Thread 9: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

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 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

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

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Thread 8 www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5375023-thread-8-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 visitors who seem to have their own agenda and seek to derail. Avoid @'ing and quoting them as this will only encourage them back to the threads.

We have done amazingly well together - in the main that is, not mentioning any names but you know who you are! - for eight 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.

@DisappointedReader I was going to offer Welsh cakes as an alternative to scones but then realised that I might start a controversy equivalent to that of whether to put jam or cream on first. This is because there are many different names in Welsh for a Welsh cake, because they were traditionally cooked on a griddlestone/bakestone. So the names relate to what the stone was called in various bits of the country. Where I am, they're called 'cacen gri', or 'griddle cakes'. A fresh cooked Welsh cake all covered in caster sugar is honestly one of the best sweet things you can eat <drools>

If this blog post was actually written by one of the Walkers, is it yet another symptom of ‘Everyone else is untrustworthy and mean to us’ and ‘People wouldn’t give my novel a chance!’?

Novel doesn’t sound as if it was about nationalism, mind you…

Absolutely. You can be our Military and Morris Dancing Correspondent. We sometimes need to take a commercial break while we have our fingers in our ears, so a bit of Morris Dancing whilst we discuss scones and whatnot will come in very handy.

Loving that, thanks! I can maypole dance, too. Will bring my bells and ribbons.

Three. I’m here too reading along but never quite catching up to post

#CreamFirst #JamOnTop

I’ve been following you all the way (lurking in bushes) and would like to walk with you all, please! I can’t offer any skills except my fabled BS detector. Hated TSP and had suspicions from the off.

My main thought on the debacle is that once someone has lied to your face, you can never trust them to tell the truth again. End of. They may be selectively truthful but you just can’t give them the benefit of the doubt, in my experience.

Also, jam first

Those talking about the effect on the victims of embezzlement - absolutely. Many many years ago in a galaxy far away, I was a junior admin bod at a university which offered prestigious 'profession' degrees, so think medicine or law. This was a long time before UK students paying their own fees became a thing. Anyway, I took a call from an older gentleman who explained to me that he was phoning to find out how to make a payment on behalf of his grandson for the course fees for this particular degree. He was very very proud of him, he told me, because no one from their family had ever been to university before, and his grandson had done really well getting on to this degree. He gave me the grandson's name.......and you guessed it, he wasn't a student with us. [This was when you could still confirm whether or not someone was a student.] The tone in that poor grandfather's voice as it became really clear that in fact his grandson had swizzed him out of money for some fictional degree course fees......awful. Just awful.And I've never forgotten it, all these years later. So anyone trying to downplay SW's effect on the Hemmings can quite frankly do one.

I have had the pleasure of eating that sort of Welsh cakes when visiting Wales. The ones we can buy in the supermarkets here are just not the same unfortunately. I haven't had the chance to return to Wales for quite a long time now, but a close friend living here is Welsh so your homeland comes up in conversation quite a bit.

I agree - we can't know who wrote it. We haven't even got a copy for a forensic examination by a writing expert! It's just best guess territory with what we have.

Image attached (website is archived)...as you'll see, it could be any woman with a similar style, but circumstantial evidence strongly suggests SW.

@TonstantWeader Yum! I was wondering (but wary of asking) what the great food controversy in Wales is 😆.

I fancy some real skons, aka drop scones or scots pancakes, fluffy wee things, also griddled, with honey, brambles, and crowdie.

I would be fascinated to see the first MS of TSP that SW submitted to PRH vs the finished published book.

Suspect that a) PRH still have a copy and b) it could help answer many outstanding questions....

The voice of reason prevails.
Jam first? Heathens!

I.Just.Can't!
😱😱😱😱😱.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16etPrsbiq/
Written just over a month before the shit hit the fan

Ha! we've not even got on to the what do you call 'milk' yet..... 😉😘

Welcome. You can be our BS Detecting Correspondent and you will have a lot of willing and skilful assistance with that.

