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?
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husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?
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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 - 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?

It's just the style really and the comment that Moth is about to start at Plymouth Uni that autumn as they pass through the town. There don't to be so many date markers in the final section and the are sections which seem to almost be skipped (p261 & p262 "days passed") . In contrast stuff like the last day of the Ashes Test Match on the radio (Aug 25), the St Ives Festival (14-28 Sept), Iolanthe at the Minack (16-21 Sept) all help establish a timeframe for the first section. Who knows whether that is deliberate or not...

Also, note the scepticism in an article I shared before - section The record:

https://anyporthinastorm.com/index.php/articles/15-the-salt-path-a-walk-without-a-moral-compass

Oh yes, I re-read this yesterday. I have doubts too, was just curious to know what it was specifically for the PP to think the "reverse" leg was done later than claimed.

What @Catwith69lives says above re: him soon to start at the uni - definitely. Have we got photos of this part of the walk?

I was thinking it had to be the Heaney translation too - the only one I've read, at least since school days a very, very long time ago.

If the WalkerWinns had wanted to link earlier English poetry to TiMoth (and conveniently to SA), it might have made more sense for them to have referenced Armitage's translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2007) and/or The Death of Arthur (2011). Publication dates fit. They knew they would have been walking through King Arthur country with the Camel Estuary (the possible location of Arthur's last battle and death) and Tintagel (the site where Arthur was allegedly conceived). Lots of good beginnings and endings symbolism there.

I haven't read either of those SA translations yet but having become more aware of his work, they're now on my unmanageable to-be-read list.😀

Thanks for sharing, and I agree. I wonder if the film producers also thought this because if I recall correctly from what I've read about the film, this post-Polly walk doesn't get much, if any detail. Someone who has seen it could confirm.

I haven't seen the film. But, this is also interesting as I shared previously, the screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewitz is from Plymouth. They couldn't resist the shot of Gillian at Rame Head though!

For me their journey really ends at Polruan in Oct 2013. Walking in the reverse direction from Poole back to Polruan has always struck me as very strange. If you wanted to continue the walk, why wouldn't you just pick it up where you left off (Polruan) and finish at Poole?

The dramatic effect of the peregrine heralding their return:

She’d gone same day you were las’ year. Knew you were comin’, told them all you were comin’, that she were bringin’ you back. It’s a sign, i’n’ it.’

The film is mainly the first part of the walk aside from the final scenes at rame and the beach nearby. But I think budget restrictions rather than anything more. That’s why they seem to be walking the wrong way at times.

I don’t recall Dave and julie or the breakfast eating Australians but I’ve only seen it once at the cinema. There was a family depicted with the cream tea at Bossington. It is on Amazon though now I think a pp said so I might rewatch.

Is this where the sea is sometimes on the wrong side? Seems ridiculous .... maybe they do those bits in Pembrokeshire and then go to the north coast?

Those West Country stereotypes!

Boots could also misremember it, but someone asked him(?) later in that thread if he was sure und he said he was.
I assume if a man in his fifties told you he was a student you would probably remember it because it is rather unusual.
Which reminds me that I have wondered about the significance of Tim winning a prize in that gardening competition with his student group.
Is he a really good gardener after all then?
Did he freeload of the work of the others?
How come he was in a group with 3 women, are the students in that course predominantly female?

I thought the film ended very abruptly, seemingly with only half of the path having been walked.

A bit of the film I found hilarious, was the handful of rabbits, of different colours, (including lionheads) that were hopping around Gillian Anderson's feet in the grass. They had clearly been gathered up from a local Pets at Home!

Alternative theory:
She first got a low-level job at this court because she had no qualifications.
After working there for a while, they offer her some form of parallel course to train as a law clerk - which she here embellishes as a 'law degree'.
In the 2004 BBC article she is described as a law clerk - maybe she did finish that training later, or she embellished there as well.
She did work as a bookkeeper for the Hemmings for multiple years and was not obviously incompetent, so she must have had some training for that and afaik it's part of the law clerk training.
After all, most of the Walker lies seem to be huge exaggerations with a kernel of truth in them, rather than completely made up.

Did you listen to the last Observer podcast? What really confused me was the way Ros Hemmings talked about him - she described him as being verylikeable, but also insecure in his job, not very innovative and not very forceful in his ideas.
That does not sound like the narcissist I had imagined him to be.
But maybe that is the drama of his life: people seem to like him but not necessarily be hugely impressed by him - except Sally.

Didn't someone say he started at Uni in 2015 so there is a year missing there?

Which job was that & how long was he in it?

The gardening job at the NT place. Quite a few years, from what I remember.

I think 1995 until 2004.

But that makes sense in the context of someone who’s exaggerated their qualifications and skills. Superficially confident but also wary of overstretching themself and being caught out.

Yes, TSP ends with them about to move to Polruan with Moth planning to start his degree immediately at the start of that academic year, but he doesn’t seem to have started it till the following academic year, as the group he’s photographed with in the article about the prize-winning garden are all first years, and that’s the following year.

It’s interesting JI describes him as having almost a photographic memory a ‘human wikipedia’ who can immediately recall any book ever read. Useful skill.

See, I think Ros Hemmings is terrifying — one of those beady-eyed, commonsensical, ‘impatient with the mimsy’ types I associate with a particular type of British woman. I’m an averagely self-confident and knowledgeable person, but I’d be tempted to hide behind a hedge if I saw her coming, especially as an employer or a volunteer under me. So while her take on Tim is interesting, I’m not sure her baseline for ‘not very forceful’ would necessarily be a generally accepted one.

ETA: I’m not suggesting she’s anything other than a perfectly nice person, just that she comes across as forceful, to put it mildly.

We had a bit of discussion about his insecurity possibly being around not having the botany degree he said he did, and winging a job he didn't really have much experience in other than volunteering for a bit.

It's not really surprising that he wasn't innovative, or had the courage of any ideas.

But yes, a narcissist would let their ego carry them, sure that they had what it took to succeed, even in something they knew little about.