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?

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.

I'm just going to get some popcorn...

Thank by you for coming back @Humankindness

SW doesn’t actually deny the theft - she just says mistakes were made. The nda was signed by the husband not the wife. SW story about the loan makes no sense to anybody who knows anything about finance etc. Her rebuttal has in no way rebutted any of the finance stuff

in terms of Moths illness and the miracle walking cure - I will leave others to explain why that is so egregious - but it comes back to the publishing of the book as non-fiction and unflinchingly honest.

If SW is reading this thread and feels bullied and that lies are being told then she should report it to mn to get it pulled

The Observer will have seen proof of the money being repaid, possibly even the "books" themselves. Newspapers really don't like being sued as it is very, very costly if they lose.

I find the slight on Ros Hemmings character appalling. As far as we know her husband signed an NDA (I ask why RW felt this necessary) but we don't know that she did.

If you would be utterly cool for someone who had defrauded you being all over the media with an untrue back (sob) story and lauded as victims and heroes, you do you @Humankindness .

NDAs are generally unenforceable if the purpose is to cover up a crime or illegal activity. Quite apart from the fact that Ros Hemmings didn't sign it, her (now dead) husband did.

Elton John, for all his personal flaws, which he's written about more candidly than some other writers we know, also knew the Sun story of old about him employing male sex workers was a flat out lie, and so he took it to court - against almost everyone's advice - and won.

I suspect SW is reading our threads!

The Observer journalist is slippery (bit like a damp squid/squib) and has a poor track record

OK, that hadn't come up when I examined her work so could you @Humankindness please post details and evidence supporting this assertion? We're all about that here.

Happy to pause on calling you babes - I didn't enjoy the patronising tone of your initial post either, but things don't always go the way we want, do they?

On a lighter note, I'm still chuckling about the "damp squid" comment. That is a malapropism worthy of Arthur Daley of Minder fame: "Terence, my son, the world is your lobster"

Humankindness, are you a keen reader of The Salt Path, or do you know the couple?

@Humankindness

1. Raynor Winn does not refute the accusation that she embezzled money from her employer, admits to having made' mistakes' while she worked there, accepted that there was a need to replay money to that employer on a 'non-admissions basis', therefore tacitly accepting the validity of the accusation. The repayment is why she was not charged. She also states that this is why they needed the money from 'Cooper' which precipitated the courtcase that involved their house being repossessed. There is therefore a direct link between her embezzlement and the loss of their home.
2. I don't think it says anything in particular about Ros Hemmings' 'character'. If there are legal sanctions for breaking the NDA, Sally Walker is presumably at liberty to pursue them.
3. The 'Cooper' investment story makes absolutely no economic sense, even at the most basic level, as has been pointed out again and again. If someone can't repay your investment in their business after whatever term you agreed to invest for, you and the business have various options. Said business then doesn't lend you the money you need to pay off your former employer at 18% interest with your house as collateral, because these are the 'standard terms' for that business.
4. The Walker house was still heavily mortgaged when it was sold, and the mortgage lender would have had first call on the money, before the person who brought the court case which compelled the house to be repossessed and sold. It isn't clear how much money was left over after the mortgage was repaid. It's not impossible that the Walkers have outstanding debt, over and above individual bills left unpaid in the vicinity of where they used to live. Sally Walker accepts this in asking people with outstanding bills to get in touch with her.

the world is your lobster 😂

damp squid 😂

Love a funny malapropism.

But didn't the Big Issue article include all the main points - e.g. Moth's terminal diagnosis? So it can't be the publishers.

I can imagine rallying to protect a writer who'd done her best to rebut the claims against her, but so far SW hasn't done that. In fact, she seemed to have backed up quite a lot of them herself.

Ultimately there are points that have come up that are in the realm of artistic licence, but it was seriously misguided to write a book that suggested hope to people with a chronic degenerative condition, or to their families. For very good reason, there are rules and laws about that. Was it one person's experience? Now that is doubtful and the details are in question. It's personal to people.

