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.

From about 17mins : explains how she could not have her mother at home.

You're probably spot on but the plot might have, potentially, very interesting parallels. 'Stopcock' another family book impossible to get hold of it seems.

Sure, I just wanted to know what she says about her mum if we remove the university from the equation.

I think you are right. I'm fairly confident when I looked at the archived website the only way to buy the book was through a 3rd party book printing site.

So was all that about the local bookshop owner, not taking copies, just made up?

Apologies if someone had mentioned this already, but isn’t it a bit weird that there are seemingly no copies of Dal y Dir available anywhere given that they must have produced quite a number in order to fulfill the shipments abroad that were mentioned and to have any hope of selling enough to pay off the mortgage/debt? Where are they all now?

PS - I posted this before seeing the other recent comments

Talented family. Worth checking out the Tumblr account of one of the nephews' which includes a synopsis of Stopcock.

I think that if TW was pushing for a diagnosis, it started a lot earlier - the letter says he first went to the clinic in 2009 (a year after the embezzlement was discovered and they took the loan) and he certainly had a whole bunch of tests done in 2011.
So he was having serious (either real or faked) symptoms much earlier to warrant MRI, EEG, EMG etc.

They could have ordered author's copies and had them printed to then try and sell in local bookshops.

True. Meanwhile, it's also interesting to note that TW managed to climb Tryfan in 2011 (Source RW IG). Worth a timeline addition @FurryHappyKittens ? Let's see if the IG post vanishes having now brought it up.

Basically, Simon A (pre Poet Laureateship) was walking the SWCP at a time that overlapped with Raymoth, his account is in his book "Walking Away". HIs tour was publicised in advance as he was doing poetry readings on the way to "fund" it, it's a "travelling troubadour" idea like his Pennines walk (Walking Home) Apparently Moth was repeatedly mistaken for him. The fact that they look absolutely nothing like each other makes this running gag a little implausible to some of us

ETA actually all of us.

On balance I think it is better not to post the full addresses @CocteauTwin . It would certainly be helpful to know occupations, the town or village and if they both give the same address. I can think of some of our correspondents such as @AldoGordo and @Catwith69lives who are doing specific background research and would find the full addresses useful - and might in fact already have them - but I don't think we all need to know them or post them here publicly. More than happy to receive deputations if anyone disagrees with that?

Thanks to @FurryHappyKittens and @Hyenana for your pps.

To be fair, we don't know what tests had been done previously. We do know that he was under the pain clinic, and IME they tend to be rather symptom orientated rather than searching v hard for a diagnosis.

The whole SA saga is so unlikely that I suspect that there is a kernel of truth to it, which has been embellished.

I suspect that the anecdote involving Grant could be largely true. Are the boxes which feature in the photo in his orchard part of the kit to take photos of SA/the Walkers for his website? Grant alludes to an appearance at the Minack Theatre by SA which corresponds to remarks made by SA in an article made in the Guardian in April 2013 before he set off on his walk.

Grant isn't a local (he is renting the farmhouse) so he could have put two and two together and got five regarding the chronology of Simon Armitage's walk from Minehead to Lands End.

Thank you for this. Listening again struck by whether for Ray this walking was in part a redemption pilgrimage for past 'mistakes'. A solace in nature for all difficulties faced. From about 30 mins:

"I didn't feel I could interact with other people as I couldn't trust their response".

After all "we'll all so similar". In other words, others make mistakes too.

"Anyone who's read TSP knows the worst of me now" "I've shared things I probably shouldn't have, what is there to hold back now?"

Moth is in best health he's been for years post Cape Wraith so rucksack by the door. The walks do seem to definitely help Moth's condition.

Was this their 25th wedding anniversary and he had to stop for a rest and was sick?

my dad’s nose turned blue on a climb up St Michael’s Mount, this was the sign that pushed my mother to send him to the dr and his own dx (not a happy tale).

I agree that I think Timmoth is ill; I would disagree that he is as ill as the books make out. The Parkinson’s gait video posted earlier makes me think he might have altered gait to the ‘mild/moderate’ first part of the film. Certainly not altered enough to be the second or third degrees of severity.

@Gingefringe would you be in a position to ask your local Pwhlleli indie bookseller if he refused to stock How Not To Dal dy Dir (and why)? Gangani archives suggest they camped outside ‘Steve’s’ shop while he refused their copies…

"Mistakes were made", I guess.

At this juncture (on the cusp of the 4 week anniversary of the Observer revelations) can I say what a fantastic thread this has been and pay thanks to the adjudicator and all contributors. It has sometimes felt as if I've been a member of an online version of the Thursday Murder Club over the last month!

The walking "joke" that became a running joke. I fully expect memes to crop up soon, his name capable of replacing any other word because they are so unalike.

"Keep Calm and Simon Armitage"

"Live, Laugh, Simon Armitage"

well said. There’s been so much information sharing, cross referencing and interesting theories about motive, it’s an impressive body of work!

I haven't read all 11 threads but are they really getting away with it? There are no consequences for them at all?

Maybe that's why he goes to the shop when a journalist visits, because he's more likely to drop himself in it.

I suspect that, until recently, SW hasn't paid much attention to her IG feed.

Attached is a post from 12 May 2018, shortly after TSP hit the bookshelves. A (slightly out of focus) photo of 'the lovely Sarah Wincanton'.

Great, except that she's called Sarah Winman!

When is it said that he goes to the shop, please?

"May the Simon Armitage be with you"

"A Simon Armitage a day keeps the neurologist away"

"A Simon Armitage in the hand is worth two in the gorse bush"

"You'll take the high path and I'll take the low path and I'll be with Simon Armitage afore ye"