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.

We can now add @Iwrotesomething as our Writing Correspondent. We have a few authors sharing their knowledge and experience on these threads.

“he [Dad] wasn't good at sending out the bills ... I remember him doing work for people and coming back and saying I got two lobsters instead of brass.

No wonder he was popular locally :)

@Iwrotesomething - can I just fangirl you and say I read your book and very much enjoyed it (I saw it referenced on here). DH and I do a lot of walking together and him also alone. After reading your book I spent a lot of time haranguing DH about how it was easy for him - support and safety wise - to jump up and walk the South Downs way for a week or whatever. (I suspect he’s therefore not a fanboy 😊 but to be fair he fully recognised the points). Thank you!

As links to personal memoirs seem to be accepted here, and notwithstanding fears of my own exceedingly murky past being uncovered, I offer to you this flinchingly honest story that was written contemporaneously from my tarpaulin tent.
amzn.eu/d/7hddneK

I have no expertise, but I sang Nancy in a school production of Oliver! in the eighties. I volunteer myself for Salt Path: the Musical as a member of the Chorus who keeps stepping out from the wings and singing, with pointed finger

PENNILESS AND ALONE! DOOMED!
ONLY THE SALT AIR CAN SALVE YOU NOW!

I was in Oliver! at school too. Fagin (all girl's school, we chose some peculiar plays considering that , Oh What A Lovely War the year previous)

Barely a woman in either!

I love that SW's dishonesty is now propelling MN interest in authors who have written walking books that aren't a pack of lies ❤️

😂😂

My father always used to call them 'Dozy and Dim'.

I'm an Author correspondent. More fiction than non-, though,and the non-fiction I've had published was local history. Under a pseudonym (to keep it separate from my fiction) - although interestingly, my then-husband didn't feel the urge to change his name to match mine ...

I once played Truly Scrumptious, confectionery magnate's daughter, in a primary school production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. So I could play her in Salt Path: The Musical, perhaps jumping out from behind a gorse bush and chipping in on the price of fudge.

@Iwrotesomething your book sounds fascinating, I'll definitely be buying it. My mum never let me walk alone in the hills around our house as a teenager. I found it very stifling, especially as my brothers did what they wanted. The only time I dared go for a walk on my own, a couple of years ago (up a wooded valley and onto Dartmoor) I found myself regularly checking behind me to see if the men I had passed were following me. I also passed several lone women walkers, which was gratifying and surprising. It was an exhilarating experience, especially when my moorland pool swim was interrupted by the sound of gunfire close by. Never got changed so fast in my life! It turns out I hadn't strayed onto a firing range but some soldiers were practising shooting at and evading each other (apparently something they do around the outside of the ranges).

@Iwrotesomething I've just read a preview of your book, and found the prologue quite interesting, so thanks for sharing.

In Chapter 1 you said that "Like every woman" you carry out safety work, you mention the keys in hand and so on. And feeling cautious about the man in the van, also feeling fearful when leaving the house.

I'm middle aged, spend most of my time when out of the house on my own, in daylight and after dark, in the middle of nowhere (I've wild camped solo) and in built up areas (I regularly walk home alone after an evening out), and don't recognise this at all. Maybe it's most women, maybe it's some, but it's not every woman.

I want to mention this alternative viewpoint that not all women are afraid, and challenge the idea that they are.

DD was camped on a Duck of Edinburgh trip on Dartmoor when a batch of new squaddies were route matched through with sargents shouting lines like 'leave those hips on the dance floor'
It rather cheered the kids up that they were doing their own laid back thing and everyone vowed not to join the forces.

Need to catch up so I hope I’m not interrupting anything important but found this episode of Dead Ringers on my podcast app and at 6 minutes 50 seconds there’s a piece on RW (the whole show is v funny and worth listening to if you have time)

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/friday-night-comedy-from-bbc-radio-4/id265307784?i=1000717987502

I suspect the only reason I was cast as Nancy by the nuns is that they figured if one of their fifteen year olds was going to be singing about being a fallen woman, and how devoted she was to her violent pimp, it had better be the plain, studious, unlikely to go off the rails’ one.

@Uricon2, I think Fagan prancing about on the SWCP carolling ‘You’ve Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two’ would be perfect. Truly Scrumptious can appear for any fudge-related misdemeanours.

No amount of financial reward can compensate for loss of reputation. I imagine RW now wishes she had never written TSP. Or that she had written it differently.

My contribution is I have a pack of tarot cards and I know what some of them mean. Here is my reading for Sally:

What does her future hold?

The Empress
Reclining in the garden of her beautiful home, enjoying her ill gotten gains?
The Devil
A downward spiral of denial, distraction and greed?
The Hermit
Withdrawal from society and contemplation of the natural world, the universe and her true self?
Justice
Taking accountability, giving back, and sincere apologies?

We all have free will and can shape our future... Which path will she choose?

Thank you for sharing this and I love your bio!

Loving the updates on other people's books. @Iwrotesomething I think I saw something about your book before and it looked really interesting (love a bit of women's history) but it was in hardback, and I only tend to get things in paperback. Sorry to hear what happened with Unbound - does that mean no paperback is planned now?

I took the dog out this morning on a non-salty path, though I could see the sea and the mountains from it. I was musing on how even something described as 'petty' crime has effects on its victims that are v far from being petty, and last for years.

@humankind

None of those are the actions of an innocent person.

Any innocent person accused of embezzlement would be turning themselves inside out to prove themselves innocent, not taking out NDAs to prevent those impacted from speaking out about it.

I haven't followed all the threads religiously but have been dipping in and out. Another author here, though I'm a novelist so all my work is fiction. So yay, Sally and I have something in common! 😍

Seriously, I find this whole thing really interesting. I'd love to know more about their marriage. Like, how much do they discuss what's going on? When Tim broke down in tears and told Cider Guy (Bill?) that he only had months to live, had they planned that? Or did Tim just spontaneously decide to play on Bill's heartstrings and Sally went along with it? The private conversations the two of them have must be wild.

The tarot reading in TSP is interesting. Sally draws 9 cards but only 5 are described including "the scales " (presumably the Justice card). Drawn upright this card signifies clarity and truth, while if it is drawn reversed, it means dishonesty, unaccountability and unfairness....

@Catwith69lives
Either position could apply really

I don't believe in 'petty theft' even if it's legally classed as such. The financial value of the theft makes no difference ..it's the same moral intention behind it. I may have interpreted RW wrongly but she seemed almost proud that she had got away with the fudge/ campsite thefts..not ashamed in the least.

I'm not so sure SW or TW really care what other people think of them. They have stolen, lied and ruined people's lives for years while showing absolutely no remorse whatsoever. They didn't seem bothered what people thought then, so why now. They have made a huge amount of money out of all this.