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
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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
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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?

He lives at what is now called: Padstein, opposite coast

Oops sorry! The video is an episode of a series called Never a Truer Word - the series is also available on Spotify and Apple. Here’s a link to the series on Spotify in case you’re able to access it on there: https://open.spotify.com/show/089cK9esXSDclMtR07KxCc.

I eye rolled quite hard at ‘Padstein’ 🥴🥴

No. Their concerns will have been 1) Is this book libelling someone identifiable who might have a case for their name/reputation being dragged into disrepute? and 2) Is this book claiming that a particular course of action miraculously cured a terminally ill man, in a way that might make other sufferers from the same condition think they too can be cured, and hence have a legal case for misleading medical information?

No to both. 'Cooper' is a fiction, and if SW showed the PRH legal team evidence of the final stages of the real courtcase, presumably it would have been possible to show them material that just showed they couldn't repay a loan -- there wouldn't be anything at that point to tie it to RW's theft from the Hemmingses, just an outstanding loan secured against their house.

And SW specifically has the consultant say he can't make a firm diagnosis:

‘I believe you have corticobasal degeneration, CBD. We can’t be absolutely certain about the diagnosis. There is no test, so we’ll only know at post-mortem.’

‘Post-mortem? When do you think that will be?’ Moth’s hands spread wide over his thighs, holding as much of himself as he could between his broad fingers.

‘Well, I would normally say six to eight years from onset. But yours seems to be very slow progressing as it’s already been six years since you first presented with a problem.’

So she's had the consultant say both that he can't firmly diagnose CBD and that whatever it is he has is very slow-progressing.

The next bit is all the narrator's subjective take on whatever the consultant has actually said:

The doctor looked at me as if I was a child; then he carried on trying to explain a rare degenerative brain disease that would take the beautiful man I’d loved since I was a teenager and destroy his body and then his mind as he fell into confusion and dementia, and end with him unable to swallow and probably choking to death on his own saliva. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing they could do about it. I could hardly breathe; the room was swimming. No, not Moth, don’t take him, you can’t take him, he’s everything, he’s all of it, all of me. No.

hence covered by the disclaimer about it being the author's 'personal experience':

Any medical information in this book is based on the author’s personal experience and should not be relied on as a substitute for professional advice. The author and publishers disclaim, as far as the law allows, any liability arising directly or indirectly from the use, or misuse, of any information contained in this book.

Possibly.
I was also surprised that Bill Cole promoted the episode featuring the Walkers in his Insta post, after their conflict and him feeling so betrayed in 2022.
Maybe he thought it was good promo for the farm regardless, although considering how bitter he still felt this year about them, I find it a bit strange.

Although it would tickle me no end if (as someone said on a previous thread that the Walkers looked inexpert with the cider-making equipment, and left off some kind of filter from the press) if the crew had to say 'Look Rick, these two might be famous, but they have no clue what they're doing -- why don't you drop a hint about them needing to get a bit more familiar with the process and we'll be back for some pick up shots?'

It makes me wonder how much of the Cape Wrath Trail they actually did!

Chloe H might well be digging into that as we speak!

Technically, none that description fits with doing the most northern section of the CWT or indeed backpacking it, what with Lochinver, the tearoom at Elphin (both of which are not on the typical routes), use of van and taxi back and forth. It sounds more like a road trip and holiday.

Just an observation. I and others have mooted that the Landlines walk was written as if a series of spontaneous decisions at the end of each section/trail. I recently noticed the same kind of plot device was used in TSP...they talk to strangers about heading for Land's End and then when they are approaching it they begin wondering what they are going to do next. It's a "what now" moment. A bus arrives when they are there and they almost consider getting on it. But they don't and decide to keep walking.

Yet they set off based on 500 mile walkies and have a SWCP guide book and got annoyed when there was no book doing it in reverse, so did they not always plan to walk the entire path? It's just another of those minor confusing things in the plot.

Until they reach Land's End they continually tell people they meet that they are heading to Land's End or maybe just a bit further. Yet they tell their daughter that they are going to walk the entire SWCP and that it will take them 2-3 months. As you point out,slightly odd unless when they started walking they just decided to see how things went depending on Moth's health.

Another possible origin story for the Salt Path! It's all about the MENOPAUSE!

SW was interviewed in May by the Health & Wellbeing section of a woman's magazine, and she had this to say about the effects of the hike on her:

THE POWER OF WALKING
The book, and now the film, is a reminder of the restorative potential of walking. Even an early morning walk or gentle amble after eating can improve your mental and physical wellbeing.
“When we walked that path, I was just walking through the menopause, and it was the last thing on my mind, so I could write an entire book about distraction therapy for menopause,” says Raynor, who is still a keen walker and embarked on a long distance solo walk in the north of England earlier this year.
“Walking allows us to let things go. We can start out thinking we’re going to think things through and we're going to work things out, but as you walk, and the further you walk, it's as if all that tangle of life starts to smooth out. And I think a lot of us, as we age, really need that space to look at ourselves in a different way,” says Raynor.
“It is really easy, the older we get, to think it's too late to change, too late to achieve those goals, too late to try to look for a different way, but it is never too late. Every day, we have to get up and see what we can embrace that day.”
https://www.womanandhome.com/health-wellbeing/raynor-winn-interview-the-salt-path/

So either she was adapting her message towards what she assumed to be of interest for that particular audience
OR
the Walkers took an extended cheap holiday after losing their house, she found it helped with her menopause symptoms and thought she might write a book about that, maybe even started writing, but then decided it wasn't special and dramatic enough.
But later on when the possibly-CBD-but-highly atypical diagnosis came along, she retrofitted that into the original storyline and BOOM! the Salt Path was born.

