Thread 12: 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 - 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 eleven 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.
Will our life-size cardboard cut-out Simon Armitage keep his head?
NB Timeline coming in the first posts of this thread for reference.

I find it hard to be unbiased about them, but so much points towards them not being the one pure loving couple SW tries to portray them as, even in the book, that I wonder how that storyline was ever accepted.

Another thing about the name change:

When she was writing for the Big Issue as Raynor Winn, was that breaking any journalistic rules?
Because when newspapers or magazines change people's names to protect their identity, they always indicate that the name they use is a pseudonym.

So did they agree to her using a false name, or did she lie to them?
But how would she have gotten away with lying if it is true she was paid for the article (iirc someone said that on a previous thread) so had to give bank details?

I think her lawyers probably told her she didn’t have a leg to stand on as the allegations were true, so she just decided to do her own thing

I agree, but we simply don't know enough. On one hand it could have been RW alone (or with Moth) who removed it during a round of edits and managed to explain it away ("oh, I got confused when typing in a rush / I meant someone else's mother / it's been such an emotional rollercoaster I sometimes forget my name, etc etc"). That's if anyone noticed or queried its removal.

However, if someone else was involved in that decision then the omission would need explaining given it was a "true" story.

Why? Because there would be no need to remove it had they believed RWs word to be true that her mother died in 2013 before the house loss, diagnosis and walk. In fact, it would provide a fuller emotional and tragic backstory with a triple-whammy of a hook: grieving her mother, becoming homeless, and facing the death of Moth. Yes, it would perhaps make the backstory a bit more complicated, but in this manuscript scenario it would be true (according to and trusting in RW) and no need to completely erase it. Keeping it wouldn't even require going into much detail about her mother's death. I mean we barely get much on how they lose the house or the diagnosis anyway.

And yet if someone else was involved in removing it then why did they do that? Why remove a "truth" from a true story that would benefit the story and understanding of RW's life (as opposed to keeping in a bit about the death of a pet sheep!), unless you knew that "truth" to be false.

And if someone knew it were false, then they must have known the real 2015 date. And so it goes they must either have been aware that Moth's diagnosis didn't happen until after the walk or they queried this alternative conflicting timeline with RW and she somehow convincingly explained it away to get it back on track to 2013.

But yeah, we simply don't know enough to draw any conclusions. All it tells us, and crucially so, is that RW originally wrote that her mother died 6 months before Moth's diagnosis, which strongly adds weight to the diagnosis being in 2015, thereby undermining TSP's central premise.

1. How do you tell if an IG account has changed it's name? I had no idea that was possible.

1. You are right about her account having been set up in 2016 - but I'm damn sure I've heard her say in multiple interviews that she only joined Social Media after TSP was published and someone had to help her with it (innocent nature child that she is), so that when Bill Cole contacted her she just gave him her phone number because she was so naive back then.

Does anybody else remember that story? If true, it would belong on the Inconsistencies list @AldoGordo

Well, she certainly says in TWS she didn’t understand Twitter and Moth says his phone only does calls and texts, and their son has to explain to her how you follow people. And the first person she follows is Bill Cole, apparently. Who knows about Instagram?

I could be way off and utterly wrong, (but cynical me and "mistakes were made") I'm leaning ever more to the idea that The Big Issue piece was a planned PR stunt months ahead of publication and the TBI were happy to collaborate, and why not - good for them. There's just something about the RW email they published in a TSP movie piece this year that doesn't sit right but I'm not sure why. Plus at the end of the 2017 article it says the book of her story due out in 2018, yet she claimed the article helped her get an agent. So it doesn't quite add up for me.

Well, I've just got in from gigging with my band The Drive-By Scolders 😎and thought I'd better check in to see what you've all been up to. My initial relief that you hadn't yet burst through the 950 posts sound barrier turned into a slight panic on seeing all the 'x quoted you' and 'x @'d you' in my notifications. Oh no, what's been going on?! Then I saw that you'd just been discussing band names 😂😂😂

Much as I'd like to accept the credit for the marvellous 'drive-by scolding', mistakes were made by pps as it wasn't actually me. After 11,629 posts I can't remember who first coined the phrase but I've certainly needed to make full use of it since! Will the originator please identify themselves?

I’ve never understood this. Why can’t she say it? It was in the book.

It was actually me who used it first on these threads - can't find my own posts easily now! but hey. @DisappointedReader then picked it up in one of her replies / check ins on the thread. However, it wasn't originally mine: I've seen it used on other threads on here! So I am the originator of it on the TSP threads, but not The Original Originator 😄 It would indeed make a good band name...

I feel the same! I thought I was the only one who thought this 😂

Ah, well done @PullTheBricksDown! Thanks for popping up to answer this. I knew it was in relation to the damp squid poster - she who must not be named - and I've just found it back in the mists of time of Thread 8!

That is certainly a suspicion I have as well. I think the advertisement for the book at the end of the July article might have been added retrospectively - if not that would be a shockingly stupid mistake (one would have to see the original print issue to be sure).

But I think that the 8 months between the BI article and the TSP publication seems rather short for her to find an agent, a publisher, the rough draft to be edited, legal department doing whatever with it, and all other things that had to be organized to be done.
I posted about this earlier today and tagged a poster who knows a lot about publishing asking for her opinion but no answer yet unfortunately.

