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...

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?

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.

Detour? In the name of investigative purposes obviously!

Many threads ago (I think it may have been Thread 4593) we established that there is a botanist called Tim Walker who's around the same age as this Tim W.

We surmised he may have borrowed this man's degree for himself!

Malory Towers for me. Even though reading them as an adult Darrell comes over as terribly pious (and would definitely be a MNetter 😂) and I actually feel sorry for the much maligned Gwen.

Close follow up is Secret Seven who I was desperate to belong to. Again reading it back through all I think is that Peter needs a good clout.

And absolutely no truck with the new non EB ones here either. There's no need for them.

I had the full set of Secret Seven, but didn't bond with them in the same way as FF.

I obviously needed that additional peril in my life.

Liked Malory Towers, too, mainly because I wanted to be a boarder there! 😂

Yes thanks, He can't have it both ways - but I keep forgetting how exceptional they are, and they can!

I loved the Magic Faraway Tree, as well as Malory Towers and the Naughtiest Girl in the School books. I adored Enid Blyton’s descriptions of food as well - which is something I’ve always thought JK Rowling does well, and one of the main reasons why I also love The Little White Horse, which I’d actually love to read again as an adult.

Exceptional talents of the Winn Winns as known so far:

Getting a great job at a NT garden with a botany degree and also being awarded a grant to do a 3 year horticultural degree
Winning a prestigious £10,000 prize for a first novel, having tried to recover the cost of your house by a raffle of a first novel

I am actually enjoying Jacqueline Wilson's version of the Magic Faraway Tree. I have them as audio books to listen to at night when life has been more than usually frantic. They soothe my overloaded brain and have just the right amount of modern day sibling issues to keep me listening, but the fantastical situations are wonderfully peaceful to listen to.

I recently bought a copy of The Little White Horse (I know that's not EB) because i'd never read it and now I love that too (it's not available on Audible or I'd have bought it as an audio book too).

Hugh was adored by their eldest daughter & Enid calculated re: a relationship with him at her publishers ‘I want him for mine’ noted in diary. There was something about the eldest’s wedding - he wanted to be there but Enid didn’t want him there & he watched tearfully from across the street. Eldest never knew. Enid also used the nanny’s name to book hotels with surgeon who became husband no 2 so scandal on her if press etc discovered. Also when her gardener got sick she sent fruit but then deducted the cost from his salary.

Hugh was very damaged re: WW1 but essentially good hearted I think. In earlier years of fame she had more time for her eldest daughter & her youngest was by her own admission, tricky. By the time she came along Enid was incredibly busy.

Enid herself was also a victim of trauma which arrested her development. She needed hormone treatment as womb stopped developing around 14 when her father left for another woman. She had to pretend, at request of mother, he was working overseas. So quite a complex situation. Sorry for derail :)

The Little White Horse is beautiful, isn’t it! Sorry, I should give Elizabeth Goudge due credit for it. Ooh I might give Jacqueline Wilson’s version a go - that sounds like a nice way to wind down at the end of the day 😊

Re. Degree, interesting that in TWS Raymoth have a moral dilemma about what to tell his fellow students:
‘Can’t believe no one’s asked you before. What did you say?'I stuck to the line we used on the path – that we’ve sold the house and I’m studying as part of a career move into teaching.' 'Not really a lie, just a half- truth, but you’ve said it now so she’ll tell everyone else. Can you keep it up?’
But no qualms about doing a course purely for the student loan, when you're not actually going to use it for a job, and never going to pay it back...

Unlikely - I live in SW France in the Gers Department some 90mins from Le Village du Dropt! Hence my pigeonnier beret! They are extremely common in the area I live (Lomagnol)

Just found some info from 2015 Student Finances England.

Maintenance loan: up to £5,740 (outside London & not with parents)

Grant: £3,387 (with household income under £25,000).

The loan only payable once income is above £21,000 per annum...

So basically he likely got £9,000 each year for them to live off during his 3 year course and he has not worked since (as far as we know), besides a "small fee" from Bill Cole, cider pirate.

Thanks for that. It's bizarre that Sally says she and Tim and their young children were on the Welsh farm 'without family or friends'. They did have relatives so maybe they didn't get on at that time. Surely they would have made friends locally particularly as they had children?

@AldoGordo wow that's more than I thought

According to the Irish dail mail,Tim's parents moved up to Wales too.

*tax payer's money too. Though, must be emphasised he's not done anything wrong.

In that case, how are you fixed for putting up a few of your fellow correspondents for a site visit? I think we could spread out between the other two French Correspondents, so it shouldn't be too onerous. We can bring our own fudge.

No problems - they can stay in the pigeonnier! I also have a couple of spare tents - sadly neither are Vangos!

Here, in surrender to your shock and awe tactics, is Thread 10:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5378984-thread-10-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?
Please fill up this thread first. If you are around for the last 5 posts or so, please could one pp quote this post so that we have the new link near the end of this thread. Thanks.

I was catching up on the train back from a work trip and I was snorting so loud at the list/addenda of correspondents that I was getting Looks from some of the other passengers. So I blame you lot and particularly @DisappointedReader 😘

Lots to digest and as usual some excellent points. I do think that a sense of 'special' comes across in the statements/writing: their bond/relationship is more special than their contemporaries who've descended into banality, they cannot possibly take a council house, they are above 'ordinary' work, taking fudge bars and breaking into campsites is perfectly ok, and expecting cafes to give them hot water to make tea instead of buying tea is also absolutely reasonable, as is taking up a prime pub seat and drying filthy socks in front of the fire without buying anything. And 'mistakes were made' etc etc

I also agree that there is a kernel of truth in every story, but that it might not be their truth or experience. One of the things I discovered about my Raymoth long after I'd broken contact was eerily similar. They had told a story frequently about their closeness to a step-parent who had been more of a parent to them than their own and who had been the most amazing role model. They admired them so much that they had changed their birth surname to their step-parent's. Only.....they hadn't. When fellow ex-Raymothers and I compared notes, we decided to check online to see if this was the case. Ancestry showed that in fact it was their sibling who had changed surname, not them. And sibling was much more successful professionally.

Presumptuous

Dipping in from a holiday in Wales, can't believe we are nearly on thread 10!

We can even bring our own Simon Armitage whose now appearing in my Google algorithm. Think we ought to all club in and get one of theses @DisappointedReader . It could be our mascot 😂.

I alone, I think, keep thinking of a cameo via Richard Armitage - Spooks/FBI element?