Thread 11: 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/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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?
Thread 10 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5378984-thread-10-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 - 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 ten 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.

No saltiness. Keep to the path.

Does stolen fudge taste better?

There must have been a brother in the UK as in TSP they spend Christmas 2013 with Moth's brother before returning to Polly's place in the new year. P207 in my copy, ch18.

I don't want to be that person I do but I did say there was a missing year. The fact TSP says this is great additional evidence.

Could they just write this off as poetic licence? Not great, but they could just say it made for a better story this way maybe.

Simon Armitage's walk

Yes, to the latter question

Maybe but it's yet another inconsistency. Nothing can be viewed in isolation here.

Does anyone recall which newspaper interviewed the farmer who was out baling at 2am and saw cars drive off?

And perhaps has a link to the article...

I'm sorting out proper references for the Timeline, and can't find the article that included this.

I think it’s from this Times article here: https://archive.ph/g3sOO. Thanks again for taking the time to create and update the timeline - it’s really helpful to see everything set out.

The Times!!!

I didn't look there, thanks so much.

Here's to Thread 12, and an all singing, all dancing Timeline update! 😆

I don’t know why you are so angry at Mauvish because there is quite a lot of support for the mind-body connection in all sorts of ailments and dis-ease, not to mention the exacerbation caused by the inflammatory responses seen in chronic stress. This article outlines it pretty well and there is a substantial list of references at the end. This quote directly supports what Mauvish said:

”More recently, studies have found that conditions such as chronic illnesses, hormonal imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, and even gut health disruptions influence mood, exacerbate anxiety and depression, and impact cognitive function (Herselman & Bobrovskaya, 2023; Sonali et al., 2022).
These effects also work in the other direction. States such as stress, joy, and anxiety can trigger biochemical responses that affect immune function, heart rate, digestion, and even pain perception (Nahid & Alipoor, 2022; Ishikawa & Furuyashiki, 2021).”

I won’t continue engaging on this subject but it was a pretty unnecessary attack on a poster on what’s generally been a really nice and supportive thread, and especially when the attack is just wrong.

https://positivepsychology.com/body-mind-integration-attention-training/

Came across The Accidental Smallholder site where Gangani was advertising the sale of Pen-y-Maes. Interesting that a second book is planned for release in Jan/Feb 2013 called 3 Mountains and a Ceilidh and tells the tale of a cross country romp across Britain!

Hello from Wales - The Accidental Smallholder

Regarding Moth's voracious appetite for books alluded to by JI, I don't see a huge number of books in the farmhouse when it featured in Escape to the Country in 2012.

Escape to the Country 12 x 3 Wales

He’s a literal Wikipedia with a photographic memory, isn’t he- surely he just remembers everything he’s ever read!?

Snark aside, some people recommend hiding away most of your personal possessions when trying to sell a house, so maybe they were doing that?

Perhaps Penguin could publish an Annotated Version of TSP, noting where "artistic licence" etc has been used. It would look like a modern Canterbury Tales.

I think Moth's intellectual abilities and prodigious book reading and remembering have been talked up by SW in order to try to contrast to his present state. I think it's also part of their own mythology - that they're wandering minstrels or poets and not like the hoi polloi. Plus, part of their weird snobbery. Beowulf? Really?

Really not sure about the degree either.. certainly not the suggestion that Moth had one which enabled him to get a job as head gardener. People of his age who gain(ed) positions like that tended to rise up through the ranks (I know one). I''m a similar age as the Walkers, and was a rare bird in going to university in the early 80s. Most at my comp left school at 16 or 18 and went straight into jobs.

Am I correct in that thought -that he may have claimed to have a degree to get the job at the NT? I must admit despite timelines I'm a bit dizzy!

Perhaps they had used the time while they weren’t working to declutter and remove items to wherever they went to while they walked in preparation for a house sale, lottery prize, eviction (delete as appropriate)?

Regarding the brain scans: I have a hypothesis (backed by actual medical data) how that could be both true but not mean what SW says it means at all.
I actually wrote to Chloe H about this and she answered really fast saying it was really interesting. I wrote her a 2nd time and she hasn't answered to that, so I don't know what will come of it.