If you find what it is that bugs you about the email I'd be interested to know!

It was in the book, yes, but it was in the book under the name of Raynor Winn so it wasn't being linked to Sally Walker at that time. She would have felt protected by her penname and by the NDA silencing Mr Hemmings. By the time of The One Show interview with JI, not only was her face reaching a wider audience because of all the film publicity, increasing the chance that she would be recognised as Sally Walker, hadn't The Observer been in touch at this point so she knew trouble could be coming her way? Also, am I remembering correctly that both sides had signed the NDA, not just Mr Hemmings?

That is also a moment in the interview where Raysal exchanges interesting eye contact with the host Alex Jones and I wonder if anything had been said pre-interview about what she would and wouldn't say, could and couldn't be asked, but JI overrode that?

Also @Fandango52 someone replied earlier who said that the Observer were on their tail then. If so, would they have discussed with them & advised not to discuss contentious topics?

@DisappointedReader just saw above. I think you’ve nailed it here.

I forgot to add a key point, (mistakes were made). By saying they were conned, Salray would really have been saying on very public mainstream TV that the family member who had loaned them the money (to repay the Hemmings and legal fees) had ultimately conned them out of their house in Wales. People who knew the truth, including family members, could well have seen that, objected to being accused of it and Raymoth would have been in trouble. Instead, JI said it and perhaps the result has been the same.

Certainly, I think it’s Sally that needs her memory jogged. For example,In TSP she is pretty uncomplimentary about Boscastle, implying that it’s unfriendly and unwelcoming “We got into Boscastle at five minutes to five and nearly made it into an outdoor shop to buy a new bootlace, but the door shut before Moths foot could stop it. He knotted the broken lace together and walked up the street…”
Interview with Muddy Stilletos at the Wellington in Boscastle,” I remember that day coming into Boscastle (on their original walk).It was raining, and the laces had broken on my boots. I can remember going into the outdoor shop and buying some red boot laces. So some good memories of that bit”. Not sure the book would have been very helpful to Moth as a memory aide considering Sallys own memory issues.

Interesting, could TSP be more of a joint or different effort re: authorship than we think too?

Exactly, and I suspect the steely look she gave JI was because it was becoming an increasingly risky subject for her. By this point, the Observer had tried to speak to her multiple times (I think it was reported as 6 occasions since March.) The heat was on her. Ironically, although being gushingly supportive of her, JI’s comment actually highlighted the financial situation, and of course knowing what we know now, adds to the antipathy towards her.
So, nice one Jason!

@Hyenana i wonder if he has a leftward lean anyway?

I was more surprised at how short his trousers are in that full-length picture. I know he’s tall, but surely even tall men can get trousers that fall to touch the middle part of their shoes!?

SW has claimed at various times that a) TSP was based on notes made in the margin of Paddy Dillon's guide to the SWCP b) the A5 notebook that she originally planned to take on the walk (p28) was subsequently discarded to reduce weight c) it was Moth who made notes in the SWCP guide. However, in TSP she mentions Moth writing in pencil in a notebook and the photo below of the margin comments in a (possibly 2nd) SWCP guide are clearly made by SW and have been annotated after the walk has been completed imo (due to the reference to the location of John Le Carre's house which she can only have located after the walk finished)

As an aside there is a rather strange margin comment on the section of the map showing the Minack Theatre. It says, rather enigmatically "Great Expectation...". No mention of Iolanthe. Interestingly there was a production of "Great Expectations" at the Minack on 8-12 Sept 2014. Unclear if there is any link between the two.

I do hope the unanswered questions don't get pushed away in the passage of time.

Specifically, TW's 'diagnosis'. I know CH seems to be leaning more toward the processes of the publishing industry but I think the worst of the lying, morally at least, is knowingly being misleading about the illness.

Interesting that CH's article does mention the publishers may have had reason to doubt:

The medical line does suggest that there were at least discussions in-house about the mysterious medical condition,” one publishing veteran told The Observer.

https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/so-what-did-the-publisher-actually-know

She claims she had an agent within 10 days of the BI article being published. I don’t believe that. I think her agent / publisher knew how to create an ‘organic’ buzz around her. A bit like when a singer is suddenly ‘discovered’ via Tik Tok but actually already knows some industry big names.
https://www.bigissue.com/culture/film/the-salt-path-raynor-winn-gillian-anderson-jason-isaacs-interview/

Some interesting photos here. Homeless Moth still manages to look good in his camo shorts and fitted black t shirt. She looks a bit more like she could be wild camping and is again in a red and white patterned dress. I noticed his trousers being too short in the photo above immediately as he usually looks very put together. Perhaps he put on weight round his waist so they hung a bit higher?

Well spotted and intriguing about the Minack possibility.

Talking of margin notes and notebooks, last night I noticed something in the Big Issue piece - the one with RW's original email. The editor who commissioned RW in 2017 wrote the piece and described how the commission came about stating:

"Worried that Moth would forget their time together as his memory worsened, Raynor typed up a diary she had kept and gave it to him as a 50th birthday present. She was considering self-publishing the story but, in the meantime, wanted to write for us."

https://www.bigissue.com/culture/film/the-salt-path-raynor-winn-gillian-anderson-jason-isaacs-interview/

Not sure if this has been raised before or if you knew about this? Another inconsistency.