In fairness, they don't appear to have realised that Cape Wrath itself was inaccessible because of military manoeuvres, so they were never going to be able to walk the part on military land (though you'd think it would be something you'd check before setting out), and when a woman in a cafe in Kinlochbervie confirms this (and they actually hear firing), they ask if there are any open campsites, and she says no, they're also closed, but suggests Sheigra ('not really a campsite but you could park your van there') and someone else says to just start the trail from there (as they're only missing out about 12 miles?), so they do. But when they change where their van was originally supposed to be collected from to fit their new route, it can now only be collected from Lochinver, which is why they then need to get back to Sheigra and drop it in Lochinver.

I suppose this one actually feels realler to me, because it's so disorganised, and they're continually hitching and getting taxis to hotels and B and Bs to pick up stuff they've ordered to replace broken kit, or try to buy Sally new boots, or drop off their van.

😀

I'm pages behind but re the 2015 consultant letter.

"I saw Tim Walker with his wife today". The convention in every clinic letter I've ever seen, both from the Trust I work at and other hospitals, would be more on the lines of "It was a pleasure to see X at clinic today"/"I had the pleasure of meeting this charming lady in clinic this morning"/"I would like to refer this lovely gentleman". You practically have to kick the doctor to get a letter just saying "I saw x today". Just a thought.

I did once tell my consultant that to stop with the repellently patronising language. I was just a woman with gynaecological problems. These did not make me in any way charming, to him, or to anyone else in my life.

ETA: I mean, I didn't actually kick him, but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it.

It does seem odd though that they hadn’t planned ahead given that they had the CW guide book and had been talking about doing it for years. Checking ahead for the dates of military manoeuvres there is pretty standard for experienced walkers - they’re published on line aren’t they?

Isn't that from the 2019 letter?
Which I find even more interesting because that is the most sceptical one.
Do you think the doctor might have suspicions that TW might be faking things and that's why s/he is writing that way?
I just wonder if there are some semi-secret codes doctors use to signal these things to each other.
What I found interesting was the "he has been under review for some years and has an atypical movement disorder which despite the atypical features is associated with objective evidence" description.
Do doctors normally say 'review' in this context?
And the 'despite' I find strange as well - there is no necessary contradiction between something unusual and something objectively verifiable, unless you suspect somethin is off.
Do we have other doctors on here like @mauvishagain how could also say something about the wording of medical letters?

Does SW ever make any comments about the therapeutic impact of outdoor exercise on the progression of CBD? Scroll to 28.30 of this interview with Rachel Joyce (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry) and the suggestion is, yes.

A side thought about what seem to be small embellishments about RW/SW’s early life. Early interviews with RW/SW sometimes mention that her father had been a ‘tenant farmer’ and that she grew up on ‘her parents’ farm’.

The British Newspaper Archive suggests differently. The Winns left Melton Mowbray and moved to the Staffordshire farm (on the Dunstall estate, previously mentioned on an earlier thread) when RW/SW was a small child. This had to have been by or before 1966 because her father appears in a newspaper account of an agricultural show in 1966, showing cattle from the Dunstall farm).
However, there is substantial newspaper evidence to indicate that whilst RW/SW did grow up on that Staffordshire farm where her father was working , he was not actually the tenant farmer, but appears to have been one of the farm staff.
Her father in one newspaper article is described as the herdsman. In other articles/photos he is captioned as showing cattle owned by XXX (the actual tenant). And another long ago article gives an interview with the actual tenants of that farm at the time, who were definitely not the Winns.

I wonder if the family farming situation was embellished in the TSP and related interviews to give RW a slightly more elevated position in relation to farming life? Clearly she did grow up on a tenant farm; but seemingly as the daughter of on-site staff rather than of the tenant farmer. It is a relatively small inconsistency but there seem to be so many....

Haven't followed these threads for a few days. Is The Bookseller saying there are more revelations to come about 'people met and places visited' old or new news?

It's a rehash of what was said at the Observer live/Zoom event on Monday. Waiting to see what will come out but it may not be very quick.

Interesting. There really are lots of small discrepancies. The 'tenancy can't be passed on to my daughter' thing all sounded quite Pride and Prejudice, and makes it seem like yet another unfair blow life has landed on them. RW does like to set situations up in that light.

I've been kicking around here since thread 7 or 8 and have come to the conclusion that yes RW was economical with the truth re how they became homeless but although we may see it as morally wrong she was not obliged to reveal to her publisher or public the embezzlement as the underlying cause.
But I accept that a woman who has allegedly embezzled a significant sum of money from an employer who trusted her, and in her forties ? ( so not young and foolish) must be quite devoid of scruples so how people go on to judge her on that will be interesting. I do think she was again economical with the truth re diagnosis choosing not to reveal the consultant's later doubts. I doubt very much book 4 was ever going to reveal the consultant's doubts.

@bookshelf I agree, I was also looking at that today, and I believe that the owner was RW/SW mother's uncle. This comes from a wedding announcement for SW's parents wedding entitled 'Farming Colleagues Married' which says that they both worked for the uncle at his previous farm. There are also quite a few articles over the years as he bred Hereford cattle that did well at shows and also include an advert for the sale of the farm in 1988.