I thought the same when reading the Beowulf bit. It’s like something suitably academic was picked. I mean even translations are not great reads. Sorry I’ve read both the original and translations years ago to see what the fuss was about and personally was left still wondering what the fuss was. Not easy going for a back-pocket on-the-go read for sure. But def makes him sound deep and interesting if that was the aim.

I hope this thread doesn’t induce more new book sales of hers…

She’s already had an increase in IG followers as I screen shot her IG page a few times over the last month (for this reason) and it’s visible. Any publicity is not (in my mind) good publicity, imagine if this interest in her fictions increase her net worth?! They might.

But Jeffrey Archer who was jailed for perjury during a case he brought against a newspaper for libel which he won in part due to his lies is still publishing new books at 85 and has sold over 300m.
https://jeffreyarcher.com/about-jeffrey-archer/

As long as sales are still coming in from her existing books I don’t see Penguin or her agent dropping her.

I would be mortified to have my embezzlement and lies uncovered and published in a national newspaper and everyone knowing. Some people don’t care what others think of them and will just carry on doing what they want to do. If she has always been a loner she won’t care.

The problem will be if Moth doesn’t want to front it out in the village, deal with people disliking them because of her actions. He could, in theory, leave at any point and pin it all on her. Perhaps he can’t imagine a life without her, perhaps he thinks he’s going to need a carer soon, perhaps he’s waiting for more book royalties to accrue so he can take half of everything and have a more secure retirement. Who knows?

Is Moth's "missing year" (sept 2014-Sept 2015) a clue to what may have happened?

In TSP, Moth discusses applying for a degree course at Plymouth Uni starting in Sept 2014 (p215) but he doesn't start until Sept 2015. Why would you embark on a 3yr (?) university course in horticulture if a neurologist had given you 2 years to live at a consultation in 2013? As discussed, how to explain Moth's missing year?

Isn't a more likely chronology:

• Sept 2014. TW & SW finish the walk
• Sometime during the next 6 months, TW decides to embark on a horticulture course at Plymouth Uni starting in Sept 2015
• In June 2015 they see the neurologist for the first time in Liverpool who gives them the first tentative diagnosis of atypical and indolent CBS/CBD.
• During the consultation, TW asks the consultant whether he thinks it is a good idea for him to embark on the horticulture course and the neurologist says that he has no problems with the idea.
• At this point SW starts writing TSP and retrofits the CBD diagnosis into the narrative for dramatic effect

@Digitalhenyes, all too handy too. I know it’s been said before but what at the chances eh that the one book clever old Moth chooses is the one Simon Armitage famously translated? Life is not full
of so many coincidences!

June 15 is also when SA’s walking away is published.

SW goes to an awful lot of literary festivals (from Hay on Wye to Kendal to Bude) up and down the country to publicise her works. She also does a lot of interviews. Is she really going to be able to sit on stage and face the prospect of somebody in the audience standing up during the Q&A and asking:

" Well Ray or Sally or whatever you call yourself nowadays, how do you feel about having embezzled £64K and destroyed a family you worked for who trusted you and invited you to Christmas lunch and having entirely fabricated large chunks of TSP including (if this is proven to be the case) the nature of your eviction from your Welsh farmhouse and the CBD diagnosis for Moth which didn't take place until after you completed the walk and thus raised false hope for a recovery from CBD for thousands of genuine sufferers with this terrible condition?"

This is them, in Plymouth, when the ferry has apparently got stuck in the mud ".......we wandered aimlessly, finding ourselves in the centre of the city as the street lights were coming on. Past the shopping centre, then on through the university buildings.
‘Next month I’ll be part of that uni; now I’m walking through it without enough money to catch the bus.’"

For what it's worth - I think they're talking about the wrong ferry again and/or they're in the wrong place to get the one they want.

I don't understand how you can not have enough for the bus - but have enough for the ferry.

If they had asked, the other people waiting, they would have told them how to get on the bus and reach their next point - when you're on the bus the ferry is free.

(maybe it would be quicker to list all the things that are authentic and accurate in TSP?
Can I be special ferry correspondent, please?

Do you know about the 'library area'? Not huge though