that the whole Salt Path thing has given me. I hope my distrusting feeling goes away. I don't like it.

@DisappointedReader Can I nominate myself as representative for Fudge bars please.

And also the beautiful cover artwork will have helped. I went for it based on that <shallow>

I do wonder whether the bemusement was in part 'OMG never thought it would be this successful' combined with a ' shit shit shit we're going to get found out' undertow. I think once the film came out with all the attendant publicity there was no way the backstory wouldn't emerge into the open. I'm not surprised either GA nor JI have commented. I mean, what is there to say? Especially for JI, who obviously believed everything they said, judging by the interview clip where he went on about how they'd been cheated. I feel v sorry for both GA & JI, because this will follow them around just as much now. They must feel so duped alongside many others.

She was so unstable ,she was never going to have a good outcome. Should the police not have arrested her in case she committed suicide? It's sad but you can't apply that line of thinking to anyone who has done wrong.

I don't think GA could be described as curvaceous with any stretch of the imagination!

The film is ok but only makes sense if you've read the book. The cinematography is good.

I would suggest this episode is a rarity. We can't let it cause distrust of other writers on no basis other than simply because it can happen. But I can understand your wariness too. I hope it passes.

And another thing - no one's medical consultant advises them to publicise their clinic letters. Why would your doctor advise you to do anything like that? That's not something for a doctor to make suggestions on. Your doctor is there to treat your medical conditions whatever they may or may not be not give advice on your statements to the media.

Hasn’t Angela Harding quickly disassociated too? In her position would you not speak to Raymoth to see if all indeed gross misrepresentation? Maybe she did.

The trigger was tge £600 in cash he'd asked her to bank as he didn't have enough to pay his staff. He looked at his statement and no cash had been deposited

Yes, in fact, my first awareness of the book was buying another book in a bookshop and there being a pile of postcards on the cash register that had the artwork on them, to advertise the book. They were free and I picked one up because I liked the picture itself. There was obviously money being put into the launch from early on.

I wonder how this would have played out, 30 years ago, before Mumsnet... only half joking.. but before podcasts, before 24/7 media, before multiple sources could be tracked down and cross referenced across countries.. the whole idea that a story might be tomorrow's chip wrapper is well and truly gone, a story catches the interest of a few and it doesn't take much to keep it alive, to add depth, scrutinise, expose, challenge. In a world where much of what we see is enhanced, a carefully edited snap shot and the phrase post truth is used, we are fed huge volumes of facts, every day through the media, much of which is framed to influence our thinking.. and much of it is biased. It is intriguing how much traction this story has gained when instead we could be concerned with war in Gaza and Syria, the Women's Euros, the latest on the Epstein files, defence spending or whether a TikTok account can irreparably damage the reputation of the Sylvanian Families.

I think the film would have been pulled, the next book would have disappeared, locals might have gossiped in the pub, there would have been a 'controversy' section in Wikipedia and the last known whereabouts of Sal and Tim would have been living a quiet life somewhere, supported by the income from the books. Many a disgraced politician, author, singer, actor, writer has been protected by their agents, producers, party colleagues or indeed libel case and injunctions which were not always true.. and gone on to continue to have highly paid careers or quiet and comfortable lives. The ones that come to mind are mostly male and mostly politicians...

I'm wondering if the Mail will have something tomorrow, in another attempt to scoop the Observer.

@ChateauMargauxquite possibly…. But then SW was writing her ‘truthful account’ in the age of social media…. 24/7 media culture actually worked very much in her favour in publicity didn’t it? It’s now coming back to bite her but that’s the risk you take isn’t it, if you try to dupe your publisher and the public.

you’d think, on some level, she would have been aware of the risk of the truth coming out. But maybe once the money came rolling in, the appearances and book signings started, and then the film with big names starring in it….

Are you all ready for this, because we're going to start crying:

Once upon a time, there was a small me, living in deepest, darkest Lancashire. On car journeys with either my mum or dad we would see an elderly gentleman pushing his wife in a wheelchair up the grassy bits of the sides of dual carriageways, picking up aluminium cans for recyclying. They tied clear plastic sacks to the handlebars to put the cans in somehow.

They never stopped. Out in all weathers. It was very Peter Kay but all good comedy is based in truth.

Well, they had a little book published about local history that went on sale in bookshops round the area in aid of MS and various local charities.

They had a photograph of themselves on the front cover. She was in her wheelchair with a tartan blanket over her knees and he was next to her, looking ar her with the greatest love.

The book wasn't very long. It was all about priest holes and mentions in the Domesday Book, you know the sort of thing. Her condition was hardly talked about.

I think I could still have my copy somewhere but my mum came to stay with me last summer after my dad died and threw out everything, "Too depressing."

I've often thought about them in this Salt Path nonsense.

Do we have any idea whether they’ve ever had any contact with one another, though? Usually the publisher arranges the cover design/image.

AH has just, as far as I’m aware, renamed on her website the print which is on the cover of TSP. I don’t imagine, unless they’re also friends, that they would necessarily ever have met. AH lives in Rutland, doesn’t she?