On the lying front, I have certainly come across people who have lied because of an extreme situation they were in. For me it's what they do next. Are they regretful and remorseful, do they make amends, or do they maintain the lie, deny or minimise it, blame others or make a habit of it. In this case it seems to be a web of lies over years, including some quite extreme ones.

Jam, eh?

According to my DH, who grew up near the Lleyn peninsula and knows the area well, Dal dy Dir means “hold your land” and has undertones of not selling your land to the English. So maybe the title is more controversial than it seems. What do you think, Welsh correspondent @TonstantWeader ?

I’ll introduce a note of controversy around the Welsh cakes: my Nana never put sugar on hers. A tiny bit in the recipe, but we used to eat them with butter.

On scones, cream first.

@mycatismyworld Just wanted to give you a heads up that if your name begins with an R then your profile popped up first when I clicked on your link.

The approach taken on this thread is harmful.

The starting point here is interested. Stated as fact: not 'may' or 'could be' harmful, but is. So that then raises the question: how would you know? On what evidence? Secondly, the object of the harm is not stated, leading to the question: who is being harmed? The Winns? In what way exactly, that has a greater reach or power than the media reporting around this story and the initial major newspaper investigation?

Finally (for now) I note that you are far more equivocal about the possible (for you) actions of stealing from someone's employer, not paying debts, and lying about a range of aspects of your life and your spouse's health, as being harmful. Presumably we don't know for sure, and can't judge (not very kind!) whether they are harmful, so we should assume they aren't. Yet these threads are stated as being harmful, no ifs or buts. That is simply desperate and hugely biased reasoning. I can't agree with any of it and fortunately Mumsnet is generally good at allowing differences of views and beliefs like this. You've said more than once that these threads are 'not a good look for mumsnet' yet they continue and so do your contributions. I think that's actually a pretty decent 'look!'

that is really interesting. Thank you for sharing it.

I like how they had "only" 250,000 copies of Dal Dy Dir to sell... That seems like quite a lot to me!!

I’m reading TWS and am interested in the Ray and Moth characters portrayed. She’s written as shy, anxious (as in suffers from anxiety to a certain extent) and socially very isolated. That ties in with the lack of friends speaking up on her behalf now.

He is written quite superficially, I think. Very much from her as the observer, without any suggestion as to his thoughts, which strikes me as a bit odd in a book which is essentially a recollection and could well have included his points of view beyond the sparse sentences attributed to him and her descriptions of his deterioration at the start of the book, or rejuvenation once they start working on the farm.

I do wonder about their relationship. A few threads ago now some of us were asking ourselves if there was a controlling party here and we thought he was more likely to be the dominant one, but now I wonder if she might be driven by her own sense of insecurity and low self esteem to do these things in order to live up to how she perceives him. The book seems almost at pains to show how isolated and unhappy with herself she is, and that rings true to me.

All very idle speculation of course! I hope it doesn’t go too far and have to be deleted- please let me know if I’m overstepping.

Thanks, @AlertCat. I'm not a Lleyn native but that undertonemakes sense as it's one of the most fiercely independent bits of Wales, as is the NW generally tbh. 'Dal' is one of those words where it can mean a number of things. It's the verb 'to hold' but it's also used as 'still' ie I'm still doing xxx would be dwi dal yn gwneud xxx. For example 'Dal ati' is a phrase that is used to encourage people ( = keep/stick at it!). And same with tir/dir (it's mutated because of the 'dy' or 'your', fact fans). It's land or ground, so 'hold your ground' and 'hold your land' both make sense here. I would definitely defer to someone born and bred on the Lleyn!

Just wondering if the 'Thomas' in Izzy Wyn-Thomas is an anagram of 'S'ally 'A'nn and Moth. 🤔

Thanks for the discussion, I have been following all the threads and commentary.