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Thread 10: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

1000 replies

DisappointedReader · 23/07/2025 21:20

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...
Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn
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?
Thread 9 www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5376712-thread-9-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

New posters welcome. It would be helpful to read at least the four Observer items above before posting. There are currently 10 items on The Observer website The real Salt Path | The Observer

To all - No saltiness. Keep to the path. 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 - from experience - this will only encourage them back to the threads. We have done amazingly well together for nine very interesting, very serious and very silly threads so far. I can't be here as much as I'd like so all help with keeping our discussion walking along in a healthy and civil fashion is very welcome.

Keep calm and eat fudge.

Thank you

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

[[https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-real-salt-path-how-the-couple-behind-a-bestseller-left-a-trail-of-debt-and-deceit The real Salt Pat...

https://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?*

OP posts:
Thread gallery
61
Redheadedstepchild · 25/07/2025 20:46

Divegirl65 · 25/07/2025 19:58

Quite sweet that Katherine's husband would say goodnight to the washing machine!

Grow up, honeychild. He ain't seeing no goodnight to no washing machine if he ain't a' rollin' an' a spinning my sister here like a 60 degree white wash after a gym session.

Divegirl65 · 25/07/2025 22:04

MyGodMyThighs · 25/07/2025 19:00

I don’t have my (signed first edition 😩) copy of TSP anymore. Can anyone with a copy pull out what Sally says about the Constantine stretch of the path? It might be interesting to see if/how it features, compared to the photo in that article.

She doesn't refer to it by name but I think this is Constantine Bay.

"Trevose lighthouse dazzled in the late-afternoon sun, shocking against the blue, too bright to focus on. Lying on the dry grass, peeling burnt skin from my nose, most needs had slipped away. Less hungry, less thirsty, less everything. We slept soundly until early evening, when a cool wind woke us and we left the headland, dropping down towards a perfect beach backed by marram-covered sand dunes. We pitched the tent on the grass hoping the hard-green shards would insulate us from the cold, opening the tent to the wind to dry the sodden fabric. The tide turned, bringing pristine barrelling waves on to the beach. And then they came. Neoprene figures, surfboards under their arms, running from the road, the path, out of the sand dunes, every direction, sleek black bodies waddling, ungainly, their boards blown by the gusts. They paddled out beyond the breakers, huddling together as a black shoal until the waves came and as individuals they broke away, standing, becoming one with the rise and fall, elegantly curling their way to the shallows. Humans transformed into sea dancers. We sat in the door of the tent in our sleeping bags, until the light had gone and with it the last of the surfers. The tide headed away and, as it hesitated before returning, the birds came to claim the empty beach for their own. To run and call through the night, between the sand and the water. The next morning brought the heavy beach condensation, but we waited for it to dry, drinking tea and watching dog walkers and early-morning surfers, before Moth smoothly left the tent without help and we finally packed it away. The hunger was still there, but like the aching joints and hardening blisters, was becoming something to observe rather than feel."

Thread 10: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?
Thread 10: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?
MyGodMyThighs · 25/07/2025 22:15

Yeah that’s a plausible description of Constantine bar the lighthouse - you can’t really see it from the beach as it’s behind the headland. You’d have to walk up the coast path to see it.

Also I’ve never seen a surfer waddling or not handling their board well while walking in the wind. Except holidaymakers on surf lessons. Which doesn’t seem to be what she’s describing if they then go on to surf competently!

DisappointedReader · 25/07/2025 22:30

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 25/07/2025 17:56

I just can't imagine how mortified I'd be if I'd told someone I only had two months to live, had accepted all their sympathy and goodwill but nearly four years later was still knocking around.
But these two are just like 🤷.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.
Mark Twain

OP posts:
Divegirl65 · 25/07/2025 22:55

MyGodMyThighs · 25/07/2025 22:15

Yeah that’s a plausible description of Constantine bar the lighthouse - you can’t really see it from the beach as it’s behind the headland. You’d have to walk up the coast path to see it.

Also I’ve never seen a surfer waddling or not handling their board well while walking in the wind. Except holidaymakers on surf lessons. Which doesn’t seem to be what she’s describing if they then go on to surf competently!

They had a doze in the sun overlooking the lighthouse before dropping down to the beach to camp. You obviously know this stretch of SWCP well.

Redheadedstepchild · 25/07/2025 23:48

Redheadedstepchild · 25/07/2025 20:46

Grow up, honeychild. He ain't seeing no goodnight to no washing machine if he ain't a' rollin' an' a spinning my sister here like a 60 degree white wash after a gym session.

Here's Katherine May's wikipedia:

I wish you could see my face and my hands right now but it's very Italian:

share.google/xvCagJx9kHVlK4mTk

AldoGordo · 26/07/2025 00:01

User14March · 25/07/2025 16:50

Right, so all sunbathing on chicken shop etc all a fiction? I only skim read.

Yes (sorry catching up, if this has been answered already)

AldoGordo · 26/07/2025 00:05

MarianGrotto · 25/07/2025 17:20

I certainly thought it was supposed to have been true, rather than a metaphor for Covid isolation, or the dissociation of urban life, or veganism or whatever!

It's in italics and the context, in my opinion, clearly is metaphorical.

AldoGordo · 26/07/2025 00:09

TheBrandyPath · 25/07/2025 17:38

Do we have any context for them being taken to Bristol? A common reason people, who are in Cornwall/N Devon would be driven to Bristol, is to go to the airport. I understand they were in Cornwall - being narrow it is not too far from a railway station - some trains then go right through to Paddington, Birmingham or even Aberdeen.