I said at the beginning, people bring emotion to their reading, and experience emotion with certain works. If this were a fictionalised memoir (which actually it seems to be) and not sold as a work of truth, we wouldn't be nearly 2 weeks into the story and still finding things that don't add up. That would be a 'well what did you expect?' story. But I think a lot of people feel they've been tricked. There's dishonour as well as dishonesty.

Must be pretty awful/at least annoying for the couple. Obviously they've also caused some pretty awful feelings for people they've met along the way. Quite possibly they're not huge internet users and are unaware of how things like this go nowadays.

There is no planet on which Raynor issued 'a watertight, robust rebuttal'. Bit of a bugger, that.

If I embezzled money from my work place and lied about it in a book and profited from it, I'd expect people to talk about me.

Yes, you're right.

And tbh, whatever about the forms in which due diligence may or may not have been done by PRH, I don't think a reputable editor would actually knowingly encourage such substantial falsehood in a memoir. Nor would an agent, who would not want their credibility damaged with editors with whom s/he wants to maintain a good relationship.

It will have been the 'hook' already in place, the combination of the supposedly blameless eviction of two trusting souls, the crushing diagnosis and the desperate decision to walk, that will have prompted the agent to take SW on as a client and which sold the book to PRH.

1. did Raynor Winn embezzle money from an estate agent? Or was she accused of doing so? They are different things. Where is the proof either way? Many contributors on here have jumped to a quick conclusion based only on who they prefer to believe.

But it's not 'based only on who they prefer to believe'. For the Observer to publish a story like that, they would have to be 100% sure of the facts and their lawyers would have crawled all over it. This isn't some random media tittle-tattle about who slept with who; it's a serious allegation about a serious crime. And if you don't want to accept the truth of that, how can you possibly think that the couple attempting to raffle a house that was no longer theirs is okay? It was a seriously dodgy thing to do.

I cannot imagine any other circumstances where people would be falling over themselves to excuse the theft of £64k. Although - having said that, it reminds me of people's attempt to excuse breaking the law in No.10 as 'just having a bit of cake'.

@Humankindness thanks for returning. As @WiddlinDiddlin pointed out so clearly earlier:

”misleading people into thinking stupidly long walks without proper equipment, nutrition or medication are in any way a treatment for serious neurological disease”.

This. I think you’ve not come back on as yet. It’s often swerved by Raymoth too I feel. Many with afflicted loved ones feel very strongly about any dangerous health myths & miracle cures.

A garage owner being possibly owed a few hundred pounds, whilst not right, rather pales into insignificance by comparison. Yet this is where rebuttals seem to focus.

@VerySwettyBetty "incredibly cliched, mostly unbelievable interactions with other humans. And dogs." Agreed. I have quite low standards and read anything. I read all three books and bought Copsford. I would have given TSP about a 6 out of ten when I first read it TBH. And this is because it's easy to read, I did want to know what happened next and I absolutely adore Cornwall, coast paths, seaside towns, nature and camping. I just like to read words like gorse/heather/rhododendrons/bracken. I did find the premise of the story odd, the sneering off-putting and some parts clichéd. But I had more important things to worry about. It wouldn't have ever occurred to me that a book labelled non-fiction by Penguin would be fundamentally untrue. I think I need to exercise more critical thinking!
Da da da Pirate FM

Came back here to be fussy about a couple of items in TWS- nothing scandalous, though!

New potatoes (“white soft-skinned new potatoes”) being described as going off to shops and chip shops (p.18 in my copy). Surely chip shops use old/ main crop potatoes?

Hiraeth is spelt wrong, they’ve missed out the a

However, having been with my mother through her end of life, those parts are moving and feel honest.

@FlyAgaricc Well put, that pretty much describes my experience of it.

Yes – SW email to Big Issue in May 2017 begins by referencing the homelessness and terminal diagnosis in same week as being evicted, same empathy-drawing start as the book.

www.bigissue.com/culture/film/the-salt-path-raynor-winn-gillian-anderson-jason-isaacs-interview/

I meant to ask about this a couple of threads back...does anyone know where this email first appeared?

In that linked article from the Big Issue themselves published 30th May, I believe?