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...

Thread One ^www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5368194-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?^

Thread 2 Thread 2. To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

Thread 3 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5369425-thread-3-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 4 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5370609-thread-4-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 5 Thread 5: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

Thread 6
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5372494-thread-6-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-
husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 7
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5373425-thread-7-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

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.

True but we must be mindful that this information is part of the narrative to demonstrate how they are scrimping along. The narrative depends on them having no money as much as it relies on Moth's illness and the homessness. I just wonder how much of the scrimping was exaggerated.

It mimics his style with eerie precision the tone, the word choice, even the mood, like some intricate echo mapped by an unthinking digital machine. Apparently, just complex pattern-matching. But how will we ever know, in the future, if a writer hits a wall and let AI haul them over it? We won’t.

@Krautie The Salt Ways in England mostly lead from Droitwich, which has brine springs. But there must have been others here too. (I have a peculiar interest - for feminist reasons - in the early history of salt and would love to go and see the ancient salt workings in Germany...)

First and probably only post on Mumsnet. Just wanted to say how much I have 'enjoyed' following this thread.

TSP has long been a hobbyhorse of mine. A bit like there will always be two people with the same birthday on a football pitch in any reasonable sized gathering there will always be someone I can bitch about TSP with.

My partner and I were given it shortly after we walked from Minehead to Padstow. I read about 50-80 pages before saying 'I cant read this f**ing garbage'.

My main objection was how deeply unpleasant she, and by extension he was. Having been street homeless and begged I hated the trope of the beggar getting into the car at the end of the day. I didn't believe the sheep episode, I didn't believe the reasoning behind the walk, I didn't believe his diagnosis, nothing made sense to me.

My partner read the whole book reporting back its absurdities as they progressed, we were both especially irritated by their complete inability to look after themselves, despite there age and his supposed diagnosis. A handful of lentils, a tin of toms and a small aubergine would have been so easy.

It got under my skin as I was a complete druggy, alcoholic and inveterate liar from a very young age. That is now almost 30 years of hard work and deep joy ago. We have done many long walks together and separately and there is (for us) something deeply nourishing in walking. My partner has different but equally difficult trajectory in life but we both find that getting up, walking though amazing scenery, meeting almost exclusively lovely people to be deeply restorative and healing.

I cant really be bothered to try and puzzle out the truth of the TSP or their motivations but I have always felt that the deep travesty of this book takes away from the many people who do make profound changes in their life as well as conning anyone else who just likes a pleasant bimble around now and again out of their hard earned money.

Esp as the creative, dapper soul Moth can drum up crowds & cash with recitations.

When they were given the flat to rent at the end with no deposit or references SW says they still paid market rent - was that just from his student loan?

There‘s a salt museum in Lüneburg which is worth visiting. Lüneburg is a pretty town with a fair few medieval buildings. Apparently the Lüneburg Heath became a heath as the trees were cut down for salt distillation. I‘d love to know about the feminist connection to salt..

@behindahill thank you for sharing your story

Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt as a child, that always struck me as bizarre; as an adult, it’s absolutely nuts. And why a pillar of salt? That said, in ancient times, salt was a very valuable commodity. We die if we don’t get enough of it, and we die if we get too much.

The story of Lot's wife begins in Genesis 19 after two angels arrived in Sodom at eventide and were invited to spend the night at Lot's home. The men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and prompted Lot to offer up these men/angels to have sex with; instead, Lot offered up his two daughters but they were refused. As dawn was breaking, Lot's visiting angels urged him to get his family and flee, so as to avoid being caught in the impending disaster for the iniquity of the city. The command was given, "Flee for your life! Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, lest you be swept away."[1]: 465  While fleeing, Lot's wife looked behind her at Sodom and was turned into a pillar of salt.[1]: 46

@behindahill thank you for telling your story.
frankly I’d rather read your story!

It’s interesting some say the Army are unlikely to have closed off some of the path & given RayMoth a lift (?) I am thinking of ‘Grant’s’ lift too, I would hesitate about going off with stranger to home. Prob part of walking culture though? All very generous but I’d be worried we might be singing for our supper, no such thing as a free lasagne maybe? :) Keys rucksacks in middle of room? X3 unusually attractive blondes appear…

She says that the money she made while packing fleeces for the shearers was enough for a deposit and a month's rent, that they put that in the bank and went back for their second stint on the path with £200 in cash.

'Anna',who is entranced by Moth's storytelling in a cafe, is apparently devil-may-care about rent, saying she's sure that the student loan will cover it -- 'it's only a small place; it's not much'. (Which seems more than a bit unlikely, in somewhere that touristy. You could probably charge a small fortune on Airbnb for a mousehole.)

It's all a bit like when Bill Cole begs them to come and live on his cider farm. It's not about the money, it's about the Walkers being so inspiring that total strangers offer them stuff without doing anything as vulgar as saying 'Rent is £? per month. Can you afford that?' or 'I will expect you to work for X hours per week on the farm, get cider production up and running, and fully renovate the house.'

And then Raynor says that they will sell 'most of our remaining possessions' to cover the hire of a van to transport 'what little we needed' to Polruan.

Does anyone know why the book is called ‘the salt path’, out of interest? The only reason I can think why is because it’s by the sea. Not a bad reason to call it that, but still seems a bit random.