My suspicions are Jan and van related. By that I don't think Jan who kept their van in the book lived in Yeovil.

FloreatAmbridge · 26/07/2025 00:24

Or alternatively it's in italics because it's not written from first-hand experience, it's her reporting what her daughter (supposedly) told her after the fact. After all, she doesn't doesn’t preface that bit of the essay with, "My mind came up with a wild theory to explain the silence". She says she and her daughter "both found ways of coping with the unexpected time we were living through." And then tells us how her daughter coped with being unexpected stuck in a shuttered shop.

There's really nothing in the essay to mark it out as overtly fictitious. Obviously it's a preposterous and improbable tale, but no more so than the tales of Cooper, or Moth's miracle MRI. There's also Penguin's decision to deleted the essay from their website, while leaving the rest of the "Raynor Winn" profile up. That tells its own tale.

AldoGordo · 26/07/2025 00:37

FloreatAmbridge · 26/07/2025 00:24

Or alternatively it's in italics because it's not written from first-hand experience, it's her reporting what her daughter (supposedly) told her after the fact. After all, she doesn't doesn’t preface that bit of the essay with, "My mind came up with a wild theory to explain the silence". She says she and her daughter "both found ways of coping with the unexpected time we were living through." And then tells us how her daughter coped with being unexpected stuck in a shuttered shop.

There's really nothing in the essay to mark it out as overtly fictitious. Obviously it's a preposterous and improbable tale, but no more so than the tales of Cooper, or Moth's miracle MRI. There's also Penguin's decision to deleted the essay from their website, while leaving the rest of the "Raynor Winn" profile up. That tells its own tale.

I think it's easy to read too much into it. Seems obvious to me but maybe not obvious enough.

Toomuchstufff · 26/07/2025 00:45

MyGodMyThighs · 25/07/2025 18:51

That looks like the dunes at Constantine (north coast Cornwall, near Padstow)

Yes, as I said earlier. It’s Constantine not Lantic.

TheBrandyPath · 26/07/2025 07:40

AldoGordo · 26/07/2025 00:09

My suspicions are Jan and van related. By that I don't think Jan who kept their van in the book lived in Yeovil.

Thanks for responding but we just don't know what they did next .....

PrettyDamnCosmic · 26/07/2025 07:43

This reply has been deleted

This message has been withdrawn at the poster's request

A County Court Judgment (CCJ) isn't a criminal conviction. A CCJ is a court order to repay a debt obtained when a creditor successfully takes legal action to recover that debt.

PrettyDamnCosmic · 26/07/2025 07:48

This reply has been withdrawn

This message has been withdrawn at the poster's request

TheBrandyPath · 26/07/2025 08:01

@FloreatAmbridge @MarianGrotto I saw the italics as incorporating what the daughter's experience was in the same time line as all IzRaySal's nature
experiences
What is interesting is what is being taken down from sites. We may have to save things for posterity! The South West Coast Path Association Ambassadors have all been removed: Sorry - Not Found ! please choose somewhere from the menu.

Catwith69lives · 26/07/2025 08:06

TSP has been in the Sunday Times best selling charts for 167 weeks ranking it number 11 of all books in the list over the last 50 years. It has been a phenomenon in every sense of the word!

The Sunday Times - The 100 bestselling books in the last 50 years | Tableau Public

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/lucy.sillito/viz/TheSundayTimes-The100bestsellingbooksinthelast50years/TheSundayTimesTop100Bestsellersinlast50years

Divegirl65 · 26/07/2025 09:18

PrettyDamnCosmic · 26/07/2025 07:43

A County Court Judgment (CCJ) isn't a criminal conviction. A CCJ is a court order to repay a debt obtained when a creditor successfully takes legal action to recover that debt.

This isn't Raynor talking about Moth. It's Katherine talking about her own husband.

Peladon · 26/07/2025 10:23

There doesn't seem to have been much in the Press about this in the last week or so. I wonder whether there has been some injuncting.

Orangesandlemons77 · 26/07/2025 10:37

Peladon · 26/07/2025 10:23

There doesn't seem to have been much in the Press about this in the last week or so. I wonder whether there has been some injuncting.

Maybe something tomorrow?

TheBrandyPath · 26/07/2025 10:38

Peladon · 26/07/2025 10:23

There doesn't seem to have been much in the Press about this in the last week or so. I wonder whether there has been some injuncting.

Maybe waiting for this:

https://observer.co.uk/our-events/uncovering-the-salt-path

Uncovering The Salt Path | The Observer

Uncovering The Salt Path | The Observer

Independent journalism | News, culture & style | Investigations, analysis, features, ideas, recipes, newsletters & podcasts that make sense of the world

https://observer.co.uk/our-events/uncovering-the-salt-path

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 26/07/2025 10:50

Orangesandlemons77 · 26/07/2025 10:37

Maybe something tomorrow?

Didn't Chloe H put a message on X earlier in the week hinting that The Observer would be worth buying on Sunday or something?

DisappointedReader · 26/07/2025 10:51

I've sent you a PM @Catwith69lives

OP posts:
FightingTemeraire · 26/07/2025 11:06

TheBrandyPath · 26/07/2025 10:38

Who else is planning to attend this, in person or online?

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