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?

It's also free online. But without fudge.

Can I just say that Fat Apples Cafe is actually fab, and worth every penny despite what the Walkers might claim. Top class cakes, bucolic setting and lovely people.
It’s one of the things that made me so cross about TSP - it’s as if the Walkers are begrudging people earning an actual living.

Days and pages are not interchangeable figures on here haha! I did think there were more than a few myself, I suppose it depends how one defines 'many'.

But to be cynical, this is nothing they couldn't have found in a nature book and added in retrospectively...

My favourite bit of "embroidery" is the anecdote recounted by a "spotty youth" in Clovelly (p 84) that the large grey turkey seen by Moth in the Clovelly Estate woods the previous evening, was used to encourage pheasants to come to eat , then at the Christmas shoot there's a bonus paid if you bag the turkey. They get to shoot their own dinner and win a bottle of whisky for doing it.

I have it on very good authority that this is complete B-S! Either the "spotty youth" was pulling SW's leg (and the joke was lost on her) or she made the entire story up!

She's a very good journalist.

Just catching up on the thread, though skipped a couple of earlier pages so not fully caught up. Enjoyable reading!

One wonders, given they were so keen to have a back story that avoided saying they were homeless and wanted freebies along the walk then why not create a lie that tapped into sympathy or empathy - like say, they were raising money for charity? Or say the "truth" that Moth was dying?

None of it adds up, even the lack of lies!

Moreover, I'm inclined to think the thefts and recoiling attitudes were fabricated for the book to give Raymoth a sense of desperation while showing up some flaws (flawed characters usually make for interesting, relatable characters because none of us are perfect). But I think this was written and conveyed badly, partly because they don't appear to have self-awareness of their flaws and come across as arrogant and entitled, and as a result I didn't sympathise with them at all. But we just have to look at how many many others who fawn over the book bought into their desperation.

I was always a bit disbelieving about whether cafes on the SWCP would have been likely as a rule not to charge for hot water.

It's completely unbelievable. I lived in the SW in the last century, and did not like black tea. There's no way anywhere would give you a pot of hot water for nothing even back then let alone in 2013! I was always happy to pay as if I was buying the tea itself, then add my own bag.

Teabags are dirt cheap, so you're not even really paying for them, you're paying for the cafe's overheads.

That any cafe would provide such a service as Sally Walker is suggesting, is highly unlikely.

And if someone came into my cafe, hung their wet socks up to dry, expected free service and goods, I'd be tempted to shout at them, too.

Not that I believe anyone did.

God, they're insufferable.

But we just have to look at how many many others who fawn over the book bought into their desperation.

I'm an old cynic and I bought into it, although fawning would be beyond me!

Interestingly, when I went to see the film, I was horrified at their thievery. The cafe where they asked for hot water really stood out.

I found myself wondering why it needed me to see it before I had that reaction.

I didn't wonder for long, because the story broke!

it’s as if the Walkers are begrudging people earning an actual living

Well I guess they do, as they've been busy fleecing people for a good part of their lives!

I’m the opposite, as I watched the film before the book. Like you though, I really fell for it. I was massively taken in by their love for each other, and it also helped that GA and JI are very good in it. It broke me a little bit when GA tells JI in the film that no one had told her they’d loved her before he had 🥹

But, similarly, my inner cynic came out when they dried out their smelly wet socks very conspicuously in the pub and when they were given free hot water unprompted - possibly also at the same pub, if I’m remembering correctly?

The strength and charm of GA and JI’s performances managed to neutralise any misgivings I had about the film though. I still think it’s a good film and wouldn’t mind watching it again but don’t want to pay to watch this time!!

You're right, actually, there were things that suddenly seemed far more problematic when you saw two actors on screen acting them out with other actors than they had in the book.

The bit at the start (ok, which isn't in the book) where they come back to the farm after the legal verdict and their YA children ask what had happened, and GA says 'Bad' and Moth says something inane like 'You've had your summer exactly as planned', like that makes it all just fine.

And Moth telling the family in the tearoom garden that they're homeless -- the book depicts Moth and Raynor having to bravely come up with a cover story to prevent them being icily treated by similarly insensitive people, but to be perfectly honest, someone on holidays with their small children doesn't want to hear a complete stranger's sad life story in a tea shop. That's not people being mean about homelessness, that's just people not wanting to hear the full sad details from someone they don't know when they're just eating scones. It would have been the same if the stranger at the next table interpreted 'How's it going?' as a request to hear their full medical history.

And yes, the time they go into a pub, dripping water, settle in by the fire, drape their manky socks and dripping coats everywhere and then just ask for hot water. I mean, I hillwalk, so it's not that I'm not used to arriving in a pub soaking wet and muddy, but I do then buy something to eat or drink, because that's kind of how pubs work.

They ordered a pot of tea at the Blue Ball Inn as it was the cheapest option.

Dear god you drive a hard bargain!
The Fudge I will concede on but Rick Stein chips? Not a hope without some serious embezzling crowdfunding.

Can do hand pressed cider, used teabags or instant noodles if any of them takes your fancy.

I was talking about the film. They trail in from the pouring rain, start taking off their coats, dripping water all over, settle down in front of the fire and when the barman says 'What can I get you?' Raynor says 'Can we have a jug of water?' To which he helpfully says 'Hot water?' And when he brings it to them, Raynor has to encourage Moth to move his big blistery bare feet off the table before they produce their surreptitious teabags.

Not sure if anybody here is a subscriber to The Bookseller.

The Salt Path: The Observer to publish more revelations about 'people and places' visited

Thanks, Cat. Interesting that this is trailed in a trade magazine first rather than by the Observer themselves!

Alright then - how about half a bag of Rick Stein’s chips?

Any kind souls out there able to chip into @AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta’s crowd fund? All donations very gratefully received, and as a thank you, we’ll do a free reading of a Simon Armitage poem or a TSP passage of your choice!

Not sure I can stretch to Rick Stein's chips so might have to settle for these guys

Chloe did mention in the news event that this was the next thing coming up. I'd imagine that is where the info has come from for this item (but not read it so can only surmise). I think Observer and CH are being really cautious, and understandably so, not to promise anything until it's pretty much at the printers.

This could be very damaging in terms of book shops stocking any more copies including book 4

Ah okay - did CH mention The Bookseller specifically, do you mean? I wasn’t able to go along to the news event, so am a bit out of the loop. It’s totally understandable that they’re being cautious, and with that in mind, it suggests these new revelations are pretty much ready to go, given they’ve now been written about in the Bookseller.

Ah I suppose I’ll have to settle for them! They’re better than nothing after all. Could I also trouble you for some hot water? About a gallon, if you don’t mind - Walkers crisps make me awfully thirsty.

PS - well played 🤣

No, I mean CH mentioned that the topic of people and places associated with Raymoth's walks is the next thing they've been investigating and hope to report soon. I just read the Bookseller piece and it's basically reporting back what CH talked about at the news event.

I'd be fascinated to get Chloe H's insights into the court room drama at the beginning of TSP and the real story as told by the lawyers involved in the case. It's very difficult to retrieve official court documents of past court judgements.

Chloe H intimated on the podcast that the 3rd party creditor had told her that the last minute defence/challenge ( in the leather jacket her children had given her as a 50th birthday present) to the property repossession described in TSP was entirely fictional and that the Walker/Winns had never denied the fact that the £100k loan was tied to the house and the criminal allegation for embezzlement and due for repayment on demand.

Did the final court judgement give them just 7 days to clear out and vacate the premises before the bailiffs arrived or was this ( as was the departure from Pen y Maes as described by the next door farmer) just a fictional device to hook in readers?