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
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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

In the interview (I shared yesterday)she gave to the Grief Channel. She says, re: TSP, she hadn't written anything since she was a child:
Bing Videos

Hear what you say but isn’t it a grey area (?) ‘So we missed a bit here & there, churlish to quibble when Moth so sick’. ‘We did most of it’ etc. Define ‘most’ etc. Defenders will say doesn’t matter (?)

I'm not sure Chloe H's next article is going to be much of a blockbuster unless she can either interview one of TW's family for more insights or uncover more evidence of criminality on the part of SW (Abersoch White House Hotel?). There is quite a lot of photographic evidence that SW and TW did complete fairly large chunks of the walk. How do you prove stuff like the veracity of the Tarot readings, the Simon Armitage anecdotes and the prophecy about the tortoise?

But defenders say none of it matters.

Surely the point is that he either wasn't sick or was nwwhere near as sick as was made out in the books.

I think all of it needs examining, really. And the question, was any of it based on reality, asked again and again.

I think the prophecy about the ‘Tortoise’ has come true…;)

in a weird sort of way!

I just feel that CH will never be able to prove if they missed chunks of the walk - and if they did they could just say they returned and did a certain bit at a later date- publishers are generally OK with that kind of poetic licence.

Maybe SW is purposefully relying on the fact that some things have no direct translation. I daw an article that said they owed money for a tv licence in France...apologies to anyone with better knowledge than me, but tax habitation in France (similar to our council tax but can apply even if you don't live there) includes a portion for tv licence (or did do) so I think that might be what they owe.

I was surprised and relieved that no ‘members of the opposition’ / trolls came and took over.

I didn’t mind the ex-writing tutor explaining about non-fiction as the session is for everyone, expect it will be made available publicly on the site, and not everyone out there has had benefit of MN insights.

CH also addressed a lot of the basics, and the issue around genre is one that lots of RW diehard supporters are brushing off.

I am not the tutor, btw. I wanted to ask about the debts, which was mostly covered for me by CH and her dad, and also re does CH think TW co-wrote but she seemed to imply in her previous answers that she believes SW wrote it, and ‘How not to Dal dy Dir’ or whatever it was called too.

I think they could owe both or either tax habitation (tax on building) and tax fonciere (tax on land) but Raywinwin might be twisting it to say they owe no income tax.

I can't imagine CH would be basing an article on a few bits missed here and there. The whole foundation of TSP is the redemptive nature of the walks, so if it turns out that they've lied about how much and how far they actually did walk, the story falls apart completely.

I think if this proves to be the case, they're screwed.

Totally off topic:

So is this where the government has got its notion of sticking the Licence Fee in with Council Tax, I wonder!

I think if really unstable & sick the latter walk/s make no sense or are foolhardy at best so most reading won’t have believed in a miracle cure (?)

IMO & IME with latter book you don’t want to leave a terminally ill adored partner in final months for a non essential trek. You sometimes can negotiate leave from work to spend final months together. So that makes no sense either unless I am missing something? Too sick to walk, well enough to leave for own mental health sweet spot?

I agree with this.
If they can lie about Moth being so close to death four years ago then I would imagine that nothing is off limits that they wouldn't blatantly lie make mistakes about.

Agree but I think only if it can be proven they hardly did any and rarely camped & were in luxe B&Bs for the most part. Some bombshell like that. Otherwise a vague rebuttal to say they did ‘most’ of it maybe enough? Define ‘most’…

Certainly would love to know if the 2015 diagnosis ( which we now know to be atypical, mild, vague) was retrofitted to the 2013 walk - but there is no way CH can establish this.

Or that they paid whatever was due last week.

I doubt the next article will be any kind of blockbuster, either, but clearly it's enough for CH to keep working on it. I suppose proof that they did, for instance, go off to Bristol midway with their son, or stayed with him rather than sleeping rough in Newquay, or always knew they were going to live on Polly's farm after they finished the first part of the walk, will undermine the narrative of desperation, homelessness, total isolation and having no other options.

Or an annoyed relative saying 'Well, I offered them a roof over their heads several times, and I'm not that impressed with the '"We were alone in the world, and no one wanted us" pose because it makes the families look bad.'

Since the Observer article by Chloe H, SW has had 3 weeks to obtain and publish the two letters from the clinical neurologist that Moth met in June/Oct 2013 that would prove her innocence regarding the account of the CBD diagnosis in TSP being accurate and honest.

At this point of time, the finger of suspicion continues to suggest that the CBD diagnosis in TSP was retrofitted for dramatic effect.

I'm trying to think how they'd explain these points away,

1, Moth didn't lie but with his selective memory issues he just forgot.

2, the good old mistakes were made embezzlement waffle.

I don't suppose the Observer would give CH time off from other work to continue with this story if they didn't think there were still some readership miles to be had from it.

For me this would be MASSIVE

Someone asked about the first novel prize in the chat and another audience member responded in chat that you can publish under a different name and it then counts as a (another) first book. This makes no sense to me.

It's a bit like being a virgin with every new partner, isn't it -- well yes, I have had sex, but not with YOU, darling, so of course I'm a virgin!

Wasn't there a subtle distinction between fiction and non fiction?

Ha ha, yes. These are some of the only books I've had to stay up until 2am reading!

Well, I suppose it makes as much sense as the 'Hiding from bailiffs under the stairs with a terminally ill husband? What we need to do is walk for 600 miles!' thing.

I watched the film only quite recently, and there were some things whose weirdness struck me afresh just because you were seeing them being acted out by actors who had to think about 'Why is my character doing this?'

There was a deeply hammy moment when a ray of light seemed to fall on the 500 Mile Walkies book in the otherwise gloomy corner where Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs were hiding, I think they are two decent and actors and they were working hard to make this not look like something completely arbitrary, like something from an Ionesco play.

And watching JI use the lurching, leg-dragging walk he's talked in interviews about studying Moth to copy just made me think about how deeply unlikely someone that badly affected by a neurological condition could walk such challenging terrain.