She talks a lot about the salt air, salt wind, salt water, and their salty sweat and tears, and uses the expression the 'salt path' for the way they'd walked the year before when they return to the path after the winter.

And one of those Mysterious Wise People who bob out at them on the path, says they have been 'salted' by their experience of walking the path. I don't think it's anything more than that.

Ahh okay - thanks.

Another aside, Reddit hiking thread also brings up cafe owner who told Raymoth to F off or similar also very angry & aghast. Bad for business etc.

Yes agree, nothing differentiates its saltiness from another coastal path's. Originally I thought it must be to do with the salt trade à la The Silk Road but seems not.

Doubt the name change would have gone through, but it could have been an added tourist trail name for the routes they, supposedly, did, or to tie together towns they supposedly visited, for shops to use in marketing. Which would have been ironic, given they didn't like to shell out much!

Thank you kindly @DisappointedReader for Thread 8 😎

Well, my screen time has shot up to fairly horrific amounts since thread 1! I’ve got myself a copy of TWS (which I hadn’t heard of before) from Vinted so I’ll have a read of that in between catching up here and bracing myself for Sunday’s likely marathon!

Sally's tarot reading in TSP:
"Oh my, you have the sun at the centre of your reading, and the moon at the top. Your final three cards are Mother Earth, the arts and the scales. A prestigious, beautiful reading... She reached out to Moth and held his hand. ‘And you will be well. She has a long lifeline, and you’re in it.’"
Then they wander back to the sea, saying soppy things to each other. There's no mother earth card in Tarot, no the arts card and no scales card.* Lazy. I know this is a small thing. It's another example, IMO, of probably making something up because she thinks it makes for an interesting plot and plonking into the story. But it comes across as implausible and clichéd.
See also: Grant's, pink hair girl, blind yogi's tortoise prophecy
*The Justice card has a small set of scales on it

Ah but there was something in ‘Justice’ & possibly their undoing via dogged ‘Tortoise’. ;)

Thinking again of reappearing Tortoise on lead called ‘Lettuce’ (from memory) blonde lasagne episode. Kurt’s ‘herbs’ to blame?

I'm another able to believe the Justice card! Thanks @FlyAgaricc for Tarot info

Like another contributor to thread 8, this is likely to be my only post.

The amount of glee, enjoyment and passion that is being expressed in these 8 threads at the expense of Raynor Winn and her other half is incredibly distasteful. I would urge everyone posting here to consider the following:

1. would you enjoy having every part of your life forensically picked over?
2. how would you feel if you had responded to many unsubstantiated allegations about you and many folks - including a large number on here - didn't bother to listen?
3. how would you feel if people actively celebrated what they believed to be your downfall?
4. are you applying the same rigorous criteria regarding accuracy /lack of embellishment to both the journalist and the author?

The second Observer article was a damp squid, 100% based on heresay. Other newspapers have lazily jumped on the bandwagon and produced a lot of drivel. To those of you who are eagerly waiting for the “next instalment” from the Observer, shame on you. This is sadly a very good example of virtual shaming and bullying. You should be ashamed of yourselves,

A propos my previous post with the photo of the notes in the margin of Paddy Dillon's SWCP guidebook I've noticed something quite interesting:

• the stretch between Porthcurno (Minack Theatre) and Mousehole is described on pages 176-7
• an incident is recounted involving them meeting a 70 year old American lade who is looking for the house of John Le Carré, an old friend of hers whom she has visited in the past but she can't remember where his house is located: "I've been looking for the house of my old friend John Le Carré. I stayed with him when I was younger:we'd spend summers here, just writing,swimming. Great days. I come and walk your path every year, I've searched for him again and again,but I can't seem to remember where the house was"
• she jokes with SW and TW that his name is David not John which is just his pen name (his birth name was David John Moore Cornwell)
• they leave the old lady floundering around looking fr John Le Carré's house and head off towards Mousehole..
• In the notes in the SWCP guide, SW writes " met an interesting lady walking the coastal path"
• in the next cove she circles the location and writes the house of "Mr John" - who would of known it!

Interesting

• the spot circled is the exact location of John Le Carré's home

John Le Carré's spectacular clifftop home in Cornwall has come on to the market | Country Life

• the annotation appears to have been made with a different pen
• this suggests to me that SW made the comments much later AFTER she had completed the walk and done some research into the location of John Le Carré's house. If not, she would surely have mentioned it in the book
• So was the entire John Le Carré/David anecdote made up? I don't know. Did SW do research about John Le Carré after the walk was completed and annotate the Paddy Dillon guide accordingly? Certainly seems that way.

1 - I would not. But then I would not publicise a dodgily edited, romanticised, sanitised version of my life for cash, under the guise of 'unflinching honesty', misleading people into thinking stupidly long walks without proper equipment, nutrition or medication are in any way a treatment for serious neurological disease.

2 - I'd be pretty peed off that my magical ability to deflect and redirect and re-write history was over.

3 - I haven't seen anyone here actively celebrating. Just aggrieved at being mislead perhaps, and also fascinated at the psychology and mindset that leads to human behaviour like this.

4 - I know I am, I can't speak for everyone on the thread of course.