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

That's such a good point.

They have repeatedly stated that the lomg walks have helped Moth's condition - well if it can be proven they never even did any long walks, that's pretty damning too.

On top of that, they haven't even really proven Moth's diagnosis was when they said it was.

So potentially they've not only lied about the timeline/diagnosis but then lied about what 'helped'.

The whole thing becomes fiction.

I don't think anyone has said this yet .... I was reading your live posts, thanks, but the most likely source must be Mr Cider Orchard? He gave them a small wage and charged a peppercorn rent and would have known their legal names.

Yes, I've thought that (and I think it's been mooted before too) but a good journo never reveals their informants!

The only info we did glean was that it is a “he” and knew their legal names and the name of the town in Wales. Maybe it was the nephew!

@TheBrandyPath re that video, I admit I didn't watch much but she started off so oddly - describing the events around when they decided to do the walk in the present tense and also describing the narrative of the book almost like a review "it starts with us doing xyz" - literally describing the book, not phrased at all as though recalling events from her personal experience. Definitely a bit . Though to be scrupulously fair, once she had warmed up a bit (she looked very rabbit in the headlights at first) she did sound more like she was describing things from memory.

Maybe she's just told the same story so often it's inevitably stilted, but it was such an odd way of phrasing it! I suppose I noticed because it ties in with other observations upthreads that she seems to access/give away very few new or fresh memories in interviews but sticks to the printed "texts".

Yes, I don’t somehow see Bill Cole as being likely to know the town in Wales?

He said that numerous times. He also said in a interview that when he and Gillian were filming a scene going up a mountain they both found it incredibly hard going and he asked Moth how he'd done it because it seemed unimaginable and probably was.

Moth replied that it'd taken him 9 HOURS to get up the bloody thing but he'd done it by willpower alone. I cannot imagine watching someone I love struggle and suffer for hours on end doing something they don't even need to be putting themselves through, so if that is true (and "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there) then SalRay is really not reflected in a good light again.

Agreed @AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta . Ask any mountain rescue people (I've known a few) about those going out to attempt something that is not just challenging but actually extremely unwise, in terms of kit/level of fitness/ ability etc.

I don't remember any passage in TSP that describes an ascent that took Moth 9hrs.

I think Chloe H needs to track down Grant, the the tall, gaunt man in his mid 40s who was a multimillionaire wine merchant and mistook Moth for SA! Photo of SW in his orchard.

That doesn't surprise me.
Even if it was a bit of poetic licence by Jason and it only took Moth five or six hours to climb it then I'd still expect it to be quite a prominent chapter.

Very strange thing to leave out of a book based on triumph over adversity.

JI will have been talking to moth long after the salt path walk so moth could have been talking about subsequent activities eg in scotland. Didn't they climb Sulven (sp?) or something?

An interesting programme change here
https://www.wsfp.co.uk/news/investigative-journalist-replaces-the-salt-path-author-at-dulverton-literary-festival-816553

Yes, but then why would he and GA be climbing it when their film was about walking the SWCP?

I read it as moth was telling ji about his gait and movement difficulties, and included the mountain example as an illustration of his general ongoing struggles - but I might have got that wrong.

He said he asked him during filming (I'm presuming it was here when RayMoth visited the set) because he and GA found it so arduous.

I'm pretty sure he said it on the Jo Whiley show which annoyingly isn't available anymore.

@candycane222 Yes thanks for this - I agree she got more relaxed. The interviewer was very warm and supportive towards her and asked good questions - well it is a channel for the bereaved.
This led me to listen to a programme about : Lying. Apparently we are much better at lying than detecting lies:
Curious Cases - Series 23 - Liar, Liar - BBC Sounds
about 17mins in it explains that we are better at detecting vocal lies than visual - which surprised me. Of course, it is easier if the stories are well-rehearsed/repeated many times.

I’m not a camper but I thought pitching your tent under a tree was a bad idea? Falling branches, lightning strikes, sap etc.

Considering the two of them were supposedly outdoor types who’d hiked and camped since they met, they didn’t seem to have much clue. Didn’t they also pitch their tent near a cliff edge and another time almost get washed away when the tide came in? I suppose it all adds to the free spirited life on the edge persona!

I so read that wrong and misconstrued it as SA having the orchard that RayMoth camped in. I was trying to work out how we didn't know that SA had an orchard when we seemingly know everything about him on this thread. More coffee needed methinks.

Indeed, I saw this too. I've camped under many a tree but only if necessary because there's nowhere else. Here you can see a lovely open clearing. I also would not choose to pitch under an apple tree that's in fruit. An odd choice for sure.

Why would such a generous host with luxury oils, masseuses, wine, bathrooms & food not offer overnight accommodation inside home?

I wonder what those boxes or cases are next to the rucksacks? Looks like they'd be tricky to carry on the SWCP, if that's where this photo is from.

Could it be a retrospective photo to illustrate where they stayed the night?

Good point. Was just wondering if RW preferred to camp outside, out of habit? And maybe that option suited Grant’s family better, as they were wary of having strangers sleep in their house - although they still thought Moth was Simon Armitage at that point, didn’t they? 😂 Maybe Grant’s family didn’t have enough room to put up RW and Moth in the house? The first option looks to be the most likely (if this even happened!)