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

My impression of what CH is working on isn't necessarily that she's looking into whether they walked any of their trips per se, but rather whether the walks themselves were plausible for Moth to undertake. I reckon that's where the mystery lies and untangling the claimed severity of his illness AND purported recovery/improvement. She could have asked people who met Raymoth what story they were told, esp anything about his illness. Granted, it's a very hard angle to explore with any robust results, but I think that's the only thing worth looking at when it comes to the veracity of RWs accounts of their walks. No one cares so much if they took the odd bus or taxi here or there (though with less and less walking involved, one would still have to question the claims of Moth getting better through walking in nature).

Yes, quite possibly!
When I lived in France I always found it odd that a portion of the council tax (tax habitation)included an element for a tv...if you didn't have a tv you had to prove it to get a reduction. This is why I was struck by the mention, in an article, that raywin owed money in France for a tv licence for a ruin.
Mayor's in France are all seeing and all knowing...there would be a mayor even for a tiny hamlet.

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.

What? I missed that bit!

SW has a recent video of TW walking on her IG and he has no noticeable gait abnormalities!

April 16, 2024. Check it out.

I can’t remember which interview, But JI definitely described somewhere how important it was that he’d met Moth so he could study how he moved.

In TSP she talks initially to strangers about being made homeless but nowhere does she admit to talking to strangers about Moth's illness.....

Not with that particular prize - over 50 and first published.

Good, to me, beyond all the curiosity of RaySal etc, it is this that is the big question
Books selling a miracle cure should be subject to proper peer review

The RSL Christopher Bland Prize is an annual award of £10,000 to a debut novelist or non-fiction writer first published aged 50 or over.

Being a bit pedantic couldn't SW claim that she was a first time non fiction writer aged over 50....

I am becoming increasingly sure that she could say anything. I think that claim would be disingenuous as the whole foundation is in memory of Christopher Bland, who was first published at a much older age than 50.

I think its clear here the intent is to reward an author "first published aged 50 or over" in any category (fiction or non-fiction), not a well established writer who just switched genre aged 50+

Those are the rules now. We don’t know for sure what the rules were when she won.

Am so sorry I missed you @ThatFluentHedgehog I was finishing my beer and people watching and then got talking to two ladies who had asked questions in the queue for the toilets. Including the lady who asked if the article generated new leads at the end. She works in publishing but, after I had told her about Martin Walker also writing a book and the son having posted on social media about driving his parents to Bristol asked me if I was a journalist as I knew so much!

so I told her about these threads and how we had done our own investigations. She was impressed so she may turn up here!

Mum's the word.

Well she asked the best question so she’d be very welcome

Re the tortoise prophecy, I’ve just looked again at my copy of TSP and come across an interesting bit that says:

There was something close to tortoise-like about the naked old man …. as if his old skin was sliding away, soon to reveal a pink, exposed, smooth new body … We hide ourselves so well, exposing our skin in youth when it has nothing to say, but the other skin, with the record of time and event, the truth of life, we rarely show.

I know I’m reading way too much into this, of course, but the theme of this passage is very on the nose in light of the Tortoise revelations 😂

Thanks so much to the live commentators!
Re French property taxes. I am sure I read a comment by the expat English neighbour (?Liam but could be wrong) that yes the French authorities do pursue these but they are not actually much, few hundred pounds a year maybe, esp on wrecks.

Yes - a riveting question. I also liked Chloe H's point that this story connects with people who are fed up with being lied to.

Best question of the night!

Yes, they definitely would have sent out letters. I used to live not far from the where Raymoth had their ruin. In 2012/13 even if it was on a tiny 'bramble patch' I'd guess it would have fetch at least 20k in a fire sale...probably more like 35k if sold at leisure...not a huge amount but quite a lot for someone professing to be 'homeless '.

The application form for the year Walker won, 2019, says,

"2. Eligible Books
a) The Prize is open to writers aged 50 or
over at the time of publication, for their
first published work of fiction or non-
fiction. Proof of date of birth will be
requested at the point of judging.
b) The writer must be a citizen of, or
resident in, the United Kingdom or
Republic of Ireland. The book must be a
unified work. collections of short
stories, novellas, poetry and drama are
not eligible.
c) Books originally written in another
language, and translated into English,
are not eligible.
d) All entries must be published for
the first time in the UK or RoI within
the calendar year 2018. Previous
publication of a book outside the UK
does not disqualify it.
e) Self-published books are not
eligible.
f) A book submitted on behalf of an
author who was deceased at the date
of publication will not be eligible for
consideration."

(a) doesn't mention self-published books one way or the other, so the obvious reading would be that TSP wouldn't be eligible.

Edit: So not terribly different from the rules as they now stand, except now they explicitly state that a self-published book counts as a previous publication, thereby making an author ineligible for the prize. To give Walker the benefit of the doubt here, that may not have been clear when Walker applied: otherwise why would the RSL have revised the rules? So Walker may be able to claim she made an honest mistake when she applied.

How Not to Dal Dy Dir

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gangani Publishing Ltd
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ 1 May 2012
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 254 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0957303106
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0957303102

So she couldn't have got the prize for this one (I know it didn't exist then) as I think she was 49 ....

Isn’t it also partly in Welsh (e.g. the ‘dal dy dir’ bit of the title?) so it wouldn’t have counted anyway.

Say, for example, they had walked 80 miles out of 100 and that was the only fib - no big deal, poetic licence, experience of 'the journey' is still present.

But say they walked 20 miles out of 100, it's a bigger deception, layered on top of many lies, that have helped make money, no big 'journey' ever taken, then it's fraud.

I agree very much a grey area!

I'm just catching up!