Thread 10: 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...
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

The should have just asked us for the questions.

I agreed with you in the chat!
Someone told us not to make unkind comments!

I was sitting next to Chloe’s dad! Or at least, someone who claimed to be, in second row. He said the £400k creditors are still not paid. He was lovely and also very on the ball, as to be expected.

I think I agreed with you, too. And I wouldn't call saying 'Stop the waffle' in the chat a 'personal comment'.

So, we can gather that Chloe is currently investigating whether or not they even did the walks. And she has spoken to a number of people who came forward who had connections to where the Walkers said they walked, and this is the basis of the article we're waiting for which has been delayed.

She believes that all taxes on the French property have been paid.

She has a podcast tomorrow about the story.

And she is also continuing to dig into it.

So ironic that, as I said when the evening began, if the Walkers had engaged in the beginning and come up with some explanation about Tim's illness, none of the rest would have happened in all probability.

And now look at it!

So many different kinds of people are interested and have been reading all round the initial story, and other aspects of the Walkers.

Oh, excellent. If you can't find @Choux, take Chloe's dad for a drink and pump him for information?

I would be up for a door meeting, but unfortunately am not even in the UK.

It depends which one it was in connection with.. as someone shared about her husband’s death from MND, which was very moving and relevant.

I don’t think he whole audience was MN 😆

Walking away now but was very intrigued by the whole newspaper world and like how they opened the story up like that including a Q&A.

Well that's where the producers went wrong 😄

I think CH is on a hiding to nothing with whether they did the walk or not

If Chloe says Ray IS Izzy Wyn-Thomas, does this not prove 1: Moth lied about not knowing she’d ever written anything 2: Her £ prize for a first novel is void (?)

I hope they still want their money, and can successfully argue for the six year limit to be put aside, as the Walkers absconded and their whereabouts was unknown until a couple of weeks ago.

Well, let's see shall we?

The article will most likely be, x person said this wasn't possible, and y person said that in order to do a certain part they would have had to do something else which they didn't do. And so on.

But she is still working on the entire thing.

And at the very least, an article about whether they did the walks or not will raise further doubts in people's minds!

Sorry if I've missed something but who is the £400,000 debt owed to?

I was really thinking of the woman who said she taught narrative non-fiction and banged on a lot about embellishments in narrative non-fiction and her students before asking her question.

It's the original £150,000 borrowed from a family member, which was then passed on to two other men, one of whom is called Christian and is in his seventies.

I think it was interest and other costs?

Thank you everyone for the collaborative live-blog of the talk, what a treat!

I absolutely would put money in them not walking big chunks of the swcp.
People who do would notice or highlight certain bits. There's quite big jumps in the salt path depth of terrain detail.

Caught my mil in a lie yesterday. I'd given her the cazelet box set a year ago. Fair enough if it's not your thing but all she had to say was ' are they quite chunky, yes I read the first two or three'
Surely you either get addicted or stop pretty quick.

Agree & no one really cares about this sort of poetic license IMO. Other deceit where people owed £ & exploited, theft etc. Yes.

The Walkers took out a £100K@18% from their half uncle in 2008 to repay the £64K + both side's legal costs that SW had incurred from embezzling from the Hemmings. The half uncle's property business, agianst which the loan to the Walker's was made, went bust sometime in 2008/9. The loan to the Walkers was passed on to creditors who pursued the Walkers for repayment of the loan which eventually led to their house being repossessed in 2013. However, as there was already a first charge on the Welsh property of £230K in the form of a mortgage from a bank lender the second charge in the form of the £100K loan wasn't fully reclaimed from the creditors when the house was sold in 2016 for £280K. So the outstanding loan (£130K) continued to accumulate interest at 18% from 2008 -2025 and now stands at £400K according to one of the creditors who is still out of pocket.

I disagree. Poetic licence is one thing, but if they missed out chunks, and didn't walk large parts of the other long distance paths, it all becomes a bit like Tim not having the illness she says he has.

They're both fundamental parts of the books.

I understood that SW had borrowed £100,000 to pay back the Hemmingses and legal costs on both sides, but then Tim's uncle's business failed, that debt was sold on to creditors, who pursued the case for several years through the courts and forced the repossession and sale of the Walker house, presumably with that debt accruing interest all the time.

But also, because the house was heavily mortgaged (£230k? did CH say?), and the mortgage lender would have had first claim on the money from the sale of the house, it's unclear whether the people who had taken over the loan and forced the house sale will have had much or any money from it. I don't actually know whether that would still give them a claim on the Walkers?

ETA: Cross-posted with @Catwith69lives, who was clearer.

The one that talked to the press was Christian Martin.

Thanks for the live commentary Fudgesters, I was beginning to think the story was dead in the water (briny?) but it seems we've plenty more to come. I'm agog 👀

Sterling work from commentators! I’m quite sad I had to work and miss it.

Tortoise have done these a lot before, I’m generally fairly impressed with Tortoise (have been a subscriber since early days though let it lapse a year ago or so).