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.

I've still got my recording. But downloaded it so presumably can't be 'pulled'.

We all do what we can @AldoGordo .From each according to their abilities etc. It's a team effort here. Now I've read all three I will try to post more of my observations over the weekend.

I’m finding it turgid - sometimes infuriating - but also fascinating. I wonder if she regrets sharing so much about herself and her life in these books - especially TWS. It’s just full of unwitting insights into her hang-ups and prejudices and can’t be deleted as easily as IG posts.

She'd clearly drunk the Kool Aid (as our American friends, rushing so needlessly along the trail, might say) about how special they were and how fascinating 'ordinary' people would find them and their behaviours. Ooh, look: is that a double edged sword I can see lying on the path over there?

Could it have been anti-incomer and/or anti-second home graffiti as the Coles lived elsewhere? Or were Raymoth aware of anti-incomer sentiment and graffiti in Cornwall (and Wales) and decided to insert some into the book?

That’s in part why I think there was no grand plan of deception— if there had been, there wouldn’t be so many loose ends, contradictions, inconsistencies, and moments of self-betrayal.

It’s not even clear to me that SW understands precisely why TSP was successful as she attempts to replicate its success. TWS in particular feels like panic in memoir form, with no particular focus other than ‘what happened next, kind of’, plus her mother’s death and a bolted-on Iceland holiday which in no way feels like a ‘critical moment in Moth’s health’, just a strenuous holiday where they’re camping and eating identically to a lot of other people, with a pair of friends she doesn’t seem able to write about because they’re not awful. she’s much better at vitriolic little pen portraits of Yompers or Dreadful Dog Owners or Holidaymakers Living in Prison-Like Holiday Camps.

Aww can’t Grant’s Beauties have a song and dance number, a la the Busby Babes?

I really feel like I’ve seen this… Maybe even at the Minack !

The audience can be served salted blackberries topped with fudge!

They could do a power ballad about a big lasagne?

Interesting Bill Bryson interview from 2015 touching on the pressure he was under from his publishers to produce another “ walking” book after the success of A Walk in the Woods.

I think it could be simply guilt & past misdeeds playing on mind. Like all the ‘recoiling’. All very Shakespearian.

Although - I think you’ve nailed the likely true feeling for it.

New article by CH.

observer.co.uk/news/national/article/we-thought-it-cant-be-the-salt-path-couple-theyd-have-told-us-they-were-homeless

6 theories! I like the anti incomer theory (5) but deep down, I think the Shakespearian replaying of guilt (6) fits best.

When you listen to TWS and hear SalRay’s own voice going on and on about feeling so deeply betrayed and so unable to trust, you can really hear how she sounds completely convinced that others have done them wrong and that they (Walkers) are innocent….the only thing she openly blames herself for is her Mum’s death/decisions she made in the hospital. But the allusions to (subconscious?) guilt are dotted around here and there, resurfacing from time to time in various guises.

I’m almost tempted to get a paper copy and study it more carefully than listening allows - but SalRay’s already taking up too much of my time and attention!

Wow - well done CH - and all the Mumsnetters who called out such discrepancies!

Some retrospective date arse covering by Ray there,

Is Chloe reading our threads :)

And surely nothing wrong with wanting roots doing? Or odd night in B&B.

Has anybody got the link to the Parsons travel blog? I see that SW follows Joanne Parsons on IG!

From their first blog post charting there walk there’s this - the Monday being 29 June 2015

There's an article in the Daily Mail today by Liz Jones with a short preview in which she writes: "I've just streamed The Salt Path" and that she's experienced the horror of losing her 'rural idyll' home. lt's behind a pay wall so I can't read it but going by the comments it's about her comparing herself to the RayWinns.

Nope not my previous screenshot. It’s this one. Here they are!

Curiously enough I can listen to her reading TWS and LL (and there is no alternate narrator to choose). But TSP I can't listen to her and have to revert to the Anne Reid version. I wonder if she got better over the years? Or my ears can't bear anyone other than Anne reading TSP!

I can’t stand listening to her speak for more than a couple of minutes. Dreadful monotonous voice.

Penguin's website continues to advertise TSP with this description, despite almost every sentence now seeming highly suspect, and despite the potential harm to people who believe it. Shameful.

The Salt Path
Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years is terminally ill, the couple lose their home and their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.

They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways