Thread 13: 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's original exposé: The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...

The 12 Observer reports currently available online: The real Salt Path | The Observer

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?^

Threads 2-11: Links all in the OP of Thread 12

Thread 12: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5384574-thread-12-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

New posters joining us in the genuine spirit of our civil discourse welcome. It would be helpful to read at least some of the Observer items above before posting. There are currently 12 interesting items on The Observer website and linked to above.

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 twelve 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 our usual reasonable and respectful fashion is very welcome.

Have the sales or thefts of fudge gone up recently?
Will Simon's head ever turn up?
Has the shed of doubt yet burst at the seams?
Will the old charabanc hold up as a tour bus for our hip new band The Drive-By Scolders?
And finally, how much salt can we possibly cram into a giant pinch?

Keep to the path. No saltiness. May the fudge be with you.

Maybe. But surely it’s equally likely that post-Observer story readers would see nothing but inconsistencies and unlikeliness, the semi-fictional maunderings of a couple of scam artists?

Which I would have understood.

What struck me as strange is that the reviews I quoted acknowledged the main CH allegations, but seemed to see them as entirely irrelevant to the book they’re reviewing, and either describing it as well-written and recommending it, or focusing on elements of style they didn’t like, like lack of dialogue or ‘overblown’ prose.

Given some of the anecdotes included in the book I'd have expected more people to come forward with recollections of the couple.

Dave and Julie, who definitely exist, ought to able to vouch for loads of the story, if they were willing and able to come forward.

How on earth could the publishers not have questions?!

Because the book sold. It was a massive success and won awards. A few negative Amazon reviews are par for the course and don’t change anything.

Not a question about Moth, but just curious- would this contact know what Sally’s job was at the hotel previous to working for the Hemmings, and why did she lose that job?

So sorry, I got a lot of replies to that one post and was getting confused about who was agreeing and who was disagreeing and about which points.
I'm sure everybody here is really glad about the Observer investigations.
We'll possibly never know what SW's plan for the 4th book was, it's either never going to get published or if it will be, might get rewritten in light of recent events.

This. I mean, you don’t read a memoir to approve or disapprove of someone’s decision-making skills. Leaving aside entirely whether embarking on a strenuous 600-mile walk with a sick man with mobility issues, inadequate kit and a woeful diet is a good idea, you could probably ask the same question of an awful lot of classic travel books whose essential veracity no one is disputing.

Was it a good idea for Dervla Murphy to take her six year old daughter for a months-long trek through Baltistan in midwinter, living in filthy conditions, mostly on dried apricots, so that she casually refers to her child’s dramatic weight loss when lifting her off their pony?

Is discovering that writing and adult life in London in 1933 are quite tough a good reason to decide to solo walk from the Netherlands to Istanbul aged 18, armed only with some clothes, a few introductions and the Oxford Book of English Verse?

Should you risk your own life and several other people’s by building a leather boat and trying to sail to America from Kerry?😀

But if she was worried about being “rumbled”, why did she INVITE such intense scrutiny by the countless interviews, readings, etc, instead of keeping a lower profile. Obviously she was contractually bound to do a certain amount of publicity etc, but Gigspanner, Rick Stein?

It’s a good question, but you’re contracted to do a certain amount of promotion by your publishers’ publicity dept, so some publicity was inevitable. When she signed a book contract she committed to that, we can’t know with how much trepidation.

Then, I imagine, when it became a bestseller, everything snowballed. Maybe at first it was hard to then say ‘No, I suddenly no longer want to promote my book despite getting awards and invitations to literary festivals and tv interviews’, and then maybe, as (presumably) no one had bobbed up in the front row at Haye to ask awkward questions about the court case or Moth’s continuing health, she thought they were safe, and the past was the past. Maybe they started to believe their own cover story and relax. No one had come out of the woodwork.

It did, after all, take a very long time for someone to contact a journalist with their doubts about the Walkers’ credibility. TSP came out in 2018, and two further books had appeared to further high sales, and a film was optioned and made before CH got in contact with her questions. Then they knew it was only a matter of time before the story broke, and had time to disappear from public view without any pressing need to emerge again, cushioned by money.

And, apart from that quickly-deleted statement from the nephew, no one from their circle has spilled any beans. No damning information has come from siblings, children, friends, Dave and Julie etc etc. Loyal and discreet, betrayed and shocked but unwilling to talk, paid off, implicated, feeling like idiots and not wanting to put themselves out there etc etc?

Moth always off camera & her on script.

Probably missed something, but how do we know Dave and Julie definitely exist?

I think someone found on her insta.

Just spotted that the Observer have uploaded the newsroom event online:

There are photos of them on RW's IG when they did the Thames path charity walk and Facebook posts on the charity page.

I suspect SW/TW probably felt more and more secure as the years passed without the other shoe falling. It seems to be a pattern of behaviour for them: SW seems to have become more brazen about the embezzlement as time passed, paying for her personal shopping with forged cheques and finally being undone by pocketing cash she should have known would be missed.

I think some people in those situations do become overconfident - they think they've "got away with it", they attribute that to their own cleverness (rather than being a result of caution or luck), and so believe they're clever enough to manage a few more risks. And before they know it they're locked into promoting a mainstream studio film on national TV while the Observer brandishes court transcripts at them.

There is something about the path having different routes depending on the season, so possibly she wants to visit a particular place that belongs to the winter route?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_to_Coast_Walk

The problem with this argument is that it 100% applies to "How Not to Dal Dy Dir" and the House Raffle. Which was a total flop.

The photos have been mentioned before. I'm sceptical that they prove anything. It's only RW's word that those people are who she says they are. Are there any comments on the Insta post from either of them? Even then she could have fabricated all or much of the detail about their interactions in the books.

Interesting that, having cited Wainright's book as being so significant in the decision-making, SW doesn't appear to have registered as a completer of the C2C walk.

Re,the sake of their bungalow in Wales. It was sold in 2016 for £280,000. On the land registry it shows it was a category B sale. I've looked at hundreds of house sales in my pursuit to find a new home,but never come across this before. Have any of you worked for or been estate agents?

Maybe the twist is that she never finishes it because something awful happens? I’m being facetious, but it would add drama to the narrative and help maintain her relatable image if she doesn’t complete the walk because some sort of issue crops up, whether that’s to do with Moth’s health, or one of their kids, or a friend.

For someone variously described as “shy” and “reserved” she must have a giant ego😳

That's a good point. I've just been looking at her Instagram posts and noticed she doesn't actually say she completed it. She does say she came back with a chest infection/frozen lung.

I think that comes across a bit when she films with Michael Portillo s bit.

A frozen lung!! Jesus, that sounds horrible.

I’m not an estate agent or anything, and had never heard of ‘category B’ until now, but just had a look online and got this info, which lines up with what we know of the sale (ie that it was repossession):

Category B (Additional Price Paid):
This category covers a wider range of sales, including:
Repossessions: Properties sold under a power of sale due to default on mortgage payments.
Buy-to-let properties: Specifically, those where the buyer is identified as purchasing the property with a mortgage for rental purposes.
Transfers to non-private individuals: Sales to companies, trusts, or other entities that are not individuals.
If you see a house sale listed as Category B in Land Registry data, it likely indicates a sale that is not a straightforward, open-market transaction