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.

A few people have mentioned the LinkedIn post (now deleted), in which another Mr Walker (who works in an impressive looking business Walker Maritime) made comments about his aunt and uncle and the extent of their honesty.

I noticed that Mr Walker's LinkedIn activity includes liking a post by a journalist called Amy Arthur, talking about TSP, from about a month ago. Clicking on that post, there is a response by a Nikki Walker (also of Walker Maritime). It says that Chloe H has done some great investigation and "we are so pleased that the story is out there."

Begs the question as to why they haven't spoken to any journalists since.

But that's all we can do at the moment - speculate. There's so much of the truth we don't know its like trying to do a jigsaw with many pieces missing!
Hot on the heels of the Observer's revelations, the Times managed to track down an eyewitness to the Walkers departure from the farm. Witness saw 2 cars leaving at 2am. Later in that article it was reported that the bailiffs turned up that morning and stated also that their car was found abandoned in Llandudno. What happened to the other vehicle? Per TSP they were able to stay at Moth's brother's house for 2 weeks (as he was on holiday - very convenient!) but on his return they had to leave, as insufficient room to accommodate them. Also per TSP they then drove in a diesel van to Moth's friend Jan's house in Yeovil, stopping of to tour Glastonbury. RW explains that the van wasn't large enough to sleep in. After a further 2 weeks sharing Jan's bathroom (and floorspace) she - Jan - drives the couple to Taunton where they board the bus to Minehead, where the walk commences.
First time of reading this part of TSP was 2 years ago and so I had no reason to query anything. But now, after a second reading, I would like to know -

How they managed to drive from N Wales to Yeovil, stopping off at Glastonbury in a single day. Surely impossible without an overnight stay?
Why did Jan drop them off at Taunton. (They could have offered her the 2x £10 Taunton-Minehead bus fares to take them all the way, a further 22 miles.)
The van was per TSP left on Jan's drive. Why was the other vehicle (per Times eyewitness) found abandoned in Llandudno. Surely Moth's brother could have taken care of it?
Why mention that the van wasn't large enough to sleep in? (Suspect the opposite was true and that's exactly what they did.)

I think it must be because so many readers of TSP think they genuinely know her and Moth, that it's a totally unmediated relationship where she's flooded the whole of their lives, warts and all, onto the page, and because it seems to have attracted a rather naive/uncritical readership, who are blithely unaware of how much artifice there is, even in a broadly 'truthful' memoir, and who don't understand that this isn't Raynor's unaltered travel diary, but a highly mediated artefact that's been extensively edited, marketed etc etc.

Which is a long way round of saying that I think they made the unusual decision not to use a voice actor in order to foster that (false) immediacy.

And it doesn't matter that RW is not a good reader of her own work (she's not alone in that -- I've listened to a couple of chapters of Donna Tartt reading The Secret History, and it's awful, and makes you aware of just how skilled good voice actors are), it's more important that it's her voice.

And if they were going to 'wild camp' then why not head over to France and 'wild camp' at the site of their tumbledown cottage? They already owned it so nobody would move them on, weather would likely be better and Tim's brother's house wasn't far away for borrowing of facilities.

I think they could have made it in a day. It's 3hrs 20 mins from Stoke-on-Trent (where the younger brother lived) to Yeovil, so they would have more than enough time to do the angel experience in Glastonbury.

Even a small van would have been big enough to sleep in.

My friend (and her daughter) camp in a Roomster. No bigger than an ordinary car but the seats all fold down or come out and there's more headroom.

She’s spoken about all the rows that inevitably happen when family & friends put you up - hence TSP & camping.

I imagine there's a difference between being broadly glad someone else has broken a story which exposes extended family members for misbehaviour which you've long been aware of and actively exposing them yourself. Possibly because other family members have asked you not to involve the wider family in general by speaking to the press.

(Publishing person) It's very different with nonfiction. For fiction you'd always have an actor/ voice actor but it's very common now for nonfiction – and especially if it's memoir – to be read by the authors. It adds authenticity but sometimes, as with RW, it can be excruciating!

I have a strong suspicion Yeovil wasn't the true location but a "changed location" as per the book disclaimer to protect the identity of Jan. I have theories on that but nothing with solid evidence as yet.

Why did they do a run in the middle of the night?
Would the bailiffs just be concerned about taking over the house at that point, or would they also present them with other financial demands, ask for new address etc? (although if they were really 'on the run' staying at a family member's house sounds like a bad idea).
Or was it just an ego thing, wanting to avoid the humiliation?

I agree with this. It may be that they are unhappy about how the couple treated a family member, but that family member just wants to put it all behind them. I certainly wouldn't go to the press about any member of my family.

I've got a degree of rhotacism (and a lisp) that is possibly largely due to tongue tie that wasn't dealt with until later than it should have been. It is much less than it was due to some fairly brutal 1960s speech therapy (which I eventually rebelled against) and determination to minimise it. Still there a bit especially under stress but I've had it described as an "affectation" by one kind soul😂which it certainly isn't but means it can't be too marked. I acted at school and was often narrator/"reader aloud".

I should given the above perhaps be more sympathetic to RW but I'm afraid I find her voice very, very irritating, the bits with Gigspanner were nothing but intrusive. I do not think I could face the audio book at all. Authors are not always the best people to read their own work even without a speech impediment and not for the first time I wonder who thought this was a good idea.

Zadie Smith narrated her book The Fraud. She hasn't got the clearest voice, initially I struggled but soon got my ear in. I thought it was a great book but, weirdly, not everyone agreed with me.

@Catwith69lives I agree, I’ve been to the Minack a few times and nothing like that has ever happened to me 😅 It’s hard to get hold of tickets there, I don’t know why you’d give them away to strangers in a car park rather than giving to friends or back to the box office. Not saying it’s impossible but these types of lucky implausible things seem to happen to them throughout the book. They complain about how strangers treat them but actually some of the people they meet are weirdly generous to them.

For me it's not the rhotacism (I have a couple of good friends with it and find it endearing if anything, because it reminds me of the speech of people I like) -- I think it's the strange pronunciation of /l/, or maybe the /l/ in conjunction with the rhotacism and the rather gaspy way of speaking.

I mean, I've not listened to the audiobook, so my sense of her speech is based entirely on interviews. It might be nerves, but she seems to take frequent, rapid, short in-breaths every few words while speaking. I don't find it relaxing to listen to!

It does seem strange, especially if they had between Feb and June to vacate the property. Slightly different from the book version, which oddly says:

"After closing the door for the last time we had two weeks to put our few belongings into a friend’s barn and try to work out what to do next."

This bit confused me when I read the book because it didn't seem to make sense if they'd already been evicted and had the locks changed. I took it to mean they kept their things at Moth's brother's where they stayed for two weeks. But that would only be possible if they had very few possessions, which I don't believe. Why? Well, for one, they see their final year student son in July 2013 and according to his FB post he stated he hadn't seen them for 7 months (ie Christmas 2012). I think its reasonable to say that most students keep some possessions at home that have accumulated over the years.

So did they just chuck it all out without him being able to collect it?

Or did they move this stuff and their student daughter's stuff in these two weeks after eviction?

Or did they arrange to put everything in storage ahead of eviction? I know which one I'd bet on, and it's this one.

They also don't appear to appreciate the experience either. There's so little detail in RW's description of the play. Seems made up to flesh out the story with a plausible anecdote.

Zadie Smith, like Donna Tartt, I would guess are big enough 'names' to be asked to narrate their own books. I have what is sometimes described as a 'Radio 4' voice and have often been asked why I don't narrate my own books. Personally I can't think of anything worse, but when I hear works being butchered by dreadful narrators I sometimes wonder what the publishers are thinking. I mean, most people listen to a sample first, don't they?

(I did ask to have one of my books re-recorded, as the narrator made such a muck up of so many pronunciations that it mean much of the dialogue fell flat, but absolutely NOBODY complained about it once it went out, so maybe people are just as uncritical listeners as they are readers?)

Agree it is more than just the rhotacism and the gaspiness is a big part.

Maybe she can't see that her reading is less than optimal. A professor who taught me gave out lovely, lovely lecture summary handouts because (in his words) he "knew he had a "droning voice that sent people to sleep". Ironically he was also a minister and apparently completely different when preaching, in his youth people would travel miles to hear him.

Maybe makes it feel more personal? Chris Hoy narrates his own Autobiography. I think it's to bring the listener closer to the personal story. I cannot imagine listening to RW though! But my god these professional narrators are just astounding..I listen to loads of audible and always Google the narrator because they are always so staggeringly good.

I get how the hiding under the stairs could have been for dramatic impact in the book...however SW has referred toit many times in interviews. Doesn't really fit with the moonlight flit.

@Herringrun Agreed. And clicking on the narrator's name on the audible website brings up all the other books they've narrated. I've found some great next 'reads